Click fraud without content network?

[Oshburg]

I have the content network disabled on my Adwords account and the search network toggled on. I saw a huge increase in clicks over the last week. Is there any chance of click fraud happening, even with the content network toggled off?

[DavidDeprice]

Yeah, it's possible, because Google has "search partners". I had an instance when I had a keyword disabled and the clickthrough rate was 2%. I contacted Google asking them why in the world they disabled it even though the CRT was four times that of the required minimum (0.5%). What they wrote me was that the 2% figure was a total of Google and Google search partners, while they disable the keyword based on Google only data.

In my understanding, when you turn off content match, you don't turn off AdSense traffic that comes from the search boxes. Your ad just isn't displayed on sites but all 'em millions of search boxes keep on bringing you traffic.

[Oshburg]

So there can still be click fraud with just search network on. I found some IP adresses that are from another country, and they have been clicking several times a day. Is there a way of finding these "search network" partners of Google, or are they too numerous to count.

[beren]

Yes, there is a lot of click fraud from the search network, especially on high-cost keywords. An AdSense site doesn't have to be "about" a topic to generate ads for that topic. It just has to employ a search box, and searches done in that box bring up search network ads. This is in addition to the nominal search sites that mysteriously generate a lot of high-paying keyword searches.

I complain to Google all the time about search partner click fraud. Sometimes it is so obvious (many clicks from irrelevant AdSense sites), that the site is kicked out of the program. But the search sites in their network really bring in more fraud, and Google is reluctant to do anything about them.

The only reason I have search enabled is because of AOL. And to a lesser extent AskJeeves and Netscape. The clicks from AOL are so valuable, I would gladly pay three times what I pay for comparable clicks from Google.com.

If AOL ever starts its own PPC system, I will sign up immediately and continue to advertise on Google.com, but turn the search network option off.

[sailorjwd]

I get hammered everyday from a domain parking site that has its own search that gets Adwords results from a google search... After complaining forever they tell me basically that is one of their premier search partner sites.

They are hitting an obscure topic 100 times a day which is very high for my site and 98% of the traffic for the page. Now they want me to send reams of data which won't help because the clicks look fine but they simply don't make sense considering the topic.

[Oshburg]

How exactly can you tell the clicks are coming from Google's search partners?

[DavidDeprice]

You can't other than by analyzing your logs. I don't think Google has any reporting tools that "disects" search traffic sources. I also don't believe that recent "site blacklisting" feature will turn off search partner traffic - I think it's for AdSense content traffic only.