What is click fraud?

Any Google AdWords novice should of heard of click fraud or ‘invalid clicks’. Goggle inform you it exists, tells you they’ve got everything under control and you go about your day! And for most advertisers that will probably be the case. Click fraud in the UK should not be anything to keep you up at night…yet.

Click Fraud is when a person or automated computer program or ‘robot’ clicks on a paid for search advert without having any active interest in the product or service that’s being advertised. This could be an accidental click by a user on a web page or corporate espionage but the principle is the same.

Click fraud happens on pay per click (PPC) advertisements where the advertiser is charged on a per click basis, every time the ad is clicked the search engine or advertising program charges the advertiser, regardless of the outcome of that click i.e. whether a sale is made or not.

Who might want to commit click fraud and why?

* Companies in competitive PPC markets who want to incur charges on their competitors increasing their spend and hopefully pricing them out the market or running up their daily budget so their adverts no longer show up on search terms on that day.
* Affiliates who have third party adverts on their website and get paid each time a visitor clicks on that advert.
* Webmasters on Google’s content network with AdSense adverts on their site who get paid each time an ad is clicked.
* Underhand search marketing agencies who want to increase the volume of clicks or improve the click through rate (CTR) of their clients accounts to make their metrics look more impressive or increase their spend based commission.

Do I need to worry about click fraud?

If you have a small Google UK AdWords account (by small I mean under £10k a month) you probably do not need to worry about click fraud at the moment unless you are in an extremely competitive market or corporate blood feud! You need to monitor your account regularly and you should notice any irregularities (see my post on ‘a beginners guide to spotting click fraud’ for more information). If your account is managed by a search marketing agency you should ask them what they are doing about click fraud (also see my guide to choosing a PPC agency).

If you manage or are responsible for a larger AdWords or other PPC campaign you should create an action plan for dealing with click fraud now (see ‘creating a click fraud action plan’) and research all the options available to you.

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