Chapter 21. Watch Out for Click Fraud

People who have no intention of buying from you but who purposely click your ad listings to waste your money are engaging in click fraud. Some companies aren't really impacted. But for others, this sort of search engine sabotage is quietly draining their advertising budget ‚ wasting thousands of dollars each month. Are you an unknowing victim of click fraud?

If you're in a highly-competitive industry and your keywords are several dollars or more per click, chances are your competitors are intentionally clicking your ads. Malicious clicks on Pay-For-Placement (PFP) search engines at $0.50, $1, or more quickly amount to significant waste. Even clicks on Trusted Feed listings, which are priced at a fixed cost-per-click rate, add up. Your competitors aren't the only perpetrators either.

Many search engines offer a revenue-sharing incentive to their search distribution partners for displaying their search results. Because the distribution partners get paid when web site listings are clicked, there's an incentive for them to send clicks your way without caring if they convert. It's unsettling to know that in the past unethical distribution partners have offered their site visitors a per-click commission to click ad listings. Or, they've clicked the listings themselves . Today, these blatant activities are usually caught by the search engines and the partnerships are subsequently terminated . On occasion, though, an unethical distribution partner slides through the fraud filters.

Resolving click fraud requires active participation by both search engines and advertisers. Together, ad profits can be better protected.