Web Traffic Fraud.com

You would be fooling yourselves, if you believe that your ad is immune to web traffic click fraud. If you have been lucky enough not to have been a victim yet, you can be almost be sure that sooner or later you will get hit by fraudulent clicks that range from invalid to incentivized clicks. Though you cannot completely overcome click frauds, you can reduce the impact of web traffic fraud within your online advertising campaigns. In this article we will look at some of the things that can be done to decrease your exposure to click fraud.

Disable Content Syndication: One of the easiest and most effective manner in which you can minimize the vulnerability to web traffic fraud is to disable your ads within the content syndication network. All search engine advertisers such as Google and Yahoo have this feature and you should disable it.

On the other hand we believe that the content networks can generate good traffic volume that does convert well but if you are a novice to these types of networks it’s like playing Russian roulette with your ad budget. On the other hand, some websites receive a lot of prospective customers from ads in the content network and by disabling this; you are potentially filtering out these legit customers as well. So you can be aggressive in stopping “click-farming” but at the same time are you “throwing the baby out with the bathwater?”

PPC Audits: Today there are several third parties who offer click fraud detection and click fraud auditing services. The advantage of engaging their services is that they would be able to log statistical evidence needed to prove click fraud from your web server logs by micro analysis. Once you get their reports, you can then submit it to the search companies and request for a refund for clicks that were not genuine. Keep in mind that this is a tedious process and most search engines are reluctant to give cash refunds. Instead they would at best grant you additional ad exposure as a refund. Also remember that in this case the search engine appears to be the final decision maker (judge and jury) and they can simply refuse to accept your claims by sticking to their guns and claiming that they were genuine clicks. Your only recourse at this point is a lawsuit and what small online business has the budget for a tedious expensive lawsuit?

Site Blocking: This is the last option that you as a business owner may have. This enables you to blacklist certain sites so that your ad does not appear to them. This is a very useful way to not just reduce web traffic frauds, but also to minimize the low value clicks.

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© 2010 WebTrafficFraud.com

If you are an owner of a home business or a bigger e-commerce website who relies heavily on PPC advertising to direct prospective customers to your website, then you need to be aware of what is known as web traffic fraud or click fraud. In simple terms, these are clicks which originate from a source who is not interested in the products or services that you have to offer.

Since web traffic fraud can cause you huge monetary losses, you need to know about how you can detect the early signs of fraudulent web traffic that might be getting redirected towards your ads. Noticing these signs will help you take quick action in reducing impacts towards your ad spend, thereby minimizing your losses. You should periodically scan the standard reports provided by Google to look for these signs that can point towards a possible web traffic fraud.

1. Sudden increase in clicks without a corresponding rise in conversions: If you notice that the click rates have suddenly shot up without a similar increase in conversions, then it almost always points to a web traffic fraud. You can easily see this by looking at the ‘cost per conversion’ metric given by Google and Yahoo. If you notice this value suddenly doubling then you know that something is going wrong.

But remember that PPC’s want you to keep your eye on conversions ‘only’ because it takes your focus off of rising CPC’s you are being overcharged.

2. Sudden spike in ad impressions on content networks: If the number of ad impressions within the content network is rising then it is a sure sign of click fraud. This occurs due to your ad being triggered by keywords from a site that indulges in click farming. You will be especially subjected to this, if your keyword is highly competitive. Try to stay away from highly competitive keywords. There are many 3 word phrases that are extremely targeted for pennies on the dollar -not dollars.

3. Quickly Running Out of Budget: If you have set an upper limit for your daily budget and you suddenly notice that it is getting depleted faster than usual then it could be because of click fraud. This happens more so, when you have enabled ‘content network’ (Google’s approved third party websites). Chances are by the time you discover you max budget is being depleted then traffic fraud may have been ramping up slowing for many weeks. Go back a month and check your logs to the present to spot any irregular click behavior.
Remember that these are just pointers that warn you that there might be a possible fraudulent web traffic clicks being committed against your ads.

One way to ‘supplement’ your efforts in monitoring third party traffic for fraud is to engage the services of a third party for detailed auditing of your web server logs. Some of these agencies are experienced in monitoring and detection fraud. Bottom line is that it will be your word against the search engines when disputing traffic fraud. It will serve you well to have a “neutral” third party providing logs to support your claims.

Bookmark this site. Or please leave a comment or question. We will be happy to respond.

© 2010 WebTrafficFraud.com