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So far the clicks from Google have been good, it seems they have a reasonable grasp of the issue (or it could be that I'm in such a low position for the 'big money terms' that the fraudsters aren't seeing my ads yet).
I am having difficulty with a different network though (not Overture as I'm not running ads there). It seems to me that there is a tree-like structure to the 'publishers' that manage to get onto a network:
PPC Engine>>
A Few large, trusted partners>>
Trusted partners take on affiliates, maybe slightly less trustworthy but still O.K.>>
This continues with each level down getting less revenue and having dodgier 'publishers' right the way down to 'ad networks' that pay out by paypal when you reach $1!
My thoughts are that some PPC networks have no idea how many sites run their adverts. If this is so, then how would you go about detecting click fraud?
I know that many people gave up with the smaller networks some time ago, but I still think there may be value in them if the fraud can be reduced.
So far I have seen click-bots and what looks like human click fraud too, these have been easy to spot with the poor implementation of the fraud (same IP for many different terms in a short period of time). It's the sneaky techniques I'm trying to detect.
IMPORTANT: If you don't want to put the advice on a public board then please sticky me, I can understand that people may be reluctant to give pointers to potential click fraudsters.
Thanks
It's the sneaky techniques I'm trying to detect.
Some types of click fraud can't be detected because they just look like normal traffic. It basically comes down to what one's policy is regarding one's traffic. If a few extra pageviews and clicks show up here and there, is it fraud, or just the site becoming more popular?
IMPORTANT: If you don't want to put the advice on a public board then please sticky me, I can understand that people may be reluctant to give pointers to potential click fraudsters.
They don't need to come here to learn about click fraud. The problem has been around for many years. All it takes is an understanding of how the HTTP protocol works.
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
As to your other comments, there are a full spectrum of experiences of advertisers and publishers with G and Y! regarding click fraud, ranging from seeing none to demanding a refund. There are also those who don't care about click fraud because they get better ROI than on other media.
