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Click Fraud: What You Need To Know
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Internet customers are very aware of online scams, but scams do not just affect buyers. Click fraud is a scam that targets advertisers. In this internet crime, illegitimate clicks cause advertisers to spend more on advertising without getting any benefit. Those responsible for click fraud range from corporations to individuals. Competitors who want a business to overspend on advertising can perpetrate click fraud. Individuals can commit click crime to affect search results. Individuals may want to help a friend who is a middleman or may want to take money away from a company they do not like.
Some unethical affiliates also commit click fraud via click-throughs. These affiliates are paid for providing click-throughs to your web sites, but create a number of false clicks to get the cash without sending customers your way. Click fraud does not even have to be perpetrated by a person. Online robots, or "bots," are created and specifically programmed to click on certain links. Some people and individuals hire low-cost workers in overseas countries to click on specific links.
Effects of Click Fraud
Click fraud can really add up. Even though individual clicks cost only a few cents, every few cents spent on illegitimate clicks takes money away from advertising. If your company is affected by click fraud, you could be losing quite a lot of money from your bottom line, since you are paying advertising costs that cannot lead to sales. Also, some PPC programs allow marketers to set daily spend limit for PPC ads. If your program is set up this way, every illegitimate click uses up your daily budget, which means that legitimate customers may not be able to find your ad and your ads may eventually move lower in the rankings as a result as well.
How To Detect Click Fraud
Click fraud can be difficult to detect, especially when it is committed by individuals or by overseas workers who are spread out over networks. In general, however, if you have PPC campaigns that seem to be underperforming, you will want to check on the possibility. There are a number of software titles that scan IP addresses of clickers and then look up the IP address information for repeat clickers.
There are also specific services aimed at uncovering less obvious click fraud. These services are available by monthly subscription and can often help you find and even deter fraud. Reports from these services can be sent to search engines so that different search terms can be chosen or a discount granted. Since these services use statistical scoring algorithm to find fraud, they can be quite effective at finding even less overt forms of click fraud. In many cases, these services automatically send warning messages to any IP address that clicks through an ad repeatedly. The message advises the user of the problem and requests that the reader bookmark the page rather than click through to it. This can deter some amateur fraudsters and can politely tell customers who are genuinely unaware that they are doing something wrong about the problem. |
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