101 Articles Click Fraud
CLICK FRAUD
Click Fraud is defined as the act of generating illegal revenue from the advertisements placed on a website. Click fraud can also be targeted on competitor sites to make them spend huge on potential spam clicks on their ads. It is inter-related with Google Adsense system. After Google came up with the system most websites and search engine result webpages are filled with numerous ads in flashy columns that are quite attractive and easily to spot for viewers. Every time a viewer clicks on any of these ads the advertisers pay some amount as per the advertisement cost which is shared between the Google and the website owner. The ads that appear in any website are related to the contents and links of that particular website.
It was introduced as a marketing strategy to make more money in a legal manner which benefits the viewers, web owners, advertising agencies and the Google itself. However spammers have been able to use it to their advantage to the maximum by manipulating search engines with the click rate ratios increasing the webpage rank by diverting most of the traffic to their websites and also earning in illegal ways by clicking on those ads unnecessarily. Every time a click is generated the advertising companies have to pay the ad amount to Google and they unnecessarily end up paying more for non-converting clicks.
Click Fraud is basically done for two reasons
1. For costing the advertisers money unnecessarily which is usually done by competitors and spammers for throwing advertising agencies out of market or induce loss for them
2.It is artificially done in order to improve the click through rate of the website to attract more traffic to that particular page and then manipulate search engines to be listed among the top few search results developing the online business of that particular website.
How does click fraud manipulate Search engines and Web owners:
How much traffic does that particular website derive?
Relevance between search phrases and website's contents in the form of keywords
Click through rates to other webpages and navigational structure. A website simply needs to be organized well in terms of structure for crawlers to crawl through them and identify them in order for those webpages to be indexed in search engine's index register.
How much revenue does it generate if it features Adsense system creating a win-win situation for the advertising agencies, the search engine company, web hosting company and website owners?
Now it is understandable that click rates play a critical role in deciding the quality of the website and thus these spammers employ artificial click rates to drive more traffic to that particular website and make it seem like a very informative website despite having poor contents or no contents at all. Search engines like Google, Bing have come up with algorithm that considers user traffic and user behavior a factor in ranking websites.
They also generate more click rates just to add additional and unnecessary costs for advertisers and thereby generating high illegal income for themselves who also act as web owners and also do it in a very subtle way so that famous search engines like Google are unable to identify them. This concept is known as Click Fraud and it is one among the worst enemies faced by search engines to combat.
By performing such an act, they artificially increase the website ranking by driving more traffic and thereby manipulating search engines, bring up loss to advertisers as they start paying for non-converting ads, web owners of genuine websites fall behind them in terms of ranking and they are not able to be listed among the top 10 search results. Also the person who is the actual owner of such a website featuring Adsense features also get affected as famous search engines such as Google are pretty aware about the situation and thus they have taken remedial measures to combat Click Fraud issues. Eventually if such a practice is found to be followed from your website, though it might not be you who took part in such a practice, your site is most likely to be banned as it is against the terms and policies followed by the search engines which is providing you specific features such as Adsense. Your account and website will be immediately terminated.
How is Click Fraud Committed?
There is an automated type of PPC (Pay per Click) Click Fraud in which software is specifically designed to eliminate human behavior and instead it sends robots or bots to click on paid listings in a website.
As a result it is very difficult for the search engine company to track down the IP address and track down the person who got involved in such activities. The same personals also make use of proxy servers to make it possible for their fraudulent activities to go undetected by filters.
Click fraud engaging groups also hires people for low costs to click on ads and hyperlinks in order cost the advertising companies and at the same time manipulate search engines by driving more traffic and indirectly increasing the website's ranking. This practice is predominant all around the world run by the internet.
Of course under such practices it is easier for the search engines to track down the IP address and find the person who is engaged in such malpractices.
I have also come across groups who tricks every company involved in the picture by establishing dummy web addresses that display nothing but recycled bills. When a viewer clicks on these ads coming in the website, marketers gets billed no matter where the click originates from.
Since they use dummy web addresses it makes it all the more difficult for search engines to track them down.
How can Companies and Web owners battle Click fraud?
Famous search engines like Google are taking every remedial measure to get rid of groups which indulge in click fraud activities. They are coming up with new advanced highly complicated to be broken down algorithms to battle click fraud. As companies such as SEO's, web hosting companies, web related companies, web owners we need to aid them in every possible way we can to combat the issue. There are times where my websites has been involved in such practices without my knowledge and the immediate thing I did was contact Google to the necessary information to keep my slate clean which is what everyone should follow to avoid issues for their own websites and be terminated.
1. Web hosting companies offer access logs to you when they host your website. Provide the same details to the search engine companies to monitor any suspicious activities in your website so that you won't lose your website even though if it wasn't your fault and it was a common misunderstanding.
2. There are many clicks monitoring software's which are absolutely free of cost. Installing them will help you monitor the click activities in your website and you need to report any suspicious activity if found by the search engine company.
3. Disabling ads for your own IP address and local graphic area also aids for the cause and avoids unnecessary accidents such as click frauds. It also helps to avoid Google mistaking you as another user clicking on your own ads and in turn terminating you.
4. Adsense is a huge concept which has led to a revelation and talking about it to your friends and family members might end up in unnecessary click frauds with your best interests in mind. Of course they do not know about it, but advising them not to do so is much better.
5. Be open in your communication to search engine companies to avoid unnecessary issues and complications. Even if the mistake is on your part, accepting it is way better as it will do well to your website though you might have exploited the terms and policies of the company, your website still might not be terminated provided you have a reasonable explanation. Search engines can track more than 50 data points, IP addresses, browser information, user's session information, and pattern recognition to track and detect frauds. They have specialized teams to monitor the whole activities across the net in order to help the advertisers and stop click frauds.
6. You can also make use of negative keywords to keep your Adsense showing in your products and services that are in no way related to yours.
7. Add tracking URL's to your website links so you can track the traffic coming from search engines.
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Images |
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Screen Shots |
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Survey |
A survey conducted reveals that 38% of the pay per clicks are fraud clicks made by spammers in order to increase the click through rate of the advertisements so that they get better rankings in their PageRank.
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Graphs |
The above graph shows that the click fraud rate for search engine rankings has been increasing from the year 2006 to 2009. This is done to increase the rankings in search engine.
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Working Example |
The below mentioned image shows that Google algorithm penalizes a site named Texan film auctions for having fraudulently created automatic clicks in order to manipulate the advertising profits in the site.
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References |
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Other sites that refer to the same manipulation tactic are as follows |