What You Can Do About Pay Per Click Fraud

Don't let Pay Per Click Fraud Scare you From Using Pay Per Click Advertising

One of the downfalls of pay per click advertising, is pay per click fraud or PPC Fraud is a scheme that exploits pay per click advertising programs and hurts advertisers by depleting their advertising budget as well as driving up the cost of specific keywords. Click fraud can completely sabotage your pay per click advertising campaign and leave you with nothing to show for it.

A Few Types of PPC Fraud

Manual Artificial Click: This type of click fraud is difficult to identify and is accomplished by manual clicks from PPC competition. Human organizations are set up by competitors for the sole purpose of generating artificial manual clicks to the websites of the competition.
Automated Click: PPC Fraud that is accomplished by a software application called a hitbot which automatically clicks on pay per click ads. The software accompanies technology that provides a method for click traffic to bypass internal filtering methods used by ppc search engines.
PPC Ads Placed on Websites: These ads are hosted on websites and are derived from pay per click search engines like Google and Yahoo. If a visitor clicks on the ad, the search engine will share a portion of the fee with the website owner. This invites PPC Fraud because all you have to do is find a way to click the ad without detection of your IP address and you make money.
Splogs: Splogs are phony blogs that create content by copying information mixed with popular keywords from other websites. Specific software is used to link the splog to a high traffic legitimate blog, which tricks the search engines into giving a high ranking to the splog. The high traffic volume to the splog clicks on the ads and the splogger receives the money.

Why PPC Fraud Exists

PPC Fraud exists due to the potential it holds for generating commissions through artificial clicks. PPC Fraud has significantly increased since the implementation of Google AdWords. Additionally, competitors are driven to force the competition out of the game by falsifying click-throughs and knocking them out of the top ranking in search engines.

Factor PPC Fraud as an Expense

Although companies are taking measures to control PPC Fraud, it is not 100% controllable. Most businesses are now factoring it in as an expense just as the brick and mortar businesses are required to do with losses. Unfortunately, it can raise the costs of doing business and inevitably raise the cost of your product to your customers.

Don’t Stop Pay Per Click Advertising

Do not let PPC Fraud deter you from running a pay per click advertising campaign. Most reputable search engines take an active role in eliminating most of the click fraud from their services.

Refunds for Fraudulent Clicks

If you can prove that PPC Fraud has occurred, you can contact your search engine account representative and make them aware of the problem. In most cases you can receive a refund on your pay per click account from fraudulent clicks. The best way to provide proof is to obtain the IP address from the fraudulent click.

PPC Fraud began with the predecessor to pay per click which was CPC (cost per click). Although it has been around for a while, businesses are still learning new ways to protect themselves from PPC Fraud.

Keep a watchful eye, audit your website logs, and make sure all of your charges to your pay per click account are legitimate. Practice this on a regular basis as a first defense against PPC fraud.

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