http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/ 2008-09-22T22:23:14-06:00 Sympozeum_searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com Views, thoughts, opinions, facts, rants, reviews on/about Click Fraud from the SEO/SEM teams at Zunch Communications, Inc. http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/As_Predicted_Click_Fraud_is_on_the_Rise.html 2007-02-05T16:30:00-06:00 Some of you may recall receiving a promotion we ran earlier in 2006 in which we predicted a rise in click fraud for the latter part of 2006. Seems we were right. In an article appearing on Bizreport.com, Kristina Knight writes that the latest research indicates that click fraud reached 14.2% in the fourth quarter of 2006. In the promo we sent out, we had predicted that click fraud would rise during the busy Christmas buying season, hand-in-hand with increased Christmas purchases, and searches, online. Not that the 14.2% figure isn't undisputed. As the article notes, Google engineers believe there are fundamental flaws in reports of increases in click fraud. Regardless of the actual percentage of clicks that are fraudulent, click fraud at any level should be unacceptable, but it continues to be an issue that Google doesn't want to address head-on. Unfortunately, there are no real defenses against click fraud. the only real protection is to use click fraud detection software to first-- detect it, second-- document it, and third-- file a claim with whichever search engine the fraud took place on. And if you are looking for an excellent click fraud detection and reporting system, might I recommend Zunch's own, Click Fraud Detective? It's a proven system that can be used to detect, document and report click fraud. In addition to its reliability, it's also very affordable, especially when you consider it will help you recover ad dollars that have otherwise, gone to waste.  James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Attack_of_the_Botnets_And_No_Its_Not_a_Bad_Lost_in_Space_Episode.html 2006-12-11T15:19:00-06:00 Ever heard of a botnet? Neither had I until recently. They are, unfortunately, the latest device in the burgeoning criminal click fraud industry. Although they are being used in other types of fraud, they are becoming an increasing threat to users of Pay Per Click (PPC). Ryan Sherstobitoff, of Panda Software refers to them as a “silent epidemic.”  His company recently dismantled a botnet that had infected over 50,000 computers with a virus known as Clickbot.A Trojan. In describing what the botnet did, Sherstobitoff  said, “Imagine if each of those 50,000 computers made the botnet controller one dollar each day the system operated. If it takes us a few weeks to shut him down, the operator makes millions.” That’s part of what is so sinister about botnets. Some of the programs are designed to be virtually undetectable by only entering one fraudulent click a day. A single click a day doesn’t amount to much, until you multiple that click over a network that is clicking on over 50,000 ads a day. The botnets being used in click fraud register themselves as browser help objects and activate whenever Internet Explorer is run on the computer. The botnets then register fraudulent clicks at pay per click ads. For more on the specifics of the Clickbot.A Trojan botnet, you can read Panda Software’s press release. To help prevent your computer from being infected and used by a botnet, it’s recommended you keep your anti-virus products updated. And if you suspect that you might be a click fraud victim, it’s recommended that you use a click fraud detection program, like Zunch Worldwide’s Click Fraud Detective, which identifies fraudulent clicks so that users can recover funds lost as a result of fraudulent clicks.   James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Google_Click_Fraud_is_THE_Issue_for_our_Clients.html 2006-09-22T17:56:00-06:00 In case you hadn't heard Google is trying to directly court Fortune 1,000 companies. Sure it’s only a 1,000 companies; on the other hand it’s THE top 1,000 companies. Less meat for us agencies, but I digress. I had the opportunity to listen to and meet David Dietze, who handles all travel and technology commerce clients throughout the Southeast and Southwest, and Brian Devill (David called him the 'muscle') at a local DFWSEM meeting. Into the Q&A the subject of click fraud was brought up...I was beat to it...and I asked David point blank if Google was open to working with third part click fraud data providers/aggregators. He said that Google was open to working with them and wanted to know anytime an advertiser or their click fraud auditing service provider suspected click fraud. Good to know. The big question I wanted to ask was how big of an issue is click fraud to Google's own advertising clients in the pre and post sales process. Brian answered "Click fraud is THE issue." Nice to know that Google themselves are running into some of the problems that agencies are. I think agencies may have the upper hand here though...it’s in our best interest to detect click fraud for our clients and obtain refunds, such as Zunch's Click Fraud Detective does. The same can't be said for Google. Jeff Martin http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Click_Fraud_The_Ugly_Side_of_Online_Advertising_And_What_Can_Be_done_About_It.html 2006-09-22T13:59:00-06:00   "Click Fraud," gets cover story treatment in the October 2, 2006 issue of BusinessWeek. It's an insidious problem, one exacerbated by the fact that it often is not readily detectable. The BusinessWeek focuses largely on the experiences of Martin Fleishman and his site www.MostChoice.com. Martin is a firm believer in online advertising, but he's had that faith rattled by the discovery that of the $2 million he's paid Google and Yahoo!, at least $100,000 was the result of click fraud. And the only reason he ever picked up on it was because he took the time to check where the clicks were coming from and discovered a number coming from such places as Botswana, Mongolia and Syria. Had he not poured through his data, he would have remained oblivious of the problem. Basically, as near as he can determine, at least 5% of the clicks he paid for were fraudulent. He may actually have missed a few that were better hidden in the data; it's current estimated that fraudulent clicks can amount to as much as 20% of an ad's clicks. So what's an advertiser to do? Well, you can pour through the data, as Martin did, and try to discern which clicks might be fraudulent, but that can be time-consuming, costly and, if you don't know what you're looking for, fruitless. You can also turn to companies that have developed fraud detection technologies, such as that offered by Zunch Communications' popular Click Fraud Detective. As Google, Yahoo! and other search engines continue to seem reluctant to deal with the issue head-on (in the BusinessWeek story, Martin recounts how Google refused to do anything for some time, despite compelling evidence he provided regarding fraudulent clicks), using an established professional service like Click Fraud Detective is a good bet for both detecting click fraud and recovering from the search engines for its costs.       James Sadler http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Googles_Different_Stances_on_Click_Fraud.html 2006-04-03T18:29:00-06:00 It seems Google has been confused internally over their capabilities to protect pay per click advertiser from click fraud. In a recent article in Bloomberg CEO Eric Schmidt says: Believe me, as a computer scientist, we have the ability to detect the invalid clicks before they reach advertisers. But the Google Adwords FAQ says: If we find that invalid clicks have escaped automatic detection, you'll receive a credit for those clicks. And the Google blog says: When we believe those clicks are invalid, we reimburse advertisers for them. Some invalid clicks do make it through our filters, but we believe the amount is very small. I have to admit I find it humorous that Schmidt says to trust him, because of his PhD in computer science that invalid clicks don't reach advertisers then other PhDs at Google say that invalid clicks do reach advertisers. Also, does that mean that Google thinks that there aren't PhDs working against them? Or how about just really smart people who know how the system works and know enough about web technology to be dangerous? It may have took PhDs to create the first atomic bomb for 'peace', but it doesn't take one to turn into a weapon of war. Jeff Martin http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Yet_Another_Example_of_Adsense_Being_Gamed_by_Click_Fraud.html 2006-03-20T18:39:00-06:00 Threadwatch broke a news bit about MySpace sites being setup using images of young attractive women to lure guys into going to specific web sites with instructions to "do me a favor" by clicking on their AdSense ads to make sure they work. The one example site used appears to no longer be serving ads, however how hard is it to spend $8.00 to put another domain up with another MySpace area and start making more money again? What’s worse is that it looks like it took independent folks to point it out instead of Google's team discovering it on their own. This in addition to news about Google possibly deleting blogs because bloggers ran MSN search makes for yet another day of bad PR for Google. Jeff Martin http://searchenginemarketingblog.zunch.com/post/Lax_Adwords_Admissions_Click_Fraud_Fuel.html 2006-01-16T16:35:00-06:00 I examined the report of a suspicious domain that was sending a considerable amount of paid traffic to client's site. It took ten minutes to figure out that this domain was established primarily to generate revenues from Adwords and provided no value to users. Traits: The domain is less than 1-month old The domain registration owner information is hidden The content on the site is copied and sometimes regurgitated from other sites The site has no incoming links The site has AdSense ads featured predominantly on the left and right sides of the pages and runs AdSense for site search No Alexa rank With lax Adwords reviewing it makes it easy to see how spammy domains get into PPC content networks. This makes it easier for automated bots to have yet another site to click on with their masking technology and for hackers with access to the millions of zombie machines to hit these ads from all over the world with millions of IP addresses. Jeff Martin