WPW,
what happened to the topic on Google getting sued for click fraud? I wrote some complimentary material a couple of weeks back - and now I want to take it all back. I was mistaken in believing that they were taking a more pragmatic view of the real level of fraud. Seems that the industry's effective monopolist is getting complacent.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

I read your post and had to look quick to make sure my campaign was still on track. Average CPC has gone up 1 cent and average cost per conversion is down 3. Whew. I'll try breathing again.

Oh, and Overture wouldn't like that monopolistic remark. I mean whatever their new name is. They have an identity crisis - isn't that the 4th name now? Anyway, they have a substantial market share as well, so it's hard to call Google a monopoly.

Brian.

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ToolBarn.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 and Inc. 500 Company | Tool Parts | Pet Supplies

Brian,

about a month ago I complained to Google about an IP address in Iran clicking thru via a google affiliate. The IP address clicked thru 6 times in about 5 minutes. I got the usual stock replies about Google security systems preventing fraud and that i must be mistaken etc. But no apology and no refund. I basically told them to get stuffed. Two weeks later a very nice person from Google Dublin came on the phone and apologised and gave me a refund plus a goodwill payment.

Last week I witnessed a massive surge in traffic on a client's site for a fairly obscure term. The term had grown from almost nothing to being the client's top term in the space of 7 days. Because the climb straddled a weekend break I didn't notice its significance until I ran the weekly report.

I reported my observations to Google. If its not fraud there's been a 2000% increase in interest in this particular term.

Google have basically told me to get stuffed. Unfortunately in the UK they are an effective monopolist with 65% market share. It seems that all those positive values that built Google have now gone out of the window in the chase for profits.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

If 35% of a market is someone that isn't a seller in your book, wow. I guess nobody is a seller of most anything.

Anyway, back to the click fraud. Do you track any sort of a conversion (contact us, sale, file download, etc.) for this client? If so, how has that been compared to normal? We see spikes in traffic quite often (a few hundred percentage points up) depending on if Matt Kenseth crashes during the Nascar races (dewalt parts suddenly gets searched more... I'm assuming it is for parts of his wrecked racecar). It doesn't convert at all, but it most certainly increases our brand awareness.

To combat this, I've considered moving those to a very specific campaign with a very tight budget, but in the long run our average cost per aquisition is so low that we can afford to pay for some brand building.

If you're not tracking the conversions, that's most certainly a place to start. If you get a bunch of clicks and no interested parties, there is a problem. When we get a bunch of clicks on the dewalt parts ads, I keep adding in more negative words. I can't eliminate all the uninterested parties, but I can certainly do some to get it at least a little better.

Brian.

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ToolBarn.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 and Inc. 500 Company | Tool Parts | Pet Supplies

Brian,

the potential fraud took place in a client campaign. A low value search term that generated 65 clicks over 4.5 months generated 100+ clicks in less than a week. All the additional clicks came from Google's content network. The cost isn't massive, about $50, its the principle.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

I'm not going to deny that some fraud does get through. It's the people that claim that 38% of ALL clicks are fraud that really make me wonder.

I tried out some click fraud software a while back. Seems like that company actually created click fraud so it could detect it. When I tracked down the offending IP and contacted a friend working at the broadband provider, that IP was the home of one of the people working at the clickfraud company. Sure... the program found some clickfraud and it got us a settlement, but it's not worth paying them to invent something that we can get back later. I won't give any info out about who it was as I'm still working on having something done about them, but seriously, what a joke.

I'd really like to see something that gets rid of click fraud once and for all, but for now I just concentrate on ROI and don't overly concern myself with the little things. As long as I'm making a lot more than I'm spending, all is good with the world for me.

With 47,000+ keywords I wouldn't notice if one had a spike like what you noticed, so I look at the overall picture instead of concerning myself over what details looks odd.

Brian.

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ToolBarn.com, an Internet Retailer Top 500 and Inc. 500 Company | Tool Parts | Pet Supplies

Brian,

I agree broadly with your sentiments. I've also come across the type of click fraud sales person you describe. Although not directly. He contacted a client of mine and gave the impression the client faced an avalanche of worthless clicks. It sounded more like blackmail to me.

However, the client who has been raided this time spends about $3,000 per month with Google. So $50 will be absorbed with an effective ROI. In many respects I believe I nipped the fraud in the bud. The account handlers in Dublin and India have just given me stock brush off. But the episode has further served to diminish my confidence in both the "contextual" pay per click market and Google's honesty.

The irony is of course is that although Google gain a short term benefit from click fraud, it is doing irreparable damage to their long term prospects. Their complicity in the click fraud scam verges on the criminal. As an effective monoplist - defined under UK/EU law as 35% market share or more - they are not inclined to take action.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

I plan to tackle Google on click fraud in a more general manner. Do people have any good anectdotal or empirical evidence on the subject.

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Simply Clicks | SEO | SEO Training| Pay Per Click Advertising | Search Engine Powered Marketing

I spoke on the subject at SES in London (this year and last).

Google has introduced site exclusion, so in instances of you seeing traffic from a content network partner you can exclude that partner from sending traffic.

We tend to be more preventative than post-action in other words we try to manage the problem before it happens, rather than to go and try to get money after the event.

The context of the words and the timing can play a massive part. Before boxing day the word "tsunami" was unknown to most people. If the traffic level was restored to the "norm" then it may have been Google messing around with their display ads, a partner messing around with their Adsense setting.

I certainly think Google are quick to react in stopping stuff but the onus of proof is on you. If you have the evidence they will refund, but it's a process driven thing and not emotive, and call centre staff wherever they are located are not eq

I just had to jump in on this thread. I've dealt with Google fraud problems for some time now.
I personally think that Google's fraud system is extremely poor. I have documented many instances where people click 5-6 times within minutes on my ad for the same search term and they claim to have investigated the incident and found no evidence of fraud.

I've dealt with this situation on and off for over a year now. It used to drive me crazy until other people started noting it too. I called it impression fraud to Google before they had a name for it and now many people call it impression spam. It is a bit different than click fraud. I've written a bit about it and a good article can be found by another guy here:
http://www.stopscum.com/archives/adw..._a_bundle.html

I couldn't agree more. I wrote a letter to Wired! magazine a few months back essentially saying that I think Google is the evil search engine. Frankly, I like the quality of their search engine but they treat their advertisers very poorly. Unless you do a lot of reading up front on Adwords then you really can only learn lessons the hard way like I did by wasting a lot of money until I figured out I was really wasting it. Their content network is almost completely useless for competitive keywords and I have ROI numbers to prove it. Frankly, it is a shame that they don't do more to protect novice advertisers. It's up to you to figure out where the fraud is. Yahoo Search Marketing does a far better job of screening their advertisements and,frankly, has far superior ROI. I just wish more people used Yahoo so I'm stuck getting along with Google though I hope they become supplanted some day or change their evil ways.