Google's Shuman Ghosemajumder, Business Product Manager for Trust & Safety, provided answers for some common questions about click fraud after Google disclosed it was nearing a settlement in a lawsuit filed against it over the problem.

For one thing, Google isn't going to tell how they detect invalid clicks. Ghosemajumder noted in the Q&A posted at the AdWords blog that a lot of smart people developed the methods and technology used in tracking those down. "Doing so would make it easier for fraudsters to try to defeat our systems," he said.

Google also sees a problem with all invalid clicks being called fraudulent. Many clicks happen due to other causes, like someone double-clicking on an ad. While Google can identify a click as invalid, it is "practically impossible to "prove" that an impression or click was caused by deliberate deception," Ghosemajumder said.

There is a wide discrepancy between how much activity is believed to be invalid versus how muchreally is not valid. Ghosemajumder dismissed a report used in some places as a source for a click fraud figure of 30 percent.

"When invalid clicks are detected after an advertiser is charged, we reimburse for them. Because of our detection efforts, losses to advertisers from invalid clicks are very small," Ghosemajumder said. He also claimed that while some invalid clicks make it past Google's defenses, they believe that amount is very small.

Two issues come to mind when considering these questions and answers. First, Google does not provide numbers to back up their contentions. The lack of transparency frustrates not only its advertisers, but also its investors. Google has plenty of motivation to continually improve their system for defeating invalid clicks, and will continue to do so.

The other issue is the marketplace. The lack of transparency has begun to open a market for products that claim to be able to detect fraudulent clicks and clicks resulting from ad campaigns that need to be fixed. I spoke with a marketing executive from a well-known firm offering such a solution, and he flatly refused to answers questions regarding how much click fraud versus problematic clicks may be taking place based on his firm's research.

That was unfortunate because it could have shed some more light on the issue. But it could also indicate Google's claims are correct, and click fraud is a small portion of invalid click traffic. Definitely not small enough to avoid a $90 million settlement for its click fraud case, though.

Only in America could this happen. More books have been written on advertising than any other subject - mostly chequebooks. Advertising, whatever the medium has a risk factor. You pay your money and take your chances. If the advertising, whether it is newspaer, TV or online doesn't work you wipe your mouth and only a fool makes the same mistake again.

In my experience, most wasted advertising is the fault of the advertiser - wrong target markets, wrong message, poor product, bad timing. Google provide the facility to limit your budget, surely it makes sense for everyone to set a low limit to begin with to see if they get a decent return and surely it is the responsibility of the advertiser to monitor this on an ongoing basis.

All advertising comes with risks. Responses from time wasters and lack of responses. The only thing wrong that Google have done is settle this action.

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Paul Herbert CEO Where On Earth Group http://www.whereonearthgroup.com

I believe that as mentioned here by Paul, that it only makes sense to test this method of advertising by starting with a smaller daily budget than you might intend, and carefully monitoring those results before committing fully.

There's no doubt that there is click-fraud being committed, but it isn't likely to be by webmasters who wish to risk losing their monthly Google income. Most fraud will be done by those with low traffic on fixed IP's, taking their chances, and their own clicks are easily picked up by Google and their accounts shut-down, with the advertiser credited.

No system is perfect but I'm confident that Google does everything in its power to ensure click-fraud is kept to a minimum.

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AdSpecs Advertising & Promotion
http://www.adspecs.co.nz

i had a website called click-ads but due to the vast amount of pay per click fraud it did not work. Advertisers voided the site because of the pay per click. so i renamed and brought a new site. pay per click is wrong you no matter how good your detection of fraud clicks it cant be stopped. modem users on a dial up have different ips every time and ghost ip servers. pay per click should be stopped. charge a standard fee per month year for as many clicks not pay per every click.

Gee, I feel much better now. Google says they believe the amount of invalid clicks making it past their defenses is "very small".

Well, that's good enough for me! How about you?

I also believe them when they say new sites aren't sandboxed to force use of AdWords.

Google is out of control. It's time to go back to reciprocal linking.

Ironically, you can Google "Stinking Linking Thinking" for a great article.

Has anybody addressed something I have noticed recently, mainly that the worst spam on google results lately have a smothering of adsense on them? I found some more the other day. Cloaked? search result that at first glance looks like it might answer my question but then go to the page and its nothing but a ton of links with adsense adwords advertising down both sides. Is Google part of its own problem?

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Bryan Fullerton
Black Ridge Personal Security and Safety Products

I agree with Paul Herbert. Google has now set a dangerous precedent. Criminals will find ways around click fraud detection, looking for a lovely big payout from Google. I haven't been following this story but am wondering how and why the complainants received so much.

Click fraud is quite prevalent and as a PPC advertiser I speak from experience. I was testing out kanoodle.com to see what results I would receive advertising on their network. Using the same adverts as I use with my Adwords campaigns I promoted my two sites http://230.edsdrugs.com and http://301.edsdrugs.com

With Adwords my conversion rate is about 1:32 on the first site and 1:36 on the second. So if I spend $1000 on Adwords I usually expect to receive about 60 to 80 sales between the sites.

I dropped $1000 on kanoodle, set up the same adverts and after receiving approval, turned everything on.
In 24 hours the money was gone and I had no sales. I did have multiple clicks from the same IP's - some a few seconds or minutes apart, some hours apart. Some of those multi-clicks lead to sites that appear to be made just for click fraud (like http://www.search811.com and http://woegeek.com and a dozen others.

So although there may be some click fraud on Adwords, I just wasted $1000 on Kanoodle to discover how bad it really can be.

Very comfortable Google to say they are doing the best they can but they cannot provide proof of it, as such proof would risk their strategy to stop or control the click fraud.

However it is true that it would be very profitable for Google to allow click fraud since it means lots and lots of more money that would translate into more power to keep the kingdom they already have.

Stopping click fraud is an impossible task as new alternatives to go around controls will be created by those interested in producing thousands of clicks that translate into thousands of dollars and Google is one of those.

Probably click fraud is the Google’s most profitable department.

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Hector R
http://www.afinetour.com

Yes let Google have its comeuppance.

They would not have paid up if they had a defence.

Adwords/adsense can only be monitored by cookies or similar (log in) Firefox and the new security measures for most browsers and firewalls and anti-virus allow you to have a certain amount of anoniminity, if not altogether. Only in US

Adwords fo works so does adsense, but at the same time how many sites have you seen that require an alternating image to give you access or approve your submition.

Reason: Spammers aka robots aka money

Only in America could this happen. More books have been written on advertising than any other subject - mostly chequebooks. Advertising, whatever the medium has a risk factor. You pay your money and take your chances. If the advertising, whether it is newspaer, TV or online doesn't work you wipe your mouth and only a fool makes the same mistake again.

And they still earn because only about 5% of the Internet society is aware. (Talk to your friends , family, aquaintances, kids etc and you will realise that it is a small percent but when you really look into it, it is more like 75%.

Scary or what
Keimos

Money is the problem and as much as I am loathed to say we need to have some control.

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Keimos IT, Just helping you to get better!
www.keimos.co.uk , www.keimos.net , www.selfpacedit.co.uk ,www.earn_online.veretekk.com

Google has no incentive to stop fraudulent clicks. After all, a click, fraudulent or not, is money in Google's pocket.

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DrTandem's San Diego Web Page Design, drtandem.com

Which is akin to saying that the police have no incentive to stop crime. After all, low crime means work force reductions and who would want to lose their job?

I'm sure Google does police adwords and adsense to prevent fraud, but just like the police in your city, they can't catch 'em all. It's in Google's best interest to prevent massive click fraud, otherwise they lose clients like me and the 10k a year that I pump into their bank. Kanoodle has learned that lesson - I'll not be doing business with them in the future.

Cuirithir, I see you're a new member. Welcome.

I think your analogy is flawed. Besides, if you look at Google's filing with the SEC for its IPO, they disclosed click fraud as their Achilles Heal.

As a matter of fact, Google has lost a lot of business because of click fraud. Their internal memo (accidentally released on the internet...DOH!) that mentioned their revenues had stopped growing and were sliding pretty much summed it up. Their competitors are chipping away at them.

Click fraud has been a thorn in their side since day one. They have done little about it, except to claim it wasn't a big problem. $90 million sounds like a big problem to me. It also sounds like the tip of the iceberg.

The number one complaint about AdWords is fraudulent clicks. The number two complaint is poor ROI. Google went public and their organic SERPs went downhill. Coincidence? I don't believe in coincidences.

Opinion:

Google was simply trying to make their sponsored offerings more appealing by diluting or de-tuning their organic SERPs. They thought that by doing so it would drive both searchers and site owners to their AdWords. AdWords picked up some advertisers, but the big surprise (to Google) was that searchers moved to other SEs. Most notably, Yahoo.

Now, we see mistake after mistake by Google. Rookie mistakes at that. What you have is a company that took itself far too seriously. They're going in a dozen different directions at once and can't figure out why they are failing. The answer is simple: Focus. They have lost sight of what brought them to greatness.

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DrTandem's San Diego Web Page Design, drtandem.com