Click Fraud and How to Deter It

Written by Hollis Thomases


Pay per click (PPC) advertising continues to gain popularity inrepparttar online marketing world as an effective and inexpensive way to drive targeted visitors to web sites. Research firm eMarketer reported that between 2002 and 2003repparttar 100606 paid search listing market grew 175 percent. Major trusted search properties such as Google, Overture, FindWhat.com, and Kanoodle, all offer PPC campaigns in which you pay only when someone clicks through your banner ad or link. But PPC also has an enemy--click fraud--and understanding what it is and what to do about it should also be a key part of your PPC campaign.

What is Click Fraud?

Click fraud is when someone or something generates illegitimate hits on your banner or text advertisement causing you to pay for worthless clicks. AS PPC campaigns have grown in popularity and keyword prices and bidding have become more competetive, click fraud is onrepparttar 100607 rise.

Online marketers are becoming increasingly worried aboutrepparttar 100608 prospect of click fraud. According to CNET News, some marketing executives estimate that "up to 20 percent of fees in certain advertising categories continue to be based on nonexistent consumers in today's search industry."

This estimate is certainly unsettling for advertisers who, recently, have been paying hefty amounts bidding on desirable search terms. Financial analysts report that inrepparttar 100609 year 2004 advertisers are paying an average of 45 cents per click. Compare this to 40 cents in 2003 and 30 cents in 2002;repparttar 100610 bidding wars continue to rise.

Who's Doing it and Why?

Click fraud perpetrators are most often motivated by trying to increase revenues from affiliate networks or attempting to damage competitors' revenues by forcing them to pay for worthless clicks. The Google Adsense program, in which affiliates receive payment for clicks whether they are real or not, has caused great concern for Google and has intensified its focus on click fraud.

Those engaged in click fraud use a variety of techniques to generate false clicks. Low cost international workers from all overrepparttar 100611 world are hired to locate and click on ads. The Times of India provided investigative reporting on payment for manual click fraud happening in India. Unethical companies may pay their own employees to click on competitor ads. Last but not least, click fraud can be generated by online robots programmed to click on advertiser or affiliate ads. Some companies go to great lengths creating intricate software that allows for this to happen.



Low Budget Advertising -Top 10 List:

Written by eRix


Free Classifieds - Free classified ads can be found by simply enteringrepparttar term into any major search engine. Most classifieds will allow an ad to be placed with a link back to a website or affiliate url. The ad must be updated regularly as most free advertisements are for very short periods of time, from 24 hours up to a week or more. If you desire longer ads, a fee will be charged forrepparttar 100605 longer exposure. Yahoo and MSN Groups - Yahoo and MSN Groups are two ofrepparttar 100606 most high quality FFA (Free For All) formatted Usenet groups. Millions of people form categorized groups, throughrepparttar 100607 use of PHP.bulletin boards, to interact with each other in real time. The groups have email mechanisms that send a single email to every member ofrepparttar 100608 group withrepparttar 100609 click ofrepparttar 100610 send button. What is unique about these boards isrepparttar 100611 ability ofrepparttar 100612 creator of a group to collect important data that can be used to create a list of targeted prospects. The main power of using these two groups is inrepparttar 100613 actual creation and maintenance of a group, not so much as posting messages to a group. FFA groups - These groups arerepparttar 100614 same type of groups as Yahoo and MSN groups, but are owned by individual people or small companies. While these groups are free to register to and initially free to post an email advertisement to, a person also becomes a prospect for that FFA Groups owner. If you want complete freedom to post to these sites, most charge a nominal fee to giverepparttar 100615 ability to post messages everyday. It appears to be normal for these sites to bill monthly to keep continued service; there are some instances where a newer FFA website will charge a one-time yearly fee for posting everyday. And, once again,repparttar 100616 power of each group is inrepparttar 100617 data contained inrepparttar 100618 list of membership becauserepparttar 100619 larger membership gives a higher probability of members becoming paying customers for product or services posted. Links Manager - Linking with other complimentary (same subject but different topic) websites is a good idea when trying to influence a website?s search engine ranking, which determinesrepparttar 100620 amount of website visitors that haverepparttar 100621 option of clicking a web-link in a search report or query. Influencing one-way links into a website is difficult to accomplish, so obtaining reciprocal (to and from) links with multiple complimentary websites is an objective of every successful website. The time it takes to manually process rep. links is enormous and generally very consuming; therefore, a links manager website or program isrepparttar 100622 way to successfully attainrepparttar 100623 objective of what is called link popularity. Search Engine submission Websites - A website needs to be included in major search engine listings because a higher ranking could lead to an increase in visitor traffic. Once again, submitting a website manually to search engines is very time consuming. Therefore, a submission website or program will save time needed for other types of marketing a website needs to accomplish for success. Firstrepparttar 100624 website needs optimization in key areas and then be sent in for submission. Many SEO (search engine optimization) sites will submit your site for free, butrepparttar 100625 charges come inrepparttar 100626 optimization of your website. Also, some fees are included for rapid inclusion or higher exposure. A website can find many free multiple submit sites that send to major search engines, but inclusion in mid-level search websites and portals is a second level issue for search engine ranking that is also an important and vital step of a successful website

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