Friday, December 10, 2010

Ways to Identify and Tackle Click Scams

By Joseph Tawman


Identifying and tracking examples of click fraud is the first step to eradicating the problem. Click on fraud is definitely an enormous drain on the resources of advertisers operating on a national and international scale, estimated to occupy around 30% of all pay per click marketing invest. With so much at stake, its no wonder the search engines are investing so much time and effort into devising solutions.

One way in which Search Engines and other pay per click on programme providers have attempted to curb the growing click on fraud problem is through introducing IP address repetition algorithms. These formulae are designed to pick up on suspicious click on patterns emanating from a singular IP deal with, which can assist to uncover the existence of click on farms and competitor-led sabotage, as nicely as identifying possible fraudsters at source.

Nevertheless, there's an array of issues with this method of attempting to identify the fraudsters. Firstly, fraudsters logging on through a dialup modem, DSL line or cable modem can nearly completely bypass this check, as with every new online session, a new IP deal with is generated. Furthermore, there is an extensive range of software available to alter IP addresses, which once more could be used for 'cheating' the algorithm. Cookie and session tracking are other methods by which search engines can attempt to uncover possible fraudulent activity, but once more you will find ways around these for the fraudsters.

Much more comprehensive software is becoming created which profiles and reports around the browsing habits of each click-through to enable companies to track and monitor suspicious behavior, even though this might be seen by many as intrusive and ineffective as anything on a small scale is still likely to go unnoticed, based around the vast coverage of ads across the internet.

The problem of click fraud recently hit the headlines with a class action raised against Google, prompting Google to offer $90million as a possible settlement. Perhaps an acceptance of their responsibilities, Google's offer goes some way to suggest the extent of click fraud, and its vast expenses to the internet economic system.

There are a number of self-help treatments that could be implemented to maintain an organization out of trouble. The initial of these remedies is the reliance on search engine optimization and organic listings. If a website is well and fully optimized, it could eventually understand a ranking that another website is willing to pay $2.50 a click for. Similarly, with organically high rankings you will find no clickthrough rates, therefore the costs associated with PPC are not applicable. Even though the procedure is significantly much more laborious and takes significantly longer to see results, the SEO procedure is significantly cheaper in the long run, and with an estimated 25-30% of all clicks being performed fraudulently, an organically high listing can save money which would otherwise be drained by click on scams for more beneficial reinvestment.

Yr on yr, as the spend per click marketing market continues to grow and expand, surely click fraud will follow suit. Unless an effective means of preventing click on fraud is developed and successfully implemented, buyers will steadily lose confidence within the advertising medium and turn to much more effective, less wasteful marketing methods, which would seriously hit the search engines and could potentially threaten the online economic system as a entire.




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