Click Fraud Network

Ad Network Quality - a busy week!

2008-06-23T21:14:00Z

Just last week, I served as a panelist on a Search Marketing Now webcast titled: "Ad Networks Best Practices: Keeping Your Advertisers Happy.” Dana Todd, the CMO of Newsforce.com and President Emeritus of SEMPO, joined me and we covered the topic of quality in ad networks. In the webcast, Dana talked about best practices for ad networks and how they can manage traffic quality and value for their customers. Transparency between search engines, ad networks and advertisers was discussed as a key component...(read more)

Case Study - Sometimes It Ain’t Click Fraud

2008-06-13T21:57:00Z

Reproduced with the permission of Neil Matthews. Originally posted at http://www.clickqualityconsultant.com/index.php/2008/06/11/case-study-sometimes-it-aint-click-fraud/ I was recently working with a client based in the US who had seen a massive increase in click through and no corresponding increase in conversion. He contacted me with a view to investigate possible click fraud. As a starting point I obtained an invalid click fraud report (see below). From this we can see an incredibly suspicious...(read more)

Is Your SEM Manager a Robot?

2008-06-10T21:35:00Z

Recently, many advertisers received an “exciting announcement” in their Adwords accounts. Google announced that its new Automatic Matching feature is rolling out in a new expanded beta format. Automatic Matching has been enabled for some advertiser’s accounts since the end of February. The expanded beta now opts more advertisers in to this feature. Automatic Matching is an algorithm-based broad match feature designed to serve ads on keywords not already in an advertiser’s keyword list. It kicks in...(read more)

In Defense of the Brand

2008-06-06T14:16:00Z

Advertiser brands are being used against them. This week's Wall St. Journal had an excellent article about “Piggybacking” . (No they are not referring to throwing a kid on your back and jumping around the yard!) This piggybacking is a form of brand infringement that is haunting thousands of advertisers. It is the practice of buying a trademarked brand and profiting from it. Google is guilty of facilitating this practice. The Journal gave several exceptional examples of how brands including American...(read more)

“The Happiest Place on Earth” - TRAFFIC Conference Orlando

2008-05-27T00:24:00Z

The domain industry is fascinating. I have enjoyed being involved in events that are both educational and productive for Click Forensics and me. The latest event is the TRAFFIC conference held this week in “The Happiest Place on Earth”, Disneyworld of course! Everyone seemed happy (even though there wasn¹t a Starbucks anywhere to be found!). The domain industry appears to me to be at a crossroads. While the value of names continues to rise, the earnings from monetization programs are falling. Domain...(read more)

Geo-Targeting Your Clicks

2008-05-22T17:11:00Z

This post discusses the topic of geo-targeting your pay per click campaigns. What is Geo-Targeting? Geo-Targeting is the ability to set a target country(s) to which your ads will be served. This allows the advertiser to set which countries they are interested in gaining. Why Geo-Target? If your target or product is restricted to a particular location, then any clicks from outside of that place are of zero quality. You are paying for clicks that will never convert. The solution to this is to use the...(read more)

Under the Iceberg

2008-04-10T14:00:00Z

Over the past two years we have been trying to bring attention to the real danger of click fraud. It is a real problem that is getting worse not better. Since we began reporting our Click Fraud Index, the overall rate has climbed over 20%. This problem has been highlighted in mainstream publications including Business Week, USA Today and the Wall St. Journal. No one today denies that click fraud is a problem and that it is having a negative effect on the growth of the online industry. What may be...(read more)

Why Yahoo Matters

2008-04-10T13:57:00Z

A couple of weeks ago at Search Engine Strategies in New York, Click Fraud made big news. Yahoo announced a partnership with Click Forensics that changes the tone of the ongoing “Click Fraud Debate”. Since late 2005 there has been denial, litigation, finger pointing, 17 page reports and lots and lots of media coverage around the topic of click fraud. In March of 2006 I wrote that, “It will take a community approach to solve the problem”. Since then the community of advertisers, agencies, third parties,...(read more)

Click Farms

2008-04-04T19:26:00Z

This blog has been bringing you a series of posts which cover the basics of click fraud. This series is continued with an article on click farms. What is a click farm? Basically a click farm is a loosely couple group of people who are paid to click on ads. Click farms are often called pay to surf schemes and can be camouflaged behind market research, usability test and other nefarious devices to hide the real reason click farms exist; to make money fraudulently. To break down how the activity is...(read more)

Click Bots

2008-02-22T19:16:00Z

As mentioned in previous posts, in this introduction to click fraud series, there are three main methods to commit click fraud, manually, via a click farm and by using click bots. This post discusses click bots. A click bot is a computer program which can be used to repeatedly click on ads in an attempt to generated revenue, in the case of publisher click fraud , or to deplete an advertiser’s budget in the case of competitor click fraud . Click bots are the high tech and most effective way to commit...(read more)

Does Google Have Enough Data to Combat Invalid Clicks?

2008-02-13T16:34:00Z

This article asks the question does Google have enough data to combat the increasing invalid click problem? The thinking behind this post is based on the premise that Google only has data up to the point of the click, once the user is past the ad on Google or one of their content partners and has reached your landing page, they do not have valuable post paid click data. The data Google does have access to include: source addresses, user agent details, JavaScript enabled, cookies enabled and lots...(read more)

Competitor Click Fraud

2008-02-08T01:11:00Z

This post continues the introduction to click fraud series, and discusses competitor click fraud. Competitor click fraud occurs when your direct competitors click on your ads in an attempt to place their own ads more highly. This in turn gives them a better opportunity to sell their services or goods. This type of click fraud, as the name suggests is committed by your competitors. This does not necessarily mean your traditional bricks and mortar competitors who do business in the same sector and...(read more)

Publisher Click Fraud

2008-01-30T15:56:00Z

In a series of posts, we would like to bring you an introduction to the main subject areas of click fraud. In this post the topic of publisher click fraud is discussed. Publisher click fraud occurs when a website owner publishes an advertisement on their website from syndicated ad programs such as Google’s Adsense or Yahoo’s Publisher Network. Using these programs the fraudster is allowed to add advertisements to their site, which, when clicked upon by visitors, generates a payment. The fraud occurs...(read more)

Community Click Fraud Solutions

2008-01-17T19:57:00Z

I would like to talk about, what I call, community click fraud solutions, and why I think they are a better answer to the click fraud problem than stand alone solutions. What is a Community Click Fraud Solution? A community solution is where lots of advertisers pool their data about invalid clicks and low quality visits and allow it to be centrally analysed. The larger the statistical sample, the better the resultant data. The data is then used to help detect and stop click fraud by developing algorithms...(read more)

New Kid On The Block

2007-12-18T23:03:00Z

I am a new member of the Click Fraud Network blog, and I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and give an overview of the work I will be doing on the network’s blog. My name is Neil Matthews, and I am an independent click fraud consultant. I am 36 and I live in Newcastle, a small city in the north east of England near the Scottish border. What Is My Task? In short, I am taking up the baton and developing this blog to help create more of an open forum of discussion for everyone...(read more)