Click Fraud Exposed

by Sapphire (September 21, 2006)

The click fraud scandals continue to grow with an article in BusinessWeek online. It begins with a case study about Martin Fleischman, an entrepreneur who believes he lost $100,000 in advertising revenue to false clicks during the past three years, due to organized clicking via “paid to read” scams. Here’s how it works:

“It’s not that much different from someone coming up and taking money out of your wallet,” says David Struck. He and his wife, Renee, both 35, say they dabbled in click fraud last year, making more than $5,000 in four months. Employing a common scheme, the McGregor (Minn.) couple set up dummy Web sites filled with nothing but recycled Google and Yahoo advertisements. Then they paid others small amounts to visit the sites, where it was understood they would click away on the ads, says David Struck. It was “way too easy,” he adds. Gradually, he says, he and his wife began to realize they were cheating unwitting advertisers, so they stopped. “Whatever Google and Yahoo are doing [to stop fraud], it’s not having much of an effect,” he says.

Humans are the best clickers, because with a little coaching they can keep their click patterns varied enough for Google and Yahoo to miss the warning signs, but bots are also helpful:

The fraud is perpetrated in both automated and human ways. The most common method is the use of online robots, or “bots,” programmed to click on advertisers’ links that are displayed on Web sites or listed in search queries. A growing alternative employs low-cost workers who are hired in China, India and other countries to click on text links and other ads. A third form of fraud takes place when employees of companies click on rivals’ ads to deplete their marketing budgets and skew search results.

AdSense certainly doesn’t seem to be having a good week, does it?

Posted in PPC, SEO
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