Google Opens Click-Fraud Resource Center

Google Opens Click-Fraud Resource Center

By Nicholas Carlson

Google today announced it's created a new Web site to serve as the single source for all click-fraud and ad traffic-quality-related information.

The Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center features an overview of what click fraud is and what Google's doing about it, a Help Center for detailed FAQs and multimedia presentations and a section called "Tech Talk," which features in-depth articles and blog posts written by its engineering team and other experts in the field.

Just over a year and a half ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt hypothesized that click fraud might not be such a big deal.

"Let's imagine for purposes of argument that click fraud were not policed by Google and it were rampant," Schmidt said at the SIEPR conference at Stanford University in March 2006.

"Eventually the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the conversion will decline because the advertiser will realize that these are bad clicks.

"In other words, the value of the ad declines. So, over some amount of time, the system is, in fact, self-correcting. In fact, there is a perfect economic solution, which is to let it happen."

Google eventually changed its public stance on click fraud.

Last August, the company, along with Microsoft , Yahoo, Ask.com and LookSmart, formed the Click Measurement Working Group under the aegis of the Interactive Advertising Bureau and in conjunction with the Media Rating Council.

Google's enthusiasm for such a group wasn't surprising. Advertisers sued the search giant and won a $90 million settlement that was approved a week before the formation of the group.

Since then, the company's take on the issue has more or less echoed the language found in the new resource center, where click fraud "refers to clicks generated with malicious or fraudulent intent."

Google said it and fellow members from the Click Measurement Working Group will form a panel at this year's Search Engine Strategies show in San Jose. Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for Google Trust & Safety, will be speaking.

Google Opens Click-Fraud Resource Center

How to avoid Click Fraud

Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad's link. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being a key beneficiary of the fraud.

Click fraud occurs in a number of ways:

1. A rival decides to have fun clicking your links in order to drive your costs up

2. a Web site that does context ads for one of the search engines, and who therefore gets paid when a visitor to their site clicks on your ad, generates fake clicks to earn a few bucks extra.

Google and other SE's perform ongoing analysis in order to catch it, and when they find patterns of click fraud, they automatically deduct the wrong charges from your account. In addition, if you think you have found evidence of click fraud in your reports, you can complain and they'll check for you.

Click fraud is an annoyance, but for most tourism advertisers it's a fairly minor one. You can find out more by searching the Web for articles on click fraud, there are thousands. You'll also find numerous vendors ready to sell you services to analyze your log files if you feel you are being victimized by click fraud.

More useful to most beginning advertisers is this warning:

Resist another kind of fraud altogether: people who claim they can "get your site into the top 10!" of search-engine results, or conjure any other dramatic results for you, for a fee. You might get this in the form of phone calls from salespeople. Hang up on them. Nobody can really sell you position on the main search engine results pages.

There is no real short cut!