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The incentives for click fraud have increased along with
money devoted to search engine advertising. Advertising on search engines has turned into a fast-spreading craze as more and more marketers have realized substantially higher returns on search engine ads than on more traditional marketing campaigns conducted through print media.
Most pay per click advertisers set a spending limit and once spending limit is reached, ads cease to appear in search results. Click fraud is a very unethical competitive tactic where someone repeatedly clicks on a competitor's ad until spending limit is reached and ad then disappears from search results. It seems that it's only a matter of time before some advertisers become so exasperated with click fraud that they file a class-action lawsuit against a major search engine.
The success of search engine advertising has substantially raised prices that advertisers pay for top spots. Unfortunately, these higher prices have turned click fraud into a dark little industry of its own. Some crooks have hired cheap overseas contractors to just sit in front of computers and constantly click on targeted ads and others are developing sophisticated software to help automate and conceal click fraud.
If you use pay per click advertising it would be wise to carefully monitor your traffic to determine if you are victim of click fraud. In any event, it's probably safe to say that pay per click advertisers are going to have to accept a certain level of click fraud as just a cost of doing business.
Kirk Bannerman operates his own successful home based business and also coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. For more information visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business
