Click Fraud Article

[Vision]

Click fraud could be a $1bn racket--Fair Isaac study

CIO Today magazine.

Click Fraud Gets Smarter

http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=41828

Does Google and the others have the technology to filter out click fraud? Greg Boser is going to put that to the test:

Web consultant Greg Boser has an ingenious method for sending loads of traffic to clients' Internet sites. Last month he began using a software program known as a clickbot to create the impression that users from around the world were visiting sites by way of ads strategically placed alongside Google search results. The trouble is, all the clicks are fake. And because Google charges advertisers on a per-click basis, the extra traffic could mean sky-high bills for Boser's clients.
But Boser's no fraudster. He cleared the procedure with clients beforehand and plans to reimburse any resulting charges. What's he up to? Boser wants to get to the bottom of a blight that's creating growing concern for online advertisers and threatens to wreak havoc across the Internet: click fraud.

The article makes a good case for the need for an independent third party to monitor this problem.

[stevesko]

And IMHO, they will find not just the SE's are in on this, but the big fraudsters are NOT the guys in china or korea, but american fortune 50 companies. I am on both sides of this, both with PPC sites and as a very large PPC buyer for another site. I regularly catch a large media company in what I call click fraud. G and Y don't admit anything - they always have a "reason" why the traffic was real, but I always get a refund. Huge spike in traffic on high paying keywords - 0% conversion, all short visits.

This fight will be interesting...

Steve

[mole]

I think people are starting to understand that click fraud is very rampant with domain parking sites which have nothing to offer apart from advertiser links, in the high 50%+ range. These are not normal click-bots, but very sophisticated programmes.

Be careful of "traffic", as the article points out, you can use services like Fakezilla to boost any domain to sex.com traffic levels.

This came from AdAge recently;

‘Total crap Web sites’
Marketers say sham Web sites, set up for the sole purpose of collecting money by linking to the engines’ networks, present further headaches. “The number of total crap Web sites is ridiculous,” said Greg Boser, president, WebGuerrilla, a search-marketing consultancy. These affiliate partners “don’t convert,” he said. “When we remove all those links from engine partners, our clients’ conversion rate is the same. The affiliate partners just serve to line the [pockets] of the search engines.”

[stevesko]

I think people are starting to understand that click fraud is very rampant with domain parking sites which have nothing to offer apart from advertiser links, in the high 50%+ range. These are not normal click-bots, but very sophisticated programmes.

Hey, I agree but don't paint all PPC parking sites with the same brush. I have NEVER faked traffic or even clicked on links on my own site, yet still make a good return on my "parking" sites..

Steve

[Vision]

Stevesko:

The article reflects what several are witnessing. I know many peers & neighbors who are pumping & dumping thru sophisticated means. Once sold, sometimes they continue the pumping & gradually deflate the artificial stats.

For example, only a moron is enticed to buy Ztyipler.info or Auneilqw.tv from someone claiming 202 uniques a day, type-in traffic, $3,900 - Buy Now

Ultimately, .com mindshare, .com brandability & .com Overture rule the day, not suspect traffic.

Mike

[denny007]

The clickbot can never fake conversions, as it does not know, how is advertisers conversion set up. Thats why I use conversion tracking in Adwords, Overture and Google anlytics - to help them out to find click fraudsters.