Click Fraud - fessing up

[DNjet]

Google CFO: Fraud a big threat

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - A top Google official said that growing abuse of the company's lucrative sponsored ad-search model jeopardizes the popular Internet search engine's business.

"I think something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model," Google Chief Financial Officer George Reyes said Wednesday.

Reyes, speaking at an investor conference sponsored by Credit Suisse First Boston, was referring to an illegal practice known as "click fraud" that occurs when individuals click on ad links that appear next to search results in order to force advertisers to pay for the clicks.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/12/02/tech...ex.htm?cnn=yes

[Jonathan]

Article also mentions

Estimates of how prevalent click fraud has become since it appeared four years ago are all over the map. Jessie Stricchiola, the president of Alchemist Media, estimated that as much as 20 percent of all clicks on paid search ads are shams.

20% is really high.

[Poker]

agree...20% is very high.
I found a solution that works very well for me...Don't pay for PPC, all my traffic is free and there is plenty of it. Don't pay someone for SE placement either, just learn what you need to know and do it for yourself...all the info is out there...

[Jonathan]

PPC does get results though. I've found that it is extremely useful to kickstart a website.

[freestyler]

I agree 20% is very very high!

[diverge]

I also wonder how much of Google's Adsense links (found on OTHER websites, not the search results page) are click-fraud. I would have thought this number would be higher than the sponsored SEARCH RESULTS page links, since the clicker actually has a vested interest in clicking the links -- it doesn't just force someone else to pay, but puts that money into their own pocket.

[Steen]

20% on the google search results? I think that's a lie.

[sufi]

20% is huge rate. That's why advertisers has less faith on these type of programs now :(

[ToddW]

Google AdSense earnings have really dropped over the last 3 months, and I think it's because advertisers are not spending as much per-click anymore on my certain keywords...

[DNjet]

I ran a PPC campaign a couple months ago with all the major PPC programs , got click frauded to death! I could easily tell where the click fraud was coming from through tracking vs. conversion , knowing my conversion rate on the site I got well over 50% fraudulent clicks , maybe upward of 70%. Here are the worst ones for click fraud in order - FindWhat (I tracked the clicks back to pages with just a welcome on them, findwhat pretty much said "oh well" when I complained), Kanoodle (same thing as findwhat), GoClick (a bit less then first 2 but still a lot), Searchfeed (about same as goclick), Adsense (about the 20% as they think in the article).

The only way to fight against it is to NOT buy clicks but to buy pay-per-lead like CJ , Clickxchange or Clixgalore.