Demystifying Click Fraud

What is click fraud?

Click fraud is the practice of clicking on pay-per-click ads in search engines without the intent to buy an advertiser's products or services or engage in any other action that would benefit the advertiser. This is a malicious act, usually with the purpose of depleting the advertiser's paid search budget and weakening the return on investment (ROI) of the campaign. A reduced ROI could lead advertisers to become dissatisfied with advertising programs on both Google and Overture (as well as on the smaller Tier 2 pay-per-click networks).

Click fraud is a growing concern in paid search advertising, as more advertisers come to see pay-per-click advertising as a viable and essential advertising medium. Advertisers are beginning to question how much fraud is prevalent in the ever-growing pay-per-click model. Estimates vary tremendously, though icrossing has rarely suspected any instances of click fraud over the course of its campaigns (see more below). Click fraud can be conducted by an individual or group systematically clicking paid search links or by software programmed to repeatedly click the ads.

How does icrossing handle click fraud?

As a client's search marketing agency and strategic partner, icrossing automatically alerts Google, Overture, and other pay-per-click networks when any data anomalies are noticed. When icrossing observes that a term has accumulated a significant number of clicks with very few or no actions, icrossing alerts the search engine that yielded the suspicious click activity. Simultaneously, icrossing also informs the client and recommends that the client investigate its web logs for suspicious activity. The search engine may need to investigate the client's web logs as well, in order to help the search engine determine that the clicks were fraudulent and credit the client's funds accordingly.

icrossing works with the search engines to help provide and facilitate the investigation on our clients' behalf. icrossing handles all points of investigation directly with Google and Overture.

What are Google and Yahoo!/Overture doing about it?

Google

Google's proprietary technology analyzes clicks to determine whether they fit a pattern of fraud. The system automatically distinguishes between clicks generated by normal use or by unethical users and automated robots. In this way, Google automatically filters out the invalid clicks. Here are some of the techniques used by Google to detect the invalid clicks:

* Standard Invalid Click Monitoring: Google monitors every click through IP Address, time of the click, and duplicate clicks.

* Advanced Monitoring: Google has employed a number of PhDs who have developed innovative security mechanisms that are continually adjusted to improve and adapt to changes in the invalid click techniques. Google has assured icrossing that they invest heavily in research and development to update these detection mechanisms.

* Human Expertise: Advertisers reporting suspicious activity receive customized analysis from Google's technical specialists who scour click data for evidence of invalid clicks.

Any clicks that Google determines to be invalid are automatically filtered from reports and the advertiser is credited for invalid clicks. All advertiser credits are found in Google's billing summaries for the particular accounts and are labeled as "adjustments."

For those advertisers or publishers who are found to be participating in click fraud, they are subject to prosecution and banishment from the Google system. While Google takes all this corrective action to prevent click fraud, there are some benign and legitimate explanations for advertisers who report suspicious click activity.

1. Sometimes, individual users may legitimately click on advertiser ads more than once as these individuals may be comparison shopping.

2. Multiple clicks from a single ad may be due to internet providers assigning the same IP addresses to multiple users.

3. New sites joining the Google network may yield increases in traffic to advertiser sites.

4. Seasonal peak periods or current events can lead to traffic spikes.

Overture

Overture has also developed proprietary software, Overture's Click Protection System. This system runs in near real-time to evaluate all clicks, no matter where they originate. The system is designed to recognize patterns and filter out clicks deemed to be invalid. The system uses both search and click data (where the search originated and the source of the click) to make rules-based inferences and pattern recognition-based inferences. Each click is evaluated along a 20- to 50- data point system. Some of the data points include the following:

* IP address

* User session information

* User cookie information

* Network to which an IP belongs

* Users' browser information

* Search term

* Time of click, time of search

* Rank of the advertiser's listing

* Bid of the advertiser's listing

After the evaluated data points indicate that a click is invalid, the Click Protection System marks out the invalid click and the  advertiser is not charged for it.  However, the Click Protection System cannot filter out the invalid click, so the invalid click remains in the advertiser's web logs.

When advertisers scan their web logs for the invalid clicks, the source of those clicks can be referred to any one of Overture's partners including Overture itself. In other words, not all invalid clicks will be assigned to having come from Overture.

Like Google, Overture also employs PhDs in mathematics, statistics, and in computer science to help formulate measures and techniques to help combat against click fraud.

Conclusion

Click fraud is a serious problem, and it's why so many companies - including search engines, agencies, and advertisers themselves - are dedicating significant resources to understand and combat the problem. icrossing's media managers are trained to spot anomalies that may signify click fraud, and any suspected instances are brought up with icrossing's team, the client, and the relevant search engine. icrossing will continue to pursue all avenues necessary to protect its clients and ensure they receive the best return from their search engine marketing campaigns.