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Article Title:
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Click Fraud: Defining the Context of a Problem (Part 1)
Article Description:
============
Everyone involved in search marketing considers Click Fraud a
problem issue though to what degree problems exist depends on who
is looking at the issues. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search advertising
is the golden goose that makes the major engines financially
viable but the success of the PPC model, mixed with the nature of
the 'net can make PPC advertising a double-edged sword for
advertisers.
Additional Article Information:
============
1426 Words; formatted to 65 Characters per Line
Distribution Date and Time: 2006-10-12 16:12:00
Written By: Jim Hedger
Copyright: 2006, All Rights Reserved
Contact Email: mailto:jimhedger@siteprone
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Click Fraud: Defining the Context of a Problem (Part 1)
Copyright (c) 2006 Jim Hedger, All Rights Reserved
SiteProNews
http://www.sitepron
Everyone involved in search marketing considers Click Fraud a
problem issue though to what degree problems exist depends on
who is looking at the issues. Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search
advertising is the golden goose that makes the major engines
financially viable but the success of the PPC model, mixed with
the nature of the 'net can make PPC advertising a double-edged
sword for advertisers.
This is the first piece in an ongoing series on Click Fraud we
will be running in SiteProNews and SEO-News. Many in the search
marketing and search advertising industries would prefer the
issue be avoided altogether. Paid search advertising has grown
to become a rapidly expanding multi-billion dollar industry,
much of it based on the success of PPC.
According to a recent study, "US Online Advertising Forecast,
2005 to 2011" (http://www.marketin
online_advertising_
by JupiterResearch, $6.5-billion will be spent on search
advertising in 2006, a figure that is projected to jump to
$11-billion over the next five years. Click Fraud, which is
estimated to range from 5% - 15% of PPC traffic (some estimates
are as high as 20% - 35%) could therefore be a factor in
$350-million to $975-million worth of click-transactions. There
is a lot of money involved in PPC and the tremendous weight of
financial interest lurks somewhere behind virtually any
discussion of the issue, especially a discussion about Click
Fraud.
The share values of giants such as Google, and to a lesser
degree, Yahoo!, Time Warner, AOL, IAC and MSN rely on advertiser
confidence in paid search advertising. A massive amount of
search marketing spam is created to generate high PPC payouts,
which are shared between the search engines and web publishers.
There are a number of legitimate SEM agencies turning a tidy
profit by charging a percentage of the monthly or annual
ad-spend of their clients. With so much money at stake, it's
little wonder the biggest players in the search engine and
search marketing industries would want to keep the issue under
wraps.
This series is going to explore issues associated with Click
Fraud from several angles, starting with an attempt to define
the issue from a few different points of view. In subsequent
articles we will focus on motives and opportunities,
technologies and techniques, detection and deception, and
alternative search based advertising methods outside the realm
of PPC. We expect to touch on a number of other points, many of
which will overlap from article to article, during the
development of the series.
A good place to start would be an attempt at defining what,
exactly, constitutes Click Fraud. In this case, the breadth of
the beast is measured in the eye of the beholder.
The Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia
offers the best definition saying, "Click fraud 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 an improper
charge per click. Click fraud is the subject of some controversy
and increasing litigation due to the advertising networks being
a key beneficiary of the fraud whether they like it or not."
Of the search engines themselves, Google provides the simplest,
most direct definition. Yahoo! offers a 13-point FAQ that fails
to actually provide an exact definition. MSN and Ask also
provide fairly good descriptions of the issue and remedies for
advertisers. None of the major PPC providers offer advertisers
an indication of how complicated click fraud analysis can be.
Google's Definition
Google doesn't like to use the term Click Fraud, preferring a
phrase that conveys far fewer implications, "invalid clicks".
According to the Google AdWords Learning Center
(http://www.google.
"Invalid clicks are clicks generated by prohibited methods.
Examples of invalid clicks may include repeated manual clicking
or the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or other
deceptive software. Invalid clicks are sometimes intended to
artificially and/or maliciously drive up an advertiser's clicks
and or a publisher's earnings."
Google provides instruction on how to deal with and report
suspicions of click fraud and outlines how to initiate an
investigation.
Yahoo!'s Definition
Yahoo! doesn't mind using the phrase Click Fraud. A prominent
text-link on the front page of the Yahoo! Search Marketing site
leads to the Y!SM Click Fraud FAQ
(http://searchmarket
On it, Yahoo! says, "Click fraud is generally considered to be
clicks made with bad faith with the sole purpose of generating a
charge to the advertiser with zero possibility of a legitimate
site visit or transaction occurring. We agree." No clear
definition of Click Fraud is provided, aside from Yahoo!'s
agreement with a general statement describing it. Apparently,
defining click fraud is complicated.
The FAQ suggests it is difficult to judge the purpose of clicks
through its network because it is technically impossible to read
people's minds. (Ed. note: We agree.) Instead, it is forced to
fall back on analysing click behaviour, spotting identifiable
patterns in click traffic, trying to define the faith of each
click. Yahoo!'s FAQ continues, saying, "In terms of identifiable
behavior, we define click fraud as detected illegitimate bots
and certain repetitive clicks."
The next paragraph on the FAQ page should be of concern to
advertisers. It introduces the phrase, "Traffic Quality Clicks",
a phrase describing all clicks that are not generated by
(identifiable) click fraud. This includes, "... clicks from
domestic and international users and clicks from our various
distribution channels and products." A small but scary number of
Yahoo!'s distribution channels and products have been linked to
malware, spyware and click-bot networks, as a coming article in
this series will examine. Come to think of it, someone at Yahoo!
needs to take a look at that FAQ page immediately, we're going
to and we thing Y!SM marketers should as well.
Microsoft's Definition
MSN, which broke into the PPC market later than its rivals did,
shares Google's aversion to the phrase "Click Fraud", agreeing
to refer to the problem of "Invalid Clicks"
(http://advertising.
An FAQ entry offers a short and direct definition of what they
consider an Invalid Click saying, "An invalid click is a type of
non-billable click resulting from user error, malicious activity
or other factors potentially indicative of fraudulent activity."
In a subsequent statement, MSN acknowledges invalid click
activity will occur saying, "Any unexplained changes in click
activity should be reviewed for validity." The FAQ section goes
on to explain how to monitor and appeal click charges.
Ask's Definition
Ask's new Sponsored Listing PPC considers Click Fraud to be an
industry problem. Ask's Traffic Quality page
(http://sponsoredlis
the headline, "We protect you against click fraud."
Ask suggests, "Valid clicks are clicks on a listing that are
generated by humans, whose intent we judge to be to engage the
advertiser's site (such as to make a purchase, register for
services, or navigate content.). Invalid clicks are clicks
generated by robots, systems or software whose intent we judge
not to be to engage the advertiser's site."
The rest of the page goes into great detail describing how Ask
identifies invalid click behavior, mentioning several factors it
uses to assess the validity of each click.
Industry Analysts
In a March 26, 2006 iMediaConnection
(http://www.imediaco
analyzing Google's settlement of a major click fraud case called
Lane's Gifts v. Google, Clickfacts (http://www.clickfac
cofounder, Michael Caruso provides a well rounded description,
"With pay-per-click ads that show up next to search results, the
more times an ad is clicked, the more the advertiser pays. With
contextual ads, where ads are placed on third-party websites,
pay-per-click ad revenue is split between the publisher and the
search company, such as Google.
Sometimes publishers click their own sites to get more revenue
from the search engines. Webmasters sometimes form partnerships
to click on each other's advertisements. Sometimes people click
on their competition'
reported, "...the chief executive of an internet marketing
company, enjoys clicking on his rivals' text ads ... his
competitor must pay as much as $15 each time." There is also
bot-like software all over the internet through anonymous
"proxy" servers scattered in far-flung locales, creating the
illusion that visitors are logging on from all over the place,
masking the traffic's true origin.
Then there are even software companies with names like Fakezilla
that sell traffic simulators online intended to make sites
appear popular and thus boost ranking on search engine pages.
They are also used for click fraud."
Six definitive acknowledgements of invalid click activity later,
we can all agree that click fraud is a very complicated and very
real problem. Stay tuned as we explore it.
------------
Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific
writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous
search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews,
Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.
He is currently Senior Editor for the Jayde Online news sources
SEO-News (http://www.seo-
(http://www.sitepron
and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Jim at the SiteProNews
blog (http://blog.
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