The Challenge With Pay Per Click

Click fraud is making a come back. Not that it never went away. False clicks on Google Ads,  Yahoo ads, and MSN is proving to have at least 10% of its hits to be fraudulent. This according to Fair Isaac's, which is close to estimates  by Click Forensics of San Antonio.

This isn't just your peeved competitor across the hallway or street. This is big business involving automated computer programs or teams of over seas scam artists who repeatedly click on ad links with no intention of buying anything.

In case, it isn't obvious, you must realize that because Google is the worlds largest Advertising agency, they really do not have any financial incentive to let this get out. They may not even care to stop the bad clicks.

This problem is pervasive amongst the top three engines, and one would think the bad news would be bad for business.

However, if they can't fix it, then they have to play in the world of "plausible deniability". Claiming that they take every action to keep clicks legitimate. Never admitting there is a problem..

Comments

[Flippy]

One way to avoid click fraud is to avoid buying into it. A cheaper and more effective alternative is targeted TV. Two companies produce excellent ads for the real estate industry: TVsellsRealEstate.com and Cheap-TV-Spots.com. TVsellsRealEstate.com produces the commercials for free as part of an inexpensive air time package.

[Morristown Real Estate]

Better way than the above poster said is to get your site to rank in google and yahoo organically. I read a study recently that 80% of people using google will not click on the paid adds because they don't think they are as relevant to what they are looking for.

James Boyer
Keller Williams Realty
Summit, NJ 07901

[Brandon]

The author mentioned that "Google may not even care to stop the bad clicks." I don't think this is necessarily true. If click fraud gets out of control, advertisers will eventually move away from PPC because it will be too cost prohibitive for them. If Google starts to lose ad revenue, then they will start to care about reducing the amount of click fraud.