[adwords.blogspot.com...]
Today, we’re announcing the launch of a new AdWords feature enabling advertisers to have a much more detailed picture of invalid click activity in their account. The metrics of “invalid clicks” and “invalid clicks rate” will show virtually all the invalid clicks affecting an account.These clicks are filtered in real-time by our systems before advertisers are charged for them. The resulting data will of course differ from one advertiser to the next. In addition, a much smaller number of invalid clicks may also be credited to advertisers’ accounts after-the-fact, as the result of a publisher being terminated from the AdSense program for invalid click activity. These will appear as account-level credits.
[edited by: engine at 8:24 am (utc) on July 26, 2006]
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Good find.
-Shorebreak
These are the clicks that Google has noted as invalid and has not charged advertisers for.
But does this tool, that only goes back to 01-01-06, give us any clues as to how much "prior" estimated fraud there was, as in filling out the claim forms?
-Tom
[adwords.google.com...]
Also, the information is only available at the 'campaign summary' and 'account summary' report.
Lastly, one can not run a report that includes 'distribution type' to see the difference between search and content for invalid clicks.
However, the level of transparency should help to begin to reconcile your analytic data against your AdWords data.
Overall, very good move. Thanks Google.
fraud
This really isn't the "fraud" rate, just the clicks that have been automatically filtered. This includes some fraudulent clicks, but also includes such things as double clicks that we aren't being charged for.
Some of the numbers are kind of eyecatching. I have two clients in industries where the clicks tend to be quite expensive, and the competition tends to be extremely slimy, so I always suspected a much higher rate of invalid clicks for those two - but it looks like (at least as far as Google detects) one of my OTHER accounts - huge 'name brand' company selling sports equipment - has a much higher invalid click rate. Definitely interesting information.
One of my more cynical partners just pointed out to me that perhaps the above has to do with it not being in Google's interest to probe too deeply into invalid clicks involving phrases with large CPC ($5-$15/click) - but that's too cynical even for ME.
[edited by: netmeg at 3:08 pm (utc) on July 26, 2006]
Err...and google doesn't have a financial interest in making the problem seem small? :)
What a joke.
Who cares how many invalid clicks you were not charged for? What advertisers want is better click fraud protection, not a Press release from google.
I don't see them getting too specific, though. Detailed invalid click information could be used by click fraud practitioners to determine what is being detected and what isn't.
If I'm Joe Websurfer and I accidently click an add is that invalid?If I'm Judy Internet and I love to explore every single ad I see are those invalid clicks?
The point is where do they draw the line?
Yeah, in Tuzhilin's report he did discuss the, hmmm, difficulty in gauging the "intent" of a click. Hey, Judy's bored, she doesn't intend to become a conversion, she just clicks on everything she sees.
"Undetected" invalid clicks are part of the equation when looking at the return on investment, whether that number of invalide clicks is implicit or explicitly stated.
Who's arguing with that?
This is all heading to 3rd party verification, google doesn't adequately protect the customer in regards to click fraud.
It is a good thing I trust Google to detect clicks. As of yet, my conversions are good and revenue comes in so I do not need to worry too much.
This is all heading to 3rd party verification, google doesn't adequately protect the customer in regards to click fraud.
[webmasterworld.com...]
What's adequate may be in the eye of the beholder, but one unbiased, court-approved "3rd party" has already concluded that Google's "efforts to combat click fraud are reasonable."
It's hard to see how third-party verification would change the minds of advertisers or critics who have preconceived notions about a PPC vendor's approach to click fraud.
Also, even the worst-case scenarios from vendors that market click-fraud detection services put total click fraud in the range of 14 and 20 percent for the PPC industry as a whole. As Trillanjedi said in another thread, "85.4% genuine traffic. Impressive statistic really, I can certainly work within that." And, of course, what matters in the final analysis is the advertiser's ROI, not the real or reported percentage of clicks that are invalid.
