Report Says Click Fraud Has Increased

Writing by Brick Marketing on Friday, 1 of February , 2008 at 10:23 am

(Source) The latest Click Forensics report has arrived, and the company’s data doesn’t look at all encouraging; it states that the overall industry average click fraud rate in 2007’s fourth quarter was 16.6 percent.

Now, we know how this goes. Click Forensics says click fraud is up, Google says it’s not. There’s been a sort of running battle between the two for at least the past year. So, to be blunt, we’re not suggesting that you keep a printed copy of this report beneath your pillow.

Here we go again. Every quarter you hear the same old stories. Click fraud is up. No it’s not, says Google. Yes it is, say the critics. No, says Google. Then one of the other search engines, usually Yahoo!, says it is up, but just a little bit. Then Google says, No it isn’t. And the back and forth continues.

Facts: Click fraud has always been a problem. Click fraud always will be a problem. Some advertisers have a strong motive for saying click fraud is up. Pay per click providers have incentive for saying it’s not.

Who’s right? Probably neither. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle.

Click fraud is defined somewhat differently depending on who you ask, but in general click fraud is the practice of clicking on pay per click ads for erroneous purposes. This can include:

• To run down a competitor’s advertising budget
• To increase one’s income from AdSense and similar publishing programs
• To increase the performance of certain ads in order to make them appear more optimized and therefore increase quality score

Click fraud has many faces. It can be perpetrated by publishers trying to increase their revenues, by advertisers trying to increase their quality scores, and by third parties or competitors in order to drive advertisers out of the market. The problem with click fraud is it is sometimes difficult to detect. But if you think that you have been a victim of click fraud then you should report it to your pay per click provider. Be sure to give them solid reasons why you think you’ve been targeted with click fraud.

Website Design & Website Development Price Quotes – Compare and Save!

Category: Click Fraud

• Add this post to Del.icio.us - Digg

No comments yet.