Warning : “These clicks can cost you a lot of money”

Click fraud is a  real concern for someone who is doing CPC marketing. Click fraud involves any artificially created click on your ad. A human being can generate these clicks, or a program program called a clickbot can generate them.

The first thing you need to do in such a case is check to see if there’s any logical reasons for this spike. For example, was there some media coverage on your industry that would cause an increase in searches for your keywords? There can be perfectly reasonable explanations for unexpected traffic spikes. Did you experience an increase in sales? This is another lovely indicator of real traffic. If your sales correspond to your traffic everything should be fine.

The hard part is identifying click fraud. In order to do this you need to constantly monitor your campaigns, keeping a watchful eye out for any abnormalities. You need to pay attention to your campaign’s established trends & watch for any divergence in those trends. For example, suppose you have an Adgroup that averages an 8% CTR. Minor variations to this CTR are normal & expected. What happens, however, if this Adgroup spikes to a 15% CTR without warning? What do you do?

For example, at one point I had gone away on a camping trip & had no access to a computer, or an web connection to monitor my campaigns. When I returned I found the costs & traffic associated with one campaign had spiked dramatically, costing me several thousand dollars. I instantly knew that a click bot hit me. I contacted Google & an investigation was started. A few months later the investigation was concluded & it was verified that I was the victim of click fraud. I was reimbursed for all the funds the click fraud had cost me & life went on.

If the traffic still seems fraudulent you need to gather as much information as possible on the incident. Record the time period when it happened & what keywords were affected. Check your server logs & look for any suspicious looking IP addresses or user agents. once you have collected all relevant information you need to contact Google support & permit them to take over the investigation. They will need access to your server logs & any other pertinent information. they are  lovely at what they do, & you need to be patient as their investigation can take some time.

If you spot click fraud Google is  competent with their investigation & they will reimburse you if click fraud is indeed proven. If it’s determined that click fraud did not occur, you will be given an explanation describing how this was determined.

there’s lots of different reasons for click fraud. The most common is for financial gain. This usually occurs on the content network. Here people get paid every time someone clicks on a Google Adsense ad on their site. Some people get greedy & try generating artificial clicks in order to make more funds. sometimes they try to click on the ads themselves, but this doesn’t work well because of the repetitive IP address.

application programs called click bots might be used. These programs use multiple proxy servers to beat the repetitive IP problem, & can also randomize behaviour to make the traffic seem more natural. These programs vary in sophistication & are harder to spot.

In the recent past it was discovered that there’s companies in places like India, where labour is  cheap, which use real people to click on ads. These people are spread out in different locations making the IP addresses all different & non-proxy. Moreover, they are real humans so their actions can seem more natural. This technique can also be difficult to spot.

Other reasons for click fraud include malicious competitors. In this case a competitor wants you to either stop advertising on a keyword, or lower your bid. This often happens as a result of bidding wars. It also often takes place on the actual search pages. Any of the various methods of generating artificial clicks can be used, & the result is still the same. Increased costs.