Forum Moderators: martinibuster
"when someone clicks on a ad from a particular ad unit, it should be turned off for that IP for a particular amount of time. Even if it is not turned off, the click should not be awarded by any monetary gains."
Google may consider implementing it to avoid click-fraud and protect honest webmasters from loosing Adsense Account, if not done already.
I think Google should consider such proposal to avoid such click fraud.
I'd be very surprised if Google didn't have something like this in place, if only to handle the case where newbies double-click web links, or users click multiple times if the advertiser site doesn't open quickly enough.
"when someone clicks on a ad from a particular ad unit, it should be turned off for that IP for a particular amount of time. Even if it is not turned off, the click should not be awarded by any monetary gains."
I think they already do this, although I don't know offhand what the timeout period is before charging for the next click from that IP.
There are some issues regarding this approach. There are IPs that are dynamically assigned through DHCP leases. When the lease expires, the IP may be reassigned to another user. So it would not necessarily be click fraud if clicks were received from the same IP within some time period that exceeded a DHCP lease period.
[edited by: Woz at 10:54 am (utc) on July 8, 2006]
[edit reason] Tidying Up [/edit]
Onya
Woz
[edited by: Woz at 10:55 am (utc) on July 8, 2006]
So I think that temporary IP freeze is a google idea.
In this TOS, the click attackers are using this also to bust out the adsense account of the publishers. Many are already victimize of this incident.
I can tell you from personal experience that click attacks aren't necessarily enough in themselves to get you banned. It's more likely that a click attack will lead to a manual review of your site, and the AdSense staff will make a decision about your account based on what they see. (Remember, Google doesn't have to prove wrongdoing to terminate its relationship with you. The decision to end a relationship with a publisher is a business decision, so the best defense against click attacks is to have a squeaky-clean site that converts well for advertisers and has intrinsic value for users.)
There are many publishers that are suffering from click attacks and get their account banned.
Really? Many? What's their motive? If they are competing AdSense publishers, they run the risk of being caught and having their account suspended. And for what? I mean, making one competitor switch away from AdSense ain't gonna give you any more visitors or impressions, so what's the point?
I can see isolated incidents of vicious competitors who are willing to engage in illegal activities to hurt someone more out of spite than strategy, but I can't see any rationale for many publishers suffering click-fraud attacks.
The more likely source of vicious competition is between two AdWords advertisers, and Google should be able to detect this kind of fraud fairly automatically, since only a particular ad would be click-frauded on a given publisher's site.
At first I would email Google when this happened. I always got a standard reply and nothing further ever happened. Now I realize Google can tell the difference between a (supposed) click attack and the casual surfer searching for something on your site.
What is the incentive for Google to resolve click-attacks permanently?
That should be obvious: Better ad sales and revenues. But there will always be some residual level of click fraud, just as society will always have some residual level of credit-card fraud, shoplifting, car break-ins, and other crimes.
I can see isolated incidents of vicious competitors who are willing to engage in illegal activities to hurt someone more out of spite than strategy, but I can't see any rationale for many publishers suffering click-fraud attacks.
Click rings of banned publishers, perhaps.
That should be obvious: Better ad sales and revenues. But there will always be some residual level of click fraud, just as society will always have some residual level of credit-card fraud, shoplifting, car break-ins, and other crimes.
What is the incentive for a tire repair shop to fix the roads?
What is the incentive for anti-virus software company to eradicate malware completely?
What is the incentive to reduce the clicks, fradulent or not, where more clicks make your clients spend more money with you? Specially if you are one of the few oligopolists?
nice idea
yes after max clicks the ip must be banned.
The idea that one can equate an IP address to a single person always resurfaces amongst people inexperienced with the architecture of the Internet. People even build systems on this assumption, and the systems may work fine -- right up until they don't work at all.
The sad case happens when you get the "Oprah effect", and some one-time event brings your website to the attention of an unprecedented percentage of the population. A single (for example) AOL IP address can generate a lot of activity over the course of an hour when this happens. If you've set up controls that interpret such events as attacks, then you may end up totally wasting your 15 minutes of fame, which could have provided a quantum leap to your customer base size.
Anyone designing systems that use HTTP needs the following stamped on their forehead:
IP address!= unique human
It is also isn't very difficult to find out what the IP addresses of the world's modem banks are. DSL and cable usually have long lease times, and most of them renew to the same IP-address if your system is always on because you generally renew your lease when it is half way till expiry.
I really have no problem with Google deciding to serve PSAa to any click happy IP, even if it from a known modem bank. Private IP networks create other problems, but even there, if google considers it in their best interest to consider it as one user, I can't really complain.
What is the incentive for a tire repair shop to fix the roads?What is the incentive for anti-virus software company to eradicate malware completely?
What is the incentive to reduce the clicks, fradulent or not, where more clicks make your clients spend more money with you? Specially if you are one of the few oligopolists?
Actually, the answer isn't as obvious as it might seem. It depends on the market; short-term vs. long-term, etc.
For example, in your malware example, companies that exist solely to provide anti-malware solutions would not exist if malware was somehow eliminated. OTOH, because there are people who are reluctant to buy computers for use online due to the fear of breakins, the elimination of malware would help those businesses who are hurt by fewer sales of computers, software, etc. that these people would use.
Because false clicks damage the reputation of AdSense with advertisers, and lead to a situation where the average click on the content network is worth far less than one on Google's own site. Isn't this obvious? The idea that Google benefits from click fraud or wants it to occur is ludicrous.
Since there is click fraud that cannot be detected (because it looks like any other nonconverting traffic), G is able to benefit from it, at least in the short term (as long as advertisers are willing to pay for it).
