Pay Per Click or what is known as PPC is a method of online advertising that is utilized on web sites (like blogs for example) as well as search engines and advertising networks. Merchants put up ad content with a variety of such web hosts and the host is remunerated only if and when their ad is clicked. The words "pay per click" factually means what it says: the Merchant pays every time a visitor clicks on the ad.
Google, Yahoo! and all the additional PPC companies large and minor are now picking up millions or even billions of dollars in ad income based partly on the theory that clicks are a trustworthy, quantifiable gauge of consumer interest. But with so much cash up for grabs the PPC arena has not unsurprisingly appealed to armies of con artists whose actions have the ability to really erode consumer confidence.
Click fraud occurs when a person, automated script, or computer software application imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target product of the ad's link. Though hard to police and keep under control, some search engines have built automated systems which try to defend against these practices with different degrees of effectiveness, but still the most sophisticated of them are not without problems.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that the advertisers themselves benefit financially from such fraud. The biggest networks play 2 roles, as PPC providers and as publishers themselves (via their search engines), which can create conflicts of interest. For instance, whilst a PPC network will lose money to click fraud when it makes payment to a publisher, it more than makes up for it when it collects money from an advertiser, so indirectly, the PPC Network profits from click fraud.
Click fraud can be something as rudimentary as creating a trivial Web site, becoming a publisher of ads, and clicking on those ads to produce revenue. Often the amount of clicks and their value is so trivial that the fraud goes unnoticed. Larger-sized frauds entail running scripts which which try to make it look like a human clicking on advertisements in web pages on a widespread scale.
An additional cause of click fraud is what are known as non-contracting parties, these parties are not part of any pay-per-click agreement.
Some examples of non-contracting parties are:
Marketing competitors - By knowingly clicking on their competitors ads (by this means they are forcing them to pay for worthless clicks) they can weaken them or even put them out of business, even if they aren't profiting directly from this type of click fraud.
Publishing Competitors - Publishers may endeavor to frame their competitors by making it appear as if they are clicking on their own ads, with their end game being that the advertising network terminates their account.
Malice - Like the types of individuals who intentionally exploit and then email computer viruses, some will take part in click fraud not for monetary gain simply to make a publisher and/or advertiser look bad for which ever reason.
Friendship - Sometimes when the friends and/or family of publishers learn that their friend's business profits when their ads are clicked on, they may decide to do so themselves, thinking that they are helping out. If they overdo it however, they can do more harm than good when the publisher is accused of being involved with click fraud and has their account closed.
While advertising networks endeavor to stop fraud by all such parties it's frequently challenging to know which clicks are real and which are not. Usually the best an advertising network can do is to identify what clicks are most likely fraudulent and not charge the account of the advertiser.
Google, Yahoo! and all the additional PPC companies large and minor are now picking up millions or even billions of dollars in ad income based partly on the theory that clicks are a trustworthy, quantifiable gauge of consumer interest. But with so much cash up for grabs the PPC arena has not unsurprisingly appealed to armies of con artists whose actions have the ability to really erode consumer confidence.
Click fraud occurs when a person, automated script, or computer software application imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target product of the ad's link. Though hard to police and keep under control, some search engines have built automated systems which try to defend against these practices with different degrees of effectiveness, but still the most sophisticated of them are not without problems.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that the advertisers themselves benefit financially from such fraud. The biggest networks play 2 roles, as PPC providers and as publishers themselves (via their search engines), which can create conflicts of interest. For instance, whilst a PPC network will lose money to click fraud when it makes payment to a publisher, it more than makes up for it when it collects money from an advertiser, so indirectly, the PPC Network profits from click fraud.
Click fraud can be something as rudimentary as creating a trivial Web site, becoming a publisher of ads, and clicking on those ads to produce revenue. Often the amount of clicks and their value is so trivial that the fraud goes unnoticed. Larger-sized frauds entail running scripts which which try to make it look like a human clicking on advertisements in web pages on a widespread scale.
An additional cause of click fraud is what are known as non-contracting parties, these parties are not part of any pay-per-click agreement.
Some examples of non-contracting parties are:
Marketing competitors - By knowingly clicking on their competitors ads (by this means they are forcing them to pay for worthless clicks) they can weaken them or even put them out of business, even if they aren't profiting directly from this type of click fraud.
Publishing Competitors - Publishers may endeavor to frame their competitors by making it appear as if they are clicking on their own ads, with their end game being that the advertising network terminates their account.
Malice - Like the types of individuals who intentionally exploit and then email computer viruses, some will take part in click fraud not for monetary gain simply to make a publisher and/or advertiser look bad for which ever reason.
Friendship - Sometimes when the friends and/or family of publishers learn that their friend's business profits when their ads are clicked on, they may decide to do so themselves, thinking that they are helping out. If they overdo it however, they can do more harm than good when the publisher is accused of being involved with click fraud and has their account closed.
While advertising networks endeavor to stop fraud by all such parties it's frequently challenging to know which clicks are real and which are not. Usually the best an advertising network can do is to identify what clicks are most likely fraudulent and not charge the account of the advertiser.
About the Author:
Before you commence any internet business, make sure you read Ron Cripps excellent articles on Web Promotion and building a viable internet business. Free reports and software downloads available. You are welcome to reprint this article - but get your own unique content version here.
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