AdWords and Invalid Clicks… Hmm!

by Sapphire (March 22, 2005)

Here’s a positive note for the day. My server’s weblogs are showing more clicks from Google than my Google AdWords report. In short, Google isn’t charging me for every click AdWords generated. I took a closer look at the weblogs, and realized the number of missing clicks in the AdWords report responded with the number of 1-page hits that barely even visited the site. Which of course is great news for me - who wants to pay for a visitor who doesn’t stick around long enough to let a page load?

I went hunting through Google’s AdWords help files to confirm what I was seeing, and found this:

You might see a discrepancy between your weblogs and the reports in your account. If your weblogs show more clicks than your reports, keep in mind that our proprietary click protection technology filters out invalid clicks before they ever reach your reports. To maintain the integrity of our advertising program, we work to make sure you’re only being billed for legitimate clicks.

Maybe they consider them invalid because they didn’t stick around long enough to really even see a page. Maybe they know something about the IP’s of those visitors that I don’t.

This doesn’t mean that a big advertiser in a highly competitive market is safe from click-fraud. My site isn’t inspiring anybody to get really sneaky and steal my clicks, so I’m easy enough for Google to protect. Serious advertisers - the kinds Google et al are courting - will need reassurance. They’ll need to either know an SE’s methods for blocking click-fraud - something the companies may not want to give up, since that info will end up arming click-frauders sooner or later - or they’re going to need solid data supporting that the SE’s have been successful at stopping click-fraud.

Posted in PPC
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