Click Fraud What is it?? Click fraud is when people or automated software programs click on advertisers' pay-per-click links with no intention of purchasing the advertisers' products or services. How much does it cost advertisers? It is estimated that about $10,000,000 USD is spent each year on fraudulent clicks. This is money spent on consumers that simply do not exist. Who are the offenders? The major offenders of click fraud are most often 1) traffic affiliate partners and 2) your competitors. 1. Traffic affiliate partners of search engines make a commission on paid clicks generated by their website visitors. The fraudulent clicks may be generated by an army of human clickers or using an automated software tool. 2. Competitors may click on your ads to deplete your pay-per-click budget or reduce your "click through rate" to force you to place higher bids for the same terms. How do I avoid click fraud? Avoiding click fraud can be an extremely difficult task. The best way to prevent it happening to you is to 1) make use of any advanced tools offered by the program provider and 2) keep an eye on your campaigns. 1. Some program providers like Google allow you to specify geographic regions where your ads are displayed. Countries like India and Russia are some of the biggest offenders of human-based click fraud, as poorer people can be lured by small dollar amounts to simply click pay-per-click ads ad nauseum. 2. If you notice strange activity in your pay-per-click campaigns, it may be a result of click fraud.You can also be refunded money spent on click fraud by certain program providers, like Google.
This should go in the PPC section, as it involves making invalid clicks. (deliberately telling your friends to click / self-clicking )
I thought it also had to do with competitors clicking your ads, does it not having anything to do with that?
If you are advertising in serious ppc program you won't spent much on fraud clicks... The thing is that it can be easily tracked and so you won't pay for click frauds as advertisers, but two or three clicks can't be considered as fraud clicks if they are done by human, so probably you will have to pay for those.. but this is only 2-4 clicks.... Then IP will be tracked and analyzed, so no way for click frauders. And according to bots, they are so easy to check so none of clicks from bots will be approved
well no matter what they do, the fraud will always get caught... bidvertiser have nice fraud detection system that detect and block click frauds so that there advertisers dont have to lose money for fraud click....
Click fraud will not necessarily always be caught. Criminals are always utilizing new technologies to improve their schemes and shield them from detection. For example, Clickbot. A caused Google some trouble a while ago until they reverse engineered it and figured out how to block it.
In the UK there are websites that encourage click fraud by telling users where to go to commit the fraud. I am talking about cashback/rebate sites whereby registered users earn money for their purchases, clicks etc. Well there is loads of click fraud going on in that respect. I think it is disgusting when general users of sites like these are fleecing website owners in this manner.
The problem with the bidvertiser and clicksor systems is it gives another step for a potential customer to have to do before engaging in converting potential sale. To me it is an added step that is unnecassary as long as the tracking tools are in place and advertiser does due diligence in allowing ads from specific region to their sites.