Click Fraud or Click Spam

The phrase "where there is a will, there is a way" applies to internet click fraud as well. While you will receive almost immediate visibility with a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, devious and informed competition could be looking for ways to force you out of the market. Everyone likes to be "king of the hill" and your competition is no exception. Click fraud (also referred to as click spam) and bidding wars have existed since the beginning of paid internet advertising. Detecting click fraud has become easier but the ways to defraud the system have become more sophisticated. The warning still remains; buyer (or advertiser) beware!

With varying reports of just how much fraudulent activity exists and even what the definition of click fraud is, the reality is that no one will ever know for certain exactly how much fraud is out there. Varying from engine to engine, some of the more competitive industries such as pharmaceuticals, adult entertainment and gambling (aka pills, porn and poker) probably experience a higher percentage of click fraud than most other industries. Your results will most certainly vary. The current estimation is that at least 20% of all clicks are fraudulent in nature. In some areas this number is thought to be much higher.

There are as many types of click fraud as there are motivations that fuel it but the type of click fraud that pay-per-click advertisers should be concerned with is invalid clicks on your ads causing your budget to diminish. If you are concerned, don't worry; there is hope. Most types of click fraud are not difficult to identify and document if you are monitoring your traffic.

Bid management tools that help you stay on top of your bids & keep bidding wars from getting out of hand, also have built-in monitors to help detect click fraud. The best way to catch click fraud in the act is to monitor your Web site statistics regularly, understand what you are looking for and what you are looking at. Analytic tools that measure and track not only click volume, but capture IP addresses and geographic information for each click can be very helpful at detecting fraudulent activity. The documentation you collect can then be used to present your case to the search engines for reimbursement.

While click fraud has been around a while, it has recently started generating serious attention. There are lawsuits pending against service providers, most notably Google, with the promise of more to come. A host of vendors are offering services to victims of pay-per-click (PPC) fraud and case studies are coming to light highlighting the extent of click fraud, such as one from a Portland-based online insurance consulting business that found the extra activity from one IP address alone was costing them between $200 and $300 per month. The major search engines also realise they have a responsibility to their advertisers and have teams dedicated to combating click spam. Yahoo! Search Marketing has published information about their sophisticated click review software, called "Click Protection System" which is designed to help ensure advertisers don't get charged for unqualified clicks. Google also takes click fraud seriously and claims to work hard to maintain the integrity of their advertising program and protect their advertisers from being billed for invalid clicks. However many feel that the measures taken by the paid search providers are cases of the fox guarding the henhouse and that not enough is being done. After all, note critics, why would Google give up 20% (remember that's a conservative number) of its revenue?

If you feel you are a victim of click fraud, review your log files, document your case and report it to the appropriate search engine(s). Keep in mind it could be the start of a lengthy process to recoup some (probably not all) of your invalid click expenses. Another way to look at it would be to determine as close as you can what your click fraud percentage is and factor it into your campaign as part of the cost of doing business.

Need More Click Fraud Information? Eliminating Click Fraud, Click Fraud — Bane of Paid Search