Click Fraud Auditing

[Joybro]

I have run a google campaign for over 2 yrs and have 3 online monitors to determine if the PPC traffic I receive is legitimate.

Of the 3 I am using... I put the code of the most reliable at the top of my website. I have always known I was paying for extra PPC traffic but accepted it as the cost of doing business.

Now however, it has gotten way out of hand and I am actually being charged for more PPC visits than I am actually getting to my websites. I use 2 sites with the campaign.

Google Click Fraud Team continues to deny there is a problem. They want raw weblog files as proof.

I don't have the expertise to provide this info and I'm sure Google uses this strategy to discourage and divert "webmasters" like myself who have very limited knowledge in this area.

My question is:

Can someone provide me with a audit service who will audit my files for a percentage of the savings? I am not looking for a service to add code to my website and monitor from this poing forward.

I want an audit of past performance.

I have spent over $70,000 since 1/1/06 which is how far I'd like to go back. I'm certain there is a good amount of money to be earned by the right service.

Erich Winnecke

[Silvery]

This is not a simple issue. There are many valid reasons why numbers in your external reports may differ significantly from Googles. Here's just two:

- enduser's ISP can't reach your monitor service's servers, but can reach your site and Google's ads, so your monitor service wouldn't register the visit while Google did.

- Your reports or monitor service servers are in a different time zone from Google's servers -- so, you'd be comparing data from two different time periods.

These differences are just the tip of the iceburg in why reports from two different analytical systems would not correlate. There's a lot of differences in methods used to try to identify good clicks from bad, too, which can also create seeming disparities.

So, Google's not just being evasive in requiring better proof of fraud. It sounds like you should engage your technician or system administrator to assist you in transferring the relevant logs.

[gregbo]

Can someone provide me with a audit service who will audit my files for a percentage of the savings? I am not looking for a service to add code to my website and monitor from this poing forward.

If you search for "click fraud" at most search engines, you'll get a list of companies that can audit your logs. (The TOS prevents me from listing them here.)

[Joybro]

Ive entered the Google search and all the listed comapnies want to add the code to your site and go forward... could find no audit sites

[TypicalSurfer]

If you want to go back in time, you will need at minimum the server logs, without them it would be impossible to do any analysis. I suggest you start with finding someone (possibly your hosting provider) who can get those logs to you.

[rjzak]

It also depends on your monitoring service's definition of a "visit" or a click-through. They could be filtering out clicks from the same IP/cookie during the same day (or within another time window), which could account for the different numbers.

We've found that users will bounce back and forth from Google a decent amount. It appears that they don't charge for all of these repeat visits, but definitely a portion of them depending on time window, ad entry points, etc.