Click fraud is the intentional clicking on ppc ads without any intention of buying the product or service advertised. There are many types of click fraud.
Some of the most important types are,

1) Competitive fraud : This may occur for highly competitive keywords, were the competitor for the keyword clicks on your ads with the intention of wasting/exhausting your budget.

2) Impression fraud : This affects the Google and other engines which rely on CTR(click through rate). The competitor pauses his ad campaign and cause a sudden surge of impression on your ads. Due to this CTR of your ad decreases and so your ad is ranked lower compared to your competitors ad.

3) Network click fraud : This type of click fraud occurs when a syndicate partner who receives contextual ads from a search network, indulges in manufacturing or creating clicks. The networks owner shares the revenue with the publisher based on the number of clicks generated from his site.

Some common symptoms of being affected by click fraud are,

1) Unusual increase in clicks : Suppose a keywords receives 5-10 clicks a day and suddenly it starts receiving 100’s of clicks and the cost of keywords rises, you might be affected by click fraud.

2) Repeated clicks from same IP : When you are getting repeated clicks on your ads from same ip, you might be affected by click fraud.
Click fraud seems to be a major threat to the online ad industry and advertising networks are still finding it very difficult to combat click fraud. So, you always need to be vigilant whether your ads are being affected by click fraud. Click fraud can be minimized by deep forensic analysis of advertiser’s with the help of many third-party click auditing softwares.

Aravindhan

SEO Tags : Click Fraud, Internet marketting, SEM, PPC

The real victims of click fraud are PPC advertisers. Both the perpetrators and the PPC advertising providers make money every time an advertiser pays for a fraudulent click.

Botnets can be described as a computer virus or the Borg. Botnets are networks of infected computers that can be controlled by a master computer. Malicious code or malware can infect your system. Email attachments, music or video downloads are some of the means for infecting. Commonly users cannot identify that their system is affected.

Many computers in U.S. has turned into higher-functioning zombies due to botnets. Though computers that become zombies appear to run normally, someone else is using part of their processing power. The real victims of click fraud are PPC advertisers. Both the perpetrators and the PPC advertising providers make money every time an advertiser pays for a fraudulent click. Though the search providers Google and Yahoo, already detect and delete a wide array of invalid clicks, the rapid increase of botnets is highly dangerous.

As they are at automating fraud, botnets require human control and activation. Highly paid hackers might be the controllers. Running a botnet operation requires a number of unique skill sets. So hackers they themself must control botnets.

Mark

SEOTags : Botnets, Pay Per Click, Computer Virus

When a person, automated script or computer program imitates a user of clicking ads for the purpose of generating cost per click without having actual interests in the targeting ad’s link in pay per click online advertising is known to be Click fraud. Click fraud can be normally caused by Competitors of advertisers, Competitors of publishers, Other malicious intent and Unwanted “friends” of the publisher. It can be considered as mistakes, accidents or even human nature but heavily affects the revenue of the advertiser. Often fraud cannot be detected due to the least number of clicks. Those who have engaged in large scale fraud will often run scripts which simulate a human clicking on ads. However, large numbers of clicks which come from just one, or a small number of computers, or a single area, look highly suspicious to the advertising network and advertisers. Advertising networks is highly benefited due to click fraud.

The fraudulent clicks can be controlled by a deep forensic analysis of advertiser’s and also by many third-party corroboration. The corroboration can be made through softwares provided by many organizations.

Mark

SEO Tags : Click fraud, cost per click, pay per click

Recently, one could notice that Google has involved in self promotions. Since this is not inline with the company’s vision and goal, it has created disappointment amongst their users and well wishers.

Though relevance is the mantra of Google, when you search for the word ‘photosynthesis’, you get to see their Tip about Google Images.

Following is what Blake Ross, Co-Founder, Firefox, got to say about this :

either the company does not believe in its own search technology, or it does not believe its products are good enough to rise to the top organically

I guess Google has already work out a plan to come out of this.

D Sarathy.

SEO Tags : Google Tip, Tipping Point, Google Evil

Google is planning to show the Quality Score value for their AdWords Advertisers. Though this is being tested, we can expect them to be exposed shortly. Here is how you may get to see them.

The values for the Quality Score can be Good, OK or Poor. This is definitely a better situation for the Advertisers to optimize their campaigns. However does not mean that the Advertiser has got the control over it, because still this gives only a clue and not the actual value.

D Sarathy.

SEO Tags : Quality Score, Google Adwords

At least for the last two years, there has been a steady raise in the online advertising rates. As a result, there is an unbelievable price pressure on online advertising. Will this affect the online advertising market?.

The prevailing price pressure on online advertising may not affect the growth of the online advertising market, because :

However the increase in the online advertisement rates is still an open issue. With more competition from MSN, Yahoo and other effective online Advertising Channels, let us hope that this would be taken care!

D Sarathy.

Source : Ad Costs on the Web Are Rising, but Perhaps a Bit Irrationally
SEO Tags : Online Advertising Rates, Online Advertising Market, Price Pressure

In an attempt to provide better user experience for the mobile surfers, Google is trying to partner with Orange.

Google is planning to come up with mobile devices with it’s specialised software which would increase the browsing speed. One can expect Google to integrate their GMail, Maps, Docs, Spreadsheets, Calender etc., Though this is a rumour, one cannot totally discount it because it fits in Google’s mission statement and also it would enable Google in conquering the advertisement market.

D Sarathy.

Source :Rumor: Google Phone - Why We’re Not Impressed

SEO Tags : GPhones, Google Phones, Orange

In an odd move Google has quietly deprecated their Search SOAP API, will no longer be issuing keys, and have removed the SDK from their site.

Source : http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/12/google_depreciates_SOAP_API.html

Without SOAP Google may stink :~(.

More discussion about this in Slashdot : http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/20/0155238
Hope Google does something to wash this off.

D Sarathy
SEO Tags : SOAP API, Google, Don’t be evil

Google Adwords is the simplest and the most powerful form of Advertising. Following is the simple formula to calculate the cost you pay per click of your advertisement.
my cost per click = (max CPC of the next position Advertiser * Quality Score of the next position Advertiser) / my Quality Score

So, increasing the value of our Quality Score is the key. According to Google, Quality Score is calculated based on the CTR, Keywords in our Ad Text Relevance, Landing Page Quality, etc.,

There are many cases where a keywords has high bidding and with poor quality score wrt its competitors. So for this case, what it means is that, not only you pay way too much for the clicks and also you make our competitors to pay way too less for their clicks. You know that this is a dangerous situation to be in. So, to begin with, out a strategy to increase the quality score of the high bidding keywords. I can assure that this would enable us to be more competitive to our competitors and also save some unnecessary spending of money ie best Returns.

D Sarathy.

P.S : It is said that Google is planning to share the Quality Score with its users. It’s a welcome move. More details at http://forums.seroundtable.com/showthread.php?p=6584#post6584

SEO Tags : Google Adwords, Adwords Bidding, Quality Score

Google Checkout Sales was free until Dec 31st 2006. Couple of days back, Gavin C from Google Checkout team has announced that earlier offer is extended until next year-end i.e. Dec 31, 2007. More details at : http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/12/save-even-more-with-google-checkout.html

D Sarathy.

SEO Tags : Google, Checkout, Google Checkout, Gavin