the bottom line about fraud clicks

Forum Moderators: buckworks & skibum

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the bottom line about fraud clicks

anyone in the know willing to share the truth?

buenavista

1:52 am on Mar 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

i'm a huge AW fan willing to bear some fraud clicks; google can't police the beat to perfection; fyi my spend is USD $50-80 daily. recently 4 days of many fraud clicks, i knew who it was (easy in a small market), i called the perp and persuaded him to STOP. silmultaneously emailed google, gave them the perp's url and precise fraud click periods: they responded ...no evidence, natural spikes in CTR (balooned from 2.5% normal to nearly 20% for KW). any advice out there?

caine

1:56 am on Mar 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

You're in a reasonalbe bracket on your adwords expenditure.
annual $20K to $28K, thats enough to get your point across to your adwords manager.

yonnermark

2:57 am on Mar 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

what did the perp say when you called him?

WebStart

3:44 am on Mar 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

This is bad news about Ad Words. I had always figured they did a pretty good job of filtering the fraud clicks. How did you trace the perp? I am not a webmaster but can read my raw logs, but they go on forever, so trying to trace out things gets difficult.

Any enlightment would be appreciated.

Jenstar

4:03 am on Mar 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

I received an email today that my Adwords account had been subject to click fraud, and I received a credit on my adwords account. I had seen other adjustments on my account for smaller amounts, but I believe this is the first time they sent me an email about it, and it was for a higher dollar amount.

Here is a little bit more about Adwords and fraudulent clicks:
[adwords.google.com...]

buenavista

8:34 am on Mar 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

i was alert to the perp from the get-go as he copied my unique ad, then saw him compete on a single different $2+ per click KW each day and that KW would show skewed CTRs for me.....when confronted he didnt admit fraud clicking but explained how he with his low daily budget found it used up quickly and off the page he went (intimating he was trying to drive me off), after the phone call he did stop and my CTRs are back to normal for the last 5 days.....the point here to my entreaty is that do we have a flawed platform for advertising we cannot rely on over the long run?