earch engine marketing is Who's Behind It?
a billion dollar industry — Who would benefit from
but click fraud poses a deliberately running up your
threat to search engine companies bill? To start with, your
and online marketers alike. competition would — the ads in
Pay-per-click ad campaigns are a the top spots are always in the
fairly simple concept: crosshairs of the ads a little
advertisers bid on popular search further down the page. And if
keywords and pay the search your competitor clicks on your ad
engines each time a user clicks a few times a day, or a few times
on their ad. This is a mutually a week, the search engines don’t
beneficial relationship for the notice such small numbers.
advertiser and the search engine Doesn’t sound like much, but it
company. The problem comes when can really add up, especially
the advertisers’ numbers — and when you have multiple
their bills — are falsely competitors doing it. They just
inflated through click fraud. chip away at your budget until
you can no longer afford to
What is Click Fraud? advertise on that search engine.
Boris Mordkovich of Search
Marketing Standard, a magazine Another common source of click
devoted exclusively to search fraud is search engine
marketing, explains, "Click fraud affiliates. When webmasters get a
refers to any click made on an cut of the revenue from the ads
ad, with no intention of actually on their sites, they sometimes
buying or looking for play the same game as your
information, but rather with the competitors. They quietly click
intention of depleting the away at your ad and raise your
advertiser’s budget.” bill — and their profits — one
click at a time.
color="#001000"
“It Could Happen To You” — size="-2">http://AdWatcher.comFighting Back ont> and When you think you've found a href="http://WhosClickingWho.com"
case of click fraud, you need to title="http://WhosClickingWho.com
gather your information: " target="_blank"> color="#001000"
1. the questionable clicks size="-2">http://WhosClickingWho.
2. the keywords that were clicked com are examples of
on services that will analyze which
3. when they were clicked on of your clicks are valid and
4. the country from which the present you with all the relevant
clicks originated information in an organized
report. This type of service may
You can do this yourself by cost you from twenty to a hundred
monitoring your server logs and dollars a month.
watching for unusual increases in
activity or repeated clicks from You can email this information to
the same ISP address. Or you can your search engine company, and
have a third party research it request an investigation for the
for you. href="Http://Clickclub.com" Mordkovich warns that you should
title="Http://Clickclub.com" expect some resistance. He
target="_blank">color="#001000" elevate the issue to a
size="-2">Http://Clickclub.comont>, href="http://AdWatcher.com" look into your claims.”
title="http://AdWatcher.com"
target="_blank">
fraud victim is to be aware: fraud is both real and prevalent.
Watch the sources of your clicks. So use a little caution and you
Check your server logs. Watch for can save yourself a great deal of
spikes. Consider a third party money down the road.
watchdog if necessary. Click
About the Author:
Product Sourcing Radio is Created and Hosted by Chris Malta and Rob Cowie of WorldwideBrands.com, Home of OneSource: The Internet's Largest Source of Genuine, Factory-Direct Wholesalers for online sellers. Click Here for FREE E-Biz & Product Sourcing info!
Read more articles by:
Chris Malta & Robin Cowie
Article Source: www.iSnare.com 
