Way to Measure Earnings Removed for Click Fraud?

[blhouston]

I see my revenue going backwards throughout the day on a regular basis.

I know that Google takes revenue back because of click fraud, but is there any way to measure how much they are taking away and how they determine if click fraud is happening? How about false positives? Who watches the watcher for this kind of thing?

[johnmoose]

Welcome to the Forum!
I see that too. But as the statistics are delayed, some say up to a day or more, I think its quite difficult to measure how much it is. Other than being logged on and refreshing the page constantly. Time can be spend more wisely.

[blhouston]

Although this is extreme wishful thinking - it would be quite helpful if Google provided a click fraud report. Thanks for the response.

[Rockzer]

Well, I think because of the penguin update, you are seeing drop in your revenue everyday, check the GWT to know more about the same, compare your 3 months, you ll get the answer for the same.

[martinibuster]

If you can see the revenue going backwards throughout the day then that could be a sign of something on your site/ad implementation that needs fixing. That's not normal (except for perhaps software download sites). What you should be worried about is Google kicking you off their program for issues like, for one example, ad placements that encourage accidental clicks.

[IanCP]

CLICK FRAUD?

I'd be freaking out big time and conducting the most comprehensive audit I was ever capable of.

How the hell? What circles do you travel in?

[blhouston]

I don't know that it is click fraud - just that things are going backwards regularly. I have a very standard layout - nothing that would cause mistaken clicks.

How would I audit something like this?

[netmeg]

Well you're never gonna get anything out of Google. They barely even explain themselves on the AdWords side when they give money *back* (and as an advertiser, I always get money back for the clients every month)

If you see large takeaways every day or at the end of every month, then there are definitely things you want to look at. If it were me, I would be looking at:

My ad placements; potential accidental clicks, ads that are a bit *too* blended, link units too close to menu or breadcrumbs, etc.

My traffic sources - is the traffic coming from the usual places, the usual referrers, with the usual keywords? My own sites are always tightly focused on geographical areas (usually US states) so if I see a sudden influx of traffic from China or Russia, I want to investigate that, because there would be very few valid reasons for it.

Possible botnets - I've been hit by this recently; the first thing I did was take the AdSense off the affected pages.

Other things can cause the take-backs as well; for example, if an advertiser doesn't pay Google, then you don't get paid either. It's unfortunate, but there it is.

It's aggravating to have them take money back, I know. The biggest reduction I saw was around a hundred bucks, but that was in an exceptionally high-click month, so I wasn't terribly surprised. Apart from that, it's usually less than a dollar. If I started seeing *regular* large take-backs, then I'd be worried my account could be closed.

Remember, you don't have to actively be doing bad things to lose your account. You just have to present a *risk* of invalid clicks to advertisers. That's a pretty broad statement.

[zoltan]

This is something new I also noticed. I usually find that earnings from yesterday are reduced by 3-5% after 1-2 hours. I never seen this before although I use AdSense from 2003, and I am in the so called UPS club since 2005.
Is this something I should be afraid of?

[Lame_Wolf]

This has been happening for a long time now. I know I mentioned in this forum well over a year ago. Then, it was the odd penny here and there that went.