Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Click Fraud

If you're using AdWords or AdSense you must have heard about an emerging practice in the underworld of computing called "click fraud". But what exactly is click fraud and how is it accomplished?

Well AdSense uses a payment mechanism that awards a certain amount of money to a publisher (someone who holds an AdSense banner on their page) every time a person clicks on the said banner. So click fraud is the attempt to have people clicking the ads just so that they can earn a greater income.

There are people setting up sites for the sole purpose of fraudulently generating revenue through Google's AdSense program. These users achieve an incredible number of clicks through many methods, some complex and sophisticated and some rudimentary and simple.

One of the most complex is through the use of so called "hitbots". These are automated programs who emulate clicking the links in AdSense banners (there are some that actually click the banners as well).

Google's AdSense protection scheme is by no means perfect and nearly anyone can find the details of surmounting the protection mechanism, ironically just by doing a Google search.

Another, more rudimentary method is to hire a lot of people in a poor country to click the links on your site. This means these people will actually sit all day and just click links so you can earn a fortune. They come from very poor countries like India, and they're prepared to do so for just $0.50 an hour.

Of course, there's a problem with this mechanism. Once Google receives a large number of clicks from a single address, the address and the site that had the AdSense banner will be banned, and the illicit behavior might even get the fraudster sued.

To prevent this from happening, many people use a large number of proxy servers for the purpose of clicking. These are basically trojans, located on computers throughout the world (though mostly in the US). What's even more daunting is that these clicks will appear to originate from an actual computer so such scams are really hard to detect.

And don't think this happens only in isolated instances. There is a great deal of illegal activity in this domain.

In fact there's so much that if search engine companies don't increase their security with such programs as AdSense, such criminal behavior could become more become even more damaging.

Google has a very strict policy regarding click fraud, and it has sued those employing such techniques in the past. But while the search engine giant tries its best to minimize the risk of click fraud there's certainly room for a lot of improvement.

It is estimated that more then 20% of the clicks that follow an AdSense link are just done in order to get money from the person paying for the ad. Some people believe the number of fraudulent clicks to be even twice as large.

There are a great deal more schemes involving click fraud, such as groups of AdSense publishers clicking each other's links (which is referred to as "clicking rings", or spamming people so that they click such links.

Despite Google still holding click fraud on a leash, the phenomenon is certainly raising concerns for the advertisers on AdWords, but despite this advertising with Google's AdSense still remains more profitable for the advertiser, as opposed to traditional untargeted advertising schemes.

There are some means of protection against such schemes and all advertisers should be savvy enough to employ them. Many advertisers choose to avoid the content network all together for fear of click fraud.

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Permission to reprint this article in unchanged form, including author bio.
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Wayne Van Dyck is a former venture capitalist and builder of offline technology companies. As an online infopreneur, he is the founder and developer of http://www.SellersVoice.com (for adding audio to eBAY auctions) and http://www.SimpleMoneyMachines.com. Simple Money Machines is everything needed to make money online -- in one, easy-to-use, hosted application. Simple Money Machines provides all the technologies so users can focus on traffic and conversion. To get a FREE copy of "EARN WHILE YOU LEARN - The Two Step Automated System" go to: http://www.SimpleMoneyMachines.com.

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The 'eVo'lution of Free Work at Home Online Business Opportunities

Have you heard of Project ePlay yet?

It promises to be bigger that MySpace and You Tube combined, and includes a fantastic twist on the theme of social networking. Social Networking sites (ie. MySpace, Facebook, Hi5) are becoming the most popular sites visited on the web today. On July 15th 2007 we will see a new force enter the arena of social networking that is promising to be bigger and better than all the rest

Project eplay has been making some quiet waves across the internet. Using the viral nature of the web and the power of affiliate marketing, the people behind eVo, or Project ePlay are set to break some internet financial records.

How do they stand to make so much money from this site?

This new website is going to add a new element that has not been included in any other social networking site; games. Not just any games though. The included games will be skill based games where you can put your money where your mouth is. You will be able to wager real money against your friends and win cash.

Here is where I got excited.

The creators of this site have taken a unique approach to ensure that their site will dominate all other social networking sites. All members that pre-register for free on the registration site will earn cash rewards for all of the friends that they refer and have an opportunity to earn a commission of every wager that is made by the people that you refer.

Imagine if you got paid for every friend you referred to Facebook or Myspace, or if you referred people to Party Poker before it was big and made a small percentage of their revenues. This is what the people behind eVo are offering.

If you are interested in learning more about eVo and Project ePlay then visit http://www.evo-play.net

Chris Whiteley makes his living staring at a computer screen. By spending countless hours buring his retinas surfing the web and running his websites http://www.thewhiteblog.com and http://www.whiteleyenterprises.net, Chris is enabling the average person to thrive in Online Home Business world. For more information please visit http://www.thewhiteblog.com

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