I ran a Google Adwords campaign set to "global" and I noticed most clicks were from India and parked domains. Is this normal? Why India? Jumping to conclusions is not what where this should be heading, however, a few responses would be appreciated. My location is in Toronto, Canada and work as a web content creator and sales professional.
I guess they especially enjoy "get payed to click" services. :s Google get payed to click to click ads.
There are firms in India, that pay people to click on google ads. People make money, by asking other people to click on their ads.
Thank you scubita and I guess the campaign was to attract prospects on a global scale. As for India, I don't mind a few clicks there, but when one sees so many, you can't help but to wonder. Have a great day.
Usually the person that is your competition could click you out of your budget so you don't show until they will. Google can't do anything about this, but it could be that they are using a proxy anonymizing server to click you out of the game for every day while they are located in US or Canada. These are located around the globe, if after limiting your campaign your problem persists, there is a posibility that your competition may be behind it.
you can exclude India from your targeted markets list and create a separate campaign for India - with the same (or other) keywords/ad groups. and switch it on/off when you need "some clicks from india"
We had to shut India off. We would get one serious buyer out of the 1000's that clicked. Also, you may want to set up your campaigns based on Country or continent, this has helped us better track where our money is going and how each ad performs differently in different regions.
Thanks and didn't know others had experienced the same. Google adwords I guess takes lots of patience, trial and error. Will stick to US, UK, Canada, France etc. Thanks again and take care.
I guess something like this unfortunately brings embarrassment to the genuine indian webmasters who dont get involved with anything dodgy, shame when there can be so much fraud from some countries that it brings a bad name to a region.
Click fraud has become a major problem for online marketers. If you participate on Google adwords campaigns or Overture, you must already pay a lot for your campaigns. What is click fraud? Click fraud is the deliberate clicks to PPC search engine ads for completely other reasons than expressing interest for buying the related products or services. Overture defines click fraud as clicks arising for reasons other than the good-faith intention of an Internet user to visit a web site to purchase goods or services or to obtain information. Google defines click fraud, or invalid clicks, as any method used to artificially and/or maliciously generate clicks or page impressions. In simple words, Click fraud means that someone is cheating you and that you pay too much for your pay per click campaigns. Who is doing that? Three main groups click on pay per click ads, without real interest in the offered goods: People who joined Google AdSense or other per click affiliate programs click on the ads on their own web site to make a little income. Often, these people cooperate with other webmasters to click on each other's ads. Some unethical companies click on the pay per click ads of competitors to drive up their advertising costs. Companies (often in India, Russia and China) hire people who are paid to click on ads. Google and other search networks provide refunds to advertisers when click fraud has been discovered. Google and Overture employ "fraud squads," or teams of people dedicated to fighting click schemes. But at least two marketing executives say such countermeasures are missing fraudulent clicks that are responsible for between 5 percent and 20 percent of advertising fees paid to all search networks. This is a huge problem. There is no “pay per click†Company denying that click fraud exists. Web analytics companies estimates that the 50% of all click activity is fraudulent. This means that your pay per click marketing activities are half effective as they could be because of click fraud. Overture spokeswoman Jennifer Stephens refutes that estimate, saying that the numbers likely represent acts of fraud that are ultimately caught. She added that Overture filters most fraudulent clicks with the best antifraud system in the industry, which combines technology and human analysis. Most advertisers are aware of the click-fraud issue but have not delved into it because of the technical complexities involved. Others are concerned that they could jeopardize their relationships with the powerful search networks if they complain too loudly. One of the best ways to eliminate click fraud is using anti click fraud services such as ppctrax (www.ppctrax.com). They provide services like the below: IP address capture. IP address geographic Location. User Agent (browser, bot etc.) See exactly what keywords are generating your clicks Date and Time stamp System detects sudden click spikes from one or more IP addresses Real-time email alerts at 80% and 100% of your account's transaction utilization IP address history - alert you to prior offenders Another similar service is “who is clicking whoâ€: http://www.whosclickingwho.com Other ways is the click fraud capture software like Click Auditor: http://www.keywordmax.com/click_auditor.html
Limit your campaign to the countries you are targeting, If India is an important region for you than you can't do any thing.
Geo-targeting is your best solution. Break out your targeted countries into separate campaigns and based on history...allocate a portion of your budget to each of these geo-targeted campaign. Also....run a report and see what time of day those clicks (the ones you don't want) are generally coming in. If it is around a particular time, set up ad scheduling so your ads do not display during that time.
I have seen few people blindly attacking India and Indians on these kind of matters. I dont know whether you people know or don't know, Internet is there in each and every single corner of India and internet savvy are growing each and every minute in India. If you people says some Indian webmasters trying to get revenue through pay per click ad campaigns, on the reverse I can say that why not the people in US or UK may hire a lot of Indian freelancers to make clicks on their websites to raise their revenue?! So whoz the real cheater here?!
He is expressing his own thoughts about his adwords account experience. I am also from India and it has nothing to with personal geo. Take it more sportingly.