Pay Per Click marketing or PPC is a form of Internet promotion that is used on web sites (such as blogs for instance) as well as search engines and advertising networks. Advertisers post ad content with a number of such web hosts and the host is remunerated only if and when their ad is clicked. The words "pay per click" literally means what it states: the promoter pays every time a visitor clicks on the ad.
Google, Yahoo! and all the added PPC companies substantial and small are at the moment sucking up millions or even billions of dollars in ad revenue based partially on the belief that clicks are a dependable, quantifiable assessment of consumer interest. But with so much cash up for grabs the Pay Per Click marketing arena has not unsurprisingly attracted armies of scam artists whose tricks have the capability to honestly erode consumer confidence.
Click fraud occurs when a person, automated script, or computer software application imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target product of the ad's link. Though hard to police and keep under control, some search engines have built automated systems which try to defend against these practices with different degrees of effectiveness, but still the most sophisticated of them are not without problems.
Further confusing the circumstances is the statement that the advertisers themselves profit financially from such fraud. The leading networks fulfill two roles, as PPC providers and as publishers themselves (via their search engines), which can give rise to conflicts of interest. For example, whereas a Pay Per Click provider will lose money to click fraud when it makes payment to a publisher, it more than makes up for it when it collects money from an advertiser, so indirectly, the Pay Per Click provider profits from click fraud.
Click fraud can be something as rudimentary as creating a trivial Web site, becoming a publisher of ads, and clicking on those ads to create revenue. Frequently the quantity of clicks and their worth is so insignificant that the fraud goes undetected. Larger-sized frauds entail running scripts which which try to make it look like a human clicking on advertisements featuring in web pages on a widespread scale.
Another source of click fraud is what are known as non-contracting parties, these parties are not part of any pay-per-click agreement.
Some examples of non-contracting parties are:
Advertising competitors - By deliberately clicking on their competitors ads (in so doing forcing them to shell out for worthless clicks) they can weaken them or worse yet put them out of business, even if they aren't profiting directly from this type of click fraud.
Publishing Competitors - Publishers may endeavor to frame their competitors by making it appear as if they are clicking on their own ads, with their end game being that the advertising network terminates their account.
Malice - Like the types of people who knowingly exploit and then email computer viruses, some will engage in click fraud not for financial benefit but simply to make a publisher or advertiser look bad for whatever reason.
Friendship - Sometimes when the friends and/or family of publishers learn that their friend's business profits when their ads are clicked on, they may decide to do so themselves, thinking that they are helping out. If they overdo it however, they can do more harm than good when the publisher is accused of being involved with click fraud and has their account closed.
While advertising networks endeavor to stop fraud by all such parties it's frequently challenging to know which clicks are real and which are not. Usually the best an advertising network can do is to identify what clicks are most likely fraudulent and not charge the account of the advertiser. - 2364
Google, Yahoo! and all the added PPC companies substantial and small are at the moment sucking up millions or even billions of dollars in ad revenue based partially on the belief that clicks are a dependable, quantifiable assessment of consumer interest. But with so much cash up for grabs the Pay Per Click marketing arena has not unsurprisingly attracted armies of scam artists whose tricks have the capability to honestly erode consumer confidence.
Click fraud occurs when a person, automated script, or computer software application imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target product of the ad's link. Though hard to police and keep under control, some search engines have built automated systems which try to defend against these practices with different degrees of effectiveness, but still the most sophisticated of them are not without problems.
Further confusing the circumstances is the statement that the advertisers themselves profit financially from such fraud. The leading networks fulfill two roles, as PPC providers and as publishers themselves (via their search engines), which can give rise to conflicts of interest. For example, whereas a Pay Per Click provider will lose money to click fraud when it makes payment to a publisher, it more than makes up for it when it collects money from an advertiser, so indirectly, the Pay Per Click provider profits from click fraud.
Click fraud can be something as rudimentary as creating a trivial Web site, becoming a publisher of ads, and clicking on those ads to create revenue. Frequently the quantity of clicks and their worth is so insignificant that the fraud goes undetected. Larger-sized frauds entail running scripts which which try to make it look like a human clicking on advertisements featuring in web pages on a widespread scale.
Another source of click fraud is what are known as non-contracting parties, these parties are not part of any pay-per-click agreement.
Some examples of non-contracting parties are:
Advertising competitors - By deliberately clicking on their competitors ads (in so doing forcing them to shell out for worthless clicks) they can weaken them or worse yet put them out of business, even if they aren't profiting directly from this type of click fraud.
Publishing Competitors - Publishers may endeavor to frame their competitors by making it appear as if they are clicking on their own ads, with their end game being that the advertising network terminates their account.
Malice - Like the types of people who knowingly exploit and then email computer viruses, some will engage in click fraud not for financial benefit but simply to make a publisher or advertiser look bad for whatever reason.
Friendship - Sometimes when the friends and/or family of publishers learn that their friend's business profits when their ads are clicked on, they may decide to do so themselves, thinking that they are helping out. If they overdo it however, they can do more harm than good when the publisher is accused of being involved with click fraud and has their account closed.
While advertising networks endeavor to stop fraud by all such parties it's frequently challenging to know which clicks are real and which are not. Usually the best an advertising network can do is to identify what clicks are most likely fraudulent and not charge the account of the advertiser. - 2364
About the Author:
Before you commence any internet business, make sure you read Ron Cripps excellent articles on Web Promotion and creating a profitable internet business. Free reports and software downloads available.
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