Comments on: Preventing Click Fraud

By: Bing

Bing — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 02:47:15 +0000

Hun Boon – it’s not a non-issue but it has pushed advertisers to better understand their own metrics. As such, the bar has risen in that search advertisers are now a lot savvier and newcomers have a reasonable learning curve to traverse.

By: Jason

Jason — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 18:30:14 +0000

SEM agencies could work out a click fraud limits so that advertisers and marketers fraud level?

By: Hun Boon

Hun Boon — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:17:51 +0000

Hi Bing,

Thanks for the sequel on click fraud as promised, I found it to be most helpful.

So do you feel that it has been so well controlled to the extent of becoming a non-issue?

Entrepreneur: Your comments are insightful too, it helps to put things into perspective for me.

Cheers
Hun Boon

By: Bing

Bing — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 01:37:13 +0000

Hi Entrepreneur,

Thanks for pitching in! Yes, this is more of an article for newbies, with some context, history and tips for preventing click fraud. I thought to discuss the current state of things as well but decided to just focus on prevention. You’re absolutely right that the search engines have made a lot of progress in terms on dealing with click fraud. That is why there is probably less interest in this topic today compared to just several years ago. It’s become more of a fact of life, just like any other fraud scheme, eg. the Nigerian general’s wife’s e-mail :).

Some interesting readings here:
http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2008/02/click_fraud_tal.htm
http://www.ericgoldman.org/Resources/clickfraudblogposts.pdf

By: Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 04:56:45 +0000

This is very well written and a good resource for newbies, especially the second half. But I think the points posted in the first half regarding click fraud are a bit dated in the sense that it is not so easy as just clicking on ads.

For example:
(1)The human-bots or click armies have been reported in India, China and Eastern Europe …

THESE ARE EASILY WEEDED OUT BY GOOGLE JUST BASED ON IP ADDRESS, EVEN IF IT IS MASKED.

(2) Unethical companies may have their employees click on competitor ads, thereby exhausting the competitorâ€™s budget.

AGAIN, THIS IS SOMETHING EVEN MORE EASILY DETECTED BY GOOGLE (clicking on the same ad from the same IP address) and is immediately blocked / not counted. In other words you can generate a few dollars worth of clicks but otherwise its a waste of time unless you ask lots of people to do it for you from totally different locations in which case there’s something really wrong with your business that you are resorting to such tactics and thereby wasting all your energy and money.