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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 to
helping the industry solve the quality issue. You can listen to the webcast
here: http://w.on24.com/r.htm?e=110035&s=1&k=E83F975540391F45DFADD705744AA212&partnerref=CFS.
On a related note, earlier last week InfoWorld’s Paul
Venezia published a poignant article that stands as another example of why we
need more transparency in the industry. He discusses Google’s apparent silence
on why some of Paul’s web sites were recently kicked out of the AdSense
publisher network. Like many others in the industry, Paul is in the dark on his
standing with Google. http://weblog.infoworld.com/venezia/archives/017511.html
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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 increase in clicks and cost per
click. 
I asked for a copy of their web server logs to run through my analysis tool
to see what was causing this problem.
The company works in the US mortgage space, a notoriously competitive and
expensive place to advertise. An arena ripe for competitor click fraud
attacks.
The client’s technical team went off to retrieve the logs for the particular
weekend when the problem occurred, only to come back and report that the logs
were not available. They could not be retrieved from the backups, they had gone
missing! The month before and after were available but nothing for the
suspicious weekend.
Light bulbs lit up in my mind, but I did not want to alarm my client without
any foundation. I thought this was an inside job.
Sure enough my client came back to me, a disgruntled employee had increased
the cost per click and expanded the campaign widely . They also deleted the web
server log files for the period in an effort to cover their tracks. The net
result was a click bill for perfectly valid clicks to the tune of tens of
thousands of dollars. Needless to say the employee was shown the door very
quickly.
The moral of the story, it’s not always click fraud, and only very trusted
employees should be given the keys to your pay per click budget. The damage to
the bottom line can be huge if your Adwords admin goes rogue.
These clicks were perfectly valid, and internal grudges is not an acceptable
reason for a refund from Google.
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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 when an advertiser isn’t reaching their daily ad budget. For
example, if you have a daily ad budget of $10,000, and you’ve only used $8,000,
Google will automatically match queries to your ads to extract the additional
$2,000 in your budget. Google is constantly thinking of innovative new ways to
monetize every search query. Their Automatic Matching feature allows Google to
capitalize on queries which otherwise might not be associated with ads. Think
of Automatic Matching as broad match on autopilot.
So what does this mean for advertisers? Daily ad budgets
will be reached far more often, as any change left over in your purse will be
extracted by Google. We also know that poorly-managed broad match keywords can
devastate a campaign. Since Automatic Matching is a type of broad match, I
think it’s going to be very difficult for advertisers to manage these
campaigns. I expect to see lower click-thru rates and higher costs-per-click.
Google recommends that advertisers use the Search Query Report in Adwords to
see which keywords are triggering Automatic Matching. The only problem with
this is that the Search Query Report hides the actual keywords under a listing
of “XX Other Unique Queries”.
In the end, it sounds like Automatic Matching will most benefit
small- to medium-sized advertisers who lack dedicated SEM resources. However,
advertisers who actively manage their paid search campaigns may want to opt out
of this feature. There’s certainly a
cost associated with the convenience of letting a search engine manage your
paid search campaigns.
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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 Airlines and
InterContinental are trying to fight back. One example was the term, “Holiday
Inn Orlando” which, when clicked, led consumers to http://www.LowFares.com. This site is
not authorized to use the Holiday Inn brand name. To make matters worse, the
site had Holiday Inn ads on the site. Each time these ads were clicked Holiday
Inn ends up paying both Google AND LowFares.com for the illicit click.
Google, in a typical “do no evil” response, refers to their trademark
policy. Unfortunately, their policy is not carried out on their site. This
problem is similar to the geo-targeting issue. When an advertiser tells Google
they want their ads targeted to the US, they expect that this will occur. We
find that as much as 10% of the US targeted ads appear outside the US.
This brand
hijacking is yet another aspect to the traffic quality management issue that we
help customers deal with. A high level of
diligence is required to ensure advertiser brands are protected. Time and time
again Click Forensics finds violations for our clients and even our own brand.
These problems are generally fixed when we alert the search engine. But
without constant monitoring, the damage is done.
Who profits from this?
GOOG.
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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
owners and parking companies are struggling to gain more transparency from
Google and Yahoo. Today, there is essentially no transparency. Traffic from domains is sent up to Google and
some amount of money is paid for the traffic. While agreements regarding
revenue shares can be negotiated up front, without the ability to see inside
the black box, the monetization metrics are a mystery.
One speaker at this conference has a deep
understanding of this issue.
Michael Gilmour runs whizzbangsblog.com from his home
in Australia. I heard Michael’s
presentation and had a chance to speak to him at an after party.
He spoke candidly about the risks that the industry
faces from the search engines black box approach. “The lack of transparency in the whole
process means that they are accountable to no one,” Gilmour said. He accurately pointed out that, “Google has
been progressively reducing its network traffic margins from a high of 22.1%
(Q1 ‘06) to low of 11.9% (Q1 '08).” What
this means is that parked domain companies and site owners are being
squeezed. This is a trend that will
continue. Advertisers are demanding
higher quality traffic and Google has had a hard time delivering that from low
quality traffic sites like MySpace. Enter the parked domain channel.
Gilmour has written a series of blogs addressing this
issue. The eight part series can be
found on his site at www.whizzbangsblog.com. In it Gilmour says, “Google is able to
launder a lot of bad traffic with good traffic and make it all pay the same
while they themselves can discriminate on what they pay out.”
There is a lot of great quality traffic that comes
from direct navigation domains. This is
an industry with lots of smart folks and great ideas to help advertisers sell
more stuff. It will take cooperation and
transparency to build value in the domain space. As Gilmour says, “Unless they (the parking
companies) are able to audit Google, then they can't ever be assured of their
share of the revenue.”
Without cooperation,
transparency and standards, future conferences may not be as happy as this one
was.
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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 tools supplied by all of the main search engines to target your desired countries.
How Do The Search Engines Geo-Target?
The search engines use a number of methods to ascertain your geographic location including:
- IP Address – these are often bound to particular countries.
- Local version of their search engines – if you are searching on google.co.uk rather than google.com, it can be assumed you are based in the United Kingdom
- Demographics from your account – if you are logged into your Google, Microsoft or Yahoo account when browsing, the search engine is able to grab demographic information from your profile
- Browsing habits – if enabled with your search engine of choice, your browsing habits can be analyzed and a tailored surfing experience can be supplied including advertising relevant to your preferred country.
Is there a Problem?
Yes, the geo-targeting filters of the search engines are not 100% effective and advertisers are paying for clicks from outside of their targeted zones. If you do not keep a close eye on your campaigns, you are probably paying for low quality clicks which will never convert to sales.
What Should I Do About it?
Monitor your campaigns for outside of Geo-targeted zones and report them as invalid to your search engine for a refund.
Spotting clicks from outside of your geo-targeted zone is fairly straight forward. For example if you are using Google Analytics, it is very easy to segment your clicks into paid and un-paid, then it is a simple process to see which countries your paid clicks came from.
If you take advantage of the click fraud network solution, you are able to set your geo-targeted zones within your click fraud network account. This will automatically detect any clicks coming from outside of your desired countries and present them in a manner with which you can easily request a refund.
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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 less obvious is that click fraud is only the tip of the iceberg.
The bigger issue for our industry is the overall decline of traffic
quality. Advertisers want to get what they pay for and know that the
traffic they buy has value. Problems including: the growth of botnets,
out of country traffic and other low quality traffic sources like made-for-ad
sites and parked domains are hurting ROI. Advertisers know this and have
been demanding action from ad providers. One recent example is the poor
quality traffic that comes from social network sites like MySpace. Google
surprised Wall St by missing Q4 earnings due, in part, to their inability to
monetize MySapce traffic. Social network sites are notorious for having
very low SiteScore’s.
So what is happening? Smart ad providers are taking matters into their
own hands. They can’t afford to lose business and they are listening to
their customers. By using real time tools to detect invalid traffic,
publishers can block it, redirect it or re-price it. This is the way the
industry is moving and we are working hard to lead the way. It is
encouraging to see ad providers like Yahoo see the dangers ahead and help their
clients steer clear. On the other hand, it is concerning others are on a
collision course.
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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,
publishers, ad networks, industry organizations and search providers has grown.
We have all been drawn closer together to help solve the problem; not
deny its existence. A visible result of that progress was the Yahoo
announcement.
It was just over a year ago that I first met Reggie Davis. Yahoo was the
first search engine to name a Vice President over Marketplace Quality.
Reggie’s approach has been refreshing. He listened carefully and
took notes to what advertisers were saying. He worked with his team to
implement solutions that helped improve transparency. And now, less than
a year later, Yahoo is the first search engine to work with a third-party to
fight click fraud.
This is real progress and a sign of things to come. For quite some time
we have been drawing the distinction between traditional media (TV and Radio)
and online. Advertisers are used to having standards, auditable invoices
and notarized affidavit’s confirming they get what they paid for. It’s especially
important because as pay-per-click industry expert, Dr. Tuzhilin, has noted:
third-parties have access to data search engines don’t have. And that
information is helpful for identifying quality issues such as click fraud.
Yahoo! understands this and we’re now able to share this information to help
Yahoo! help its advertisers.
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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
accomplished, the click farmer will broadcast a series of keywords or links he
or she wished to be attacked, the farm labourer will then precede to search for
these keywords and click on the ad which is targeted. They will then browse the site, clicking on a
number of links. The farm labourer may even
request newsletters via an e-mail sign up; in short, they act like a real
user. This is repeated many times, the
farm labourer will then receive a micro payment per ad clicked.
Click farms are used by people committing
both Competitor
Click Fraud and Publisher
Click Fraud. The publisher, to
generate revenue, the competitor to remove competition for keywords and get
clicks at a reduced cost.
As mentioned, click farms generate traffic
which resembles the profile of a real visitor this makes it very hard for the
search engine’s invalid click filters to spot this type of activity. How do you develop a filter to spot invalid
activity which looks exactly like the traffic which generates conversions?
Click farms are loosely coupled groups of
people usually working under the banner of a get rich quick, pay while you surf
scheme. The out payments (if they are
ever made) are usually very low.
Increasingly people in the developing world are used to provide the farm
labour where a few cents per click multiplied over a days work can accumulate
to a decent amount of money.
A click farm is made profitable via some
simple rules of economics. In the case of publisher click fraud, as long as the
out payment from the ad provider is more than the cost per click from a farm labourers,
there is money to be made, multiply this up by a number of labourers and there
is big money to be made.
The keyword competitors make click farm
fraud viable in less tangible method.
High value items costing thousands of dollars make a few hundred dollars
of click farm time viable. The illicit
clicking can then be factored into the cost of client acquisition so a profit
can be realised.
Click farms
represent a real threat to your campaigns, geo-targeting your ads outside of
developing countries which present a high risk of click farm activity is one
solution along with the click farm detection functionality of Click Forensics.
The next article
in this series will discuss what the search engines are doing about click
fraud.
Other posts
in the series:
Neil Matthews is an independent click
quality consultant; details of his work can be seen at www.clickqualityconsultant.com
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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 click fraud.
There are numerous
bots plying their trade on the internet.
They range from the very simple ones which run on a fraudster’s pc
creating repeated clicks from the same IP address. These techniques are very unlikely to fool
the filters used by the search engines to detect click fraud. At the top end of bot technology are complicated
systems generated by highly technical groups or individuals which seek out
vulnerable PCs on the internet to infect.
These computers are then recruited into “Zombie” networks which run
click attacks at the request of a “bot herder”.
The herder can capture hundreds, even thousands of machines in their
network, and send out a huge number of click requests. These high end bots are invisible to normal
users and can create clicks which look very much like normal internet browsing.
Google published
a detailed report, entitled the
Anatomy of ClickBot.A, on one such bot which attacked their network. As can be expected, at the start of the
report they state that all clicks were captured by their filters. This report details how this type of low noise
attack could potentially gain the nefarious users thousands of dollars of click
income from syndicated ad networks.
The click bot
problem is so series that the FBI have launched two activities known as Botroast
and Botroast II. These operations
were designed to hunt down the people behind click bot networks and stop their
click fraud, phising and other illegal activities. It was estimated in reports from these
operations that in excess of one million computers could be infected with click
bot style code.
In conclusion to
this post, it is the author’s opinion that low noise click bot attacks which
act in the same way as a human website visitor are very difficult to spot. They can and do avoid detection by the search
engines’ click fraud filters.
The next article
in this series will discuss click farms.
Other
posts in the series:
Neil Matthews is an independent click
quality consultant; details of his work can be seen at www.clickqualityconsultant.com
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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 more, all of which help them to filter out invalid clicks, but they do not have valuable data from after the click. This data includes time on site, depth of visit, bounce rate and of course most crucially if a click converted or not. This is the most important metric to measure click quality and validity.
Another area in which Google lacks data is whether or not the click actually reaches your site. A click abandoned before it reaches your site is charged for even though you have not received any benefit from the visit.
Google’s filters are all based upon data collected before the user reaches your landing page, any click fraud attack which can emulate a real user’s activity and fool the filters will hit your landing pages at a charge. Google need this valuable post click data to evaluate user patterns and behaviour to create filters against these types of attacks.
It is possible that Google can collect data from after the click via their Google Analytics program. If the metrics collected were fed directly back into the Adwords system, there could be a reconciliation of clicks to actions/ user trends and their invalid clicks filters could be greatly enhanced, but of course not everyone wants to use Google Analytics, so there is still a gap in their data.
The click fraud network does have this post paid click data. Using your subscription, you can evaluate conversion data, reconcile clicks which have landed to those which you were charged for and provide the data to plug the gaps in the Google data.
In conclusion to the original question of does Google have enough data to combat invalid clicks, it has enough to trend invalid clicks at the front end, but it does not have enough to combat invalid clicks if they are able to bypass their filters and hit an advertiser’s site. This is why data from solutions such as the Click Fraud Network are so valuable when evaluating low quality and fraudulent clicks.
Neil Matthews is an independent click quality consultant, details of his work can be seen at ClickQualityConsultant.com
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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 often the same location as you. It is more likely that competitor click fraud is committed by organizations who are bidding on the same keywords as you.
Your competitor will repeatedly click on your ads in an effort to deplete your daily advertising budget. This will then allow their own ads to appear without competition, often at a much reduced bid price as they will not have to match your maximum cost per click to occupy the same position you had.
In an effort to reduce your exposure to competitor click fraud, you should know who your competitors are, and then add them to your pay per click campaigns exclusion list.
To find out who your keyword competitors are is a simple, but manual task. Simply enter your keywords into your search engine of choice and record the sites which are displayed. Repeat this at different times of the day to ensure you capture competitors running ads in different time zones.
The next step is to identify the IP address range of your competitors. Using a tool such as whois from the various top level internet companies such as InterNIC or RIPE you can resolve which IP ranges a company holds. Alternatively if you have suspicions about clicks from particular IP addresses from your web server logs, these can be resolved using the following tool http://www.arin.net/whois/.
Once you have your competitors IP address range, exclude them from seeing your ads. This is a function of most of the major search engines; the tools are available inside your account admin console.
A caveat must be added to this statement. You will only exclude your competitors if they are clicking on your ads manually from within their corporate firewall. If they click on ads from their home PC or an internet café, then they will still have access to your ads. If you throw more malicious methods such as click farms and click bots (discussed later in this series) into the mix, then baring competitors through IP exclusion should be one of a larger arsenal of low quality click protection methods.
The next article in this series will detail click bots.
Other posts in the series:
Neil Matthews is an independent click quality consultant, details of his work can be seen at www.clickqualityconsultant.com
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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 when the owner clicks on their own ads in an attempt to generate fraudulent income.
The majority of ads distributed by these syndication systems are pay per click which means the advertiser only pays the ad provider when a user clicks on the ad. The ads are placed upon syndicated sites in the hope that real users will click through and generate a sale or other action.
Publisher click fraud (also know as content network click fraud) is a growing problem, analysis has shown that this type of fraud was running at 28.1 percent in Q3 2007*
* source Click Fraud Index
This type of fraud is committed in one of three ways:
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The first is manual clicking on ads. The website owner repeatedly clicks on their own ads.
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The second method is via a click farm. Click farms will be discussed in depth later in this series of posts, but in brief a click farm is a group of low paid workers, usually from the developing world, who will click on ads for a tiny fee. They will act like real website visitors, clicking on a number of links in an effort to fool the invalid click filters. As long as the out payment for the click is greater than the cost of the click farm staff revenue can be generated.
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The last method is the use of click bots, again this is a large topic deserving it’s own post later in the series, but a click bot is a computer program, which, as the name suggests can generate hundred or thousands of clicks. These clicks come from infected machines connected to the internet. This creates a difficult task for the pay per click suppliers to spot.
The search engines have filters in place to catch publisher click fraud, but the efficacy of these filters is very hard to judge as there is a distinct lack of visibility of invalid click activity against your campaigns from the search engines.
Publisher click fraud is a growing problem which is driving many advertisers away from the content network, an excellent advertising medium when used in the manner it was designed for.
Next in our introduction to click fraud series we will discuss competitor click fraud.
To receive new posts in the series as they are added, why not subscribe for free using the syndication options at the top of this page.
Neil Matthews is an independent click fraud consultant; details of his work can be seen at Fraudulent Clicks
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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 to spot invalid clicks and to help identify difficult areas such as click bot attacks, click farm members and MFA sites. I plan to talk about these three subjects in detail in future posts, but in brief, a click bot is a computer program which clicks on ads, a click farm is a group of people paid to click on ads and an MFA or made for advert site is a domain which does nothing but show ads, they tend to generate only low quality clicks.
At the root of the Click Fraud Network™ is of course it’s community click fraud solution. With 4000+ subscribers, the Network is able to get a massive statistical sample to better analyse trends.
The data collected by the Click Fraud Network is used to protect it’s members advertising budget and it is also published to the wider search engine marketing community through the Click Fraud Index™.
What is a stand alone solution?
As the name suggests, stand alone solutions work in isolation of any other domain’s data. Whilst the click fraud solution may be centrally hosted each block of data collected is used alone without reference to the other data which is being collected.
I am in no way deprecating the position of standalone solutions to solve the click fraud problem; rather I am highlighting the benefit of a large data sample with which to spot problems.
The Problem
Pay per click suppliers jealously guard their data, and the lack of transparency makes it very hard to get a real analysis of the invalid click problem.
Community click fraud solutions are solving the problem by creating their own analysis. This work often comes under scrutiny by the search engines and they claim the analysis is not correct, and the analysis methods are not correct. I say let us see OUR data generated by OUR clicks if you have a problem with a third party analysis of the problem.
The Pros
The pros of working together with a community of other organisations is that a far larger body of data is collected and shared, and as a result it is easier to spot the following:
- Click bots
- Click Farms
- Made For Ads
- Pulisher click fraud
- Competitor click fraud
The Cons
Loss of control of your data. Using a community approach, third parties have access to your data. It is advisable that you have complete trust in any community click fraud solution you are intending to join.
In Conclusion
Until the search engines open their data sets to external scrutiny, there is no way that advertisers can be sure that every click is valid, and that the pay per click supplier filters work correctly.
Neil Matthews is an independant click fraud consultant, details of his work can be seen at Fraudulennt Clicks
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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 interested in this industry. I hope to encourage and interest users of the click fraud network to share their comments.
I am here to write posts and develop a community on the blog, this frees up the time of the click fraud network staff to do what they do best i.e. develop and maintain systems to identify your click fraud.
As previously mentioned, I am an independent consultant, I do not work for the click fraud network or it’s parent company Click Forensics, so I feel I can report on developments within the click fraud arena without any bias.
What I Think a Blog is For?
I think a blog should be treated as a conversation. I will present the articles and invite you to participate in the talk by leaving comments. The only requirement that you need to leave comments, is to be a member of the network. This is completely free so I would encourage anyone with an interest in click fraud and low quality clicks to join.
Click fraud is a hot topic, many people are even denying it is a problem at all. I welcome debate, but I ask anyone who comments to use respectful language or risk having their comments moderated.
A recent posting about click fraud on Techcrunch (the blog discussing web 2.0 startups and developments) brought about some harsh and unpleasant language. I hope this will not occur here.
What Feedback Would I Like?
Ask me questions, post suggestions, in short engage with the conversation. The more you put into it, the more we will all get out of it.
A key metric I will be using to see if the blog is developing correctly is RSS subscription rates, if you would like to be automatically notified of new posts or new comments, please click on the e-mail or RSS subscription links in the top right sidebar.
What will you expect from me?
I will be writing posts about developments in the click fraud arena, developments here at the click fraud network and also any relevant developments in the wider pay per click space.
I will be posting two to three times a week. These posts will range from pillar articles which will describe the fundamentals of click fraud for new members of the network, tips on using the software and more general news on the click fraud arena.
An important point to note is that my posts will be independent of any click fraud supplier. I aim to talk about the problem, not who has the best tool to solve that problem.
I look forward to getting to know you all and debate the problem of invalid clicks at length.
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