Search engine marketing may be a multi-billion dollar industry, but click fraud poses a threat to both search engine promotion companies and online promoters. Pay per click ad campaigns are a reasonably simple idea; Promoters bid on trending search keywords and pay search engine PR firms every time someone clicks on their ad. This is often a mutually useful connection for the advertiser and thus for the search engine company. The issue arises when advertisers’ numbers, and their bills, are incorrectly inflated through click fraud.
What is click scam?
Boris Mordkovich of Search Promoting Normal, a magazine devoted entirely to appearance promotion, defines click fraud as “any click made on a billboard not for the purpose of buying or seeking information, but for the purpose of depleting the user’s budget.” advertiser”.
Who is behind this?
Who would benefit from deliberately increasing your bill? For starters, his opposition would. Ads in the main places are continually in the crosshairs of ads a little further down the page. And if your opponent clicks on your ad a few times a day or a few times a week, search engines won’t notice such small numbers. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can really add up, especially when you have multiple opponents doing it. Therefore, they simply reduce your budget until you can no longer afford to promote on that search engine.
Another familiar source of click scams is search engine affiliates. When webmasters get a cut of the ad revenue on their websites, they sometimes play the same game as their rivals. They silently click on your ad and increase your bill – and your earnings – one click at a time.
“It Could Happen to You” – Fighting Back
When you think you’ve encountered a click fraud case, you want to collect your information:
1. questionable clicks
2. the keywords that were clicked on
3. once they were clicked, and
4. the country of origin of the clicks.
You will be able to do this yourself by looking at your server logs and expecting unusual spikes in activity or repetitive clicks from the same ISP address. Or you will ask a third party to analyze it for you. Clickclub.com, AdWatcher.com, and WhosClickingWho.com are examples of services that can analyze which of your clicks are valid and present you with all the relevant data in an organized report. This type of service can cost you twenty to one hundred dollars a month.
You will email this information to your search engine and request a scan for a refund. Mordkovich warns to expect some resistance, but says “it’s important to raise the issue with a supervisor.” If the search engines recognize that you are serious, they will examine your claims.
The key to not becoming a victim of click scams is to be aware. Look at the sources of your clicks. Check your server logs. Watch for spikes. Consider an external control body if necessary. Click scam is real and common. So, have very little vigilance and you’ll save yourself a lot of money down the road.