Shouldn’t this be illegal?

[rogercbryan]

I’m getting more and more frustrated every day as I see more and more companies popping up that pay people to click on ads. This is total BS! Do to competition in my industry I’m forced to pay between $5 and $12 per click on my advertising site. I’m forced to do this knowing that someone out there is paying people $.25 to click on my link. This is border line theft and/or fraud in my mind (I have no legal support for that).

How can companies like Google support these types of programs? I know there have been lawsuits in the past:

CNN.com - Search engines sued over 'pay-for-placement' - February 4, 2002

I can understand that there are some benefits to building traffic to your site from these companies but my budget can’t handle all these pay to click companies that are popping up! How do we stop them?

[mbolton2181]

Its against adsense policy to pay others to click on ads. If google finds out, through algorithyms and whatnot, then you get your account banned.

I got a warning email from google one time because I myself clicked on an ad (I was sincerely interested!) and haven't since.

[richrf]

Often, competition, will hire inexpensive, overseas labor, to click on ads, until the daily limit is reached. It is a very big problem with products like Adwords. I have no idea to what extent Google has been able to mitigate this problem. Maybe for its big customers it is able to do a reasonable job. For smaller ones, I think it is difficult to track down the abusers.

Rich

[EasyAutoSales]

There are services out there that can help you track if certain IP's are repeatedly clicking on your ads; but again, I'm sure they have gotten smarter about hiding their tracks.

Even though Google is putting a front saying they're working on the issue, the bottom line is: if Google is making money and if your overall ROI is positive, these things will probably continue.

[rogercbryan]

I talked to my Google Rep a bit ago and here is the e-mail that he sent me back- This is an FYI for anyone using Google Adwords...

Hi Roger,

It was my pleasure speaking with you today. It sounds like you're familiar
how Google AdWords works and would be interested in resuming advertising
with us if we can alleviate your concern about possible invalid clicks.
Below I will explain how we define, monitor, and filter invalid clicks
from your account so you don't have to pay for them. I have also included
how to run an Invalid Click Report so you can see how many clicks have
been filtered out of your various campaigns.

The security of AdWords advertisers is a top priority for Google, and we
dedicate a number of resources to click protection strategies. Google
strictly prohibits any method used to artificially generate invalid clicks
or page impressions and closely monitors traffic to Google AdWords ads to
prevent abuse.

I. Definition of Invalid Clicks

Invalid clicks may include the following:

- Manual clicks intended to increase your advertising costs or to increase
profits for website owners hosting your ads

- Clicks by automated tools, robots, or other deceptive software

- Extraneous clicks which provide no value to the advertiser, such as the
second click of a double-click

II. How Google Detects Invalid Clicks

We have a three-stage system for invalid click detection:

- Real-Time Filters: Our real-time systems filter out activity fitting a
profile of invalid behavior (such as excessively repetitive clicks). They
also discard clicks or impressions from known sources of invalid activity.
Various unique and innovative methods are applied in combination in each
stage of the filtering process, thereby maximizing proactive detection of
invalid activity. Our engineers are also constantly improving our
monitoring technology, enhancing filters, and examining a growing set of
signals.

- Offline Analysis: Our investigative team uses specialized algorithms,
tools and techniques to proactively examine instances of invalid clicks.

- Reactive Investigations: All advertiser inquiries are handled by a
member of our Click Quality Team, who reviews the advertiser's account
traffic.

III. How Google Responds to Invalid Clicks

Google actively implements the techniques described above in order to
combat invalid click activity. Clicks that we determine to be invalid are
automatically filtered from your reports. In addition, we apply the
following policies for the protection of AdWords advertisers:

- If our experts find that invalid clicks have escaped automatic
detection, you'll receive a credit for those clicks. Credits are labeled
'Adjustment - Click Quality'. You can view them by visiting your AdWords
account's 'My Account' tab, selecting the Billing Summary page, and
clicking the 'Advertising costs and adjustments' link.

- Any advertiser or publisher participating in invalid click activity or
any related offense is subject to legal prosecution. We will also take the
appropriate action on the related account and ensure that these
individuals are not allowed further participation in the Google Network.

For more information about our click monitoring system, please visit
https://adwords.google.com/support/b...ic=35&hl=en_US.

If you still suspect that your ads have received invalid clicks, visit
https://adwords.google.com/support/b...78390&hl=en_US for
instructions on how to contact our Click Quality Team.

INVALID CLICKS REPORT
Here's how you can run a report with invalid clicks data:

1. Sign in to your AdWords account.
2. Click on the 'Reports' tab and then on the 'Create Report' link.
3. For 'Report Type,' click on the radio button next to 'Campaign
Performance' or 'Account Performance.'
4. Choose your 'View' from among the available options (note that hourly
views are not available for invalid clicks reporting).
5. Select the 'Date Range' for your report by using the time span. Data
for invalid clicks reporting is available from January 1, 2006 onwards.
6. For Campaign Performance reports, select which campaigns to include by
choosing the radio button for 'All campaigns' or the radio button for
'Manually select from a list' ( to hand-pick your campaigns for
inclusion).
7. Within 'Advanced Settings,' click 'Add or Remove Columns.'
8. Check the column option boxes for 'Invalid Clicks' (for the number of
invalid clicks filtered during the reporting period), and / or for
'Invalid Clicks Rate' (for the percentage of clicks filtered out of your
total clicks during the reporting period).
9. Select any other data you want included in this report by clicking the
appropriate boxes and adding filters if desired. Note that reports with
data for invalid clicks can't include data for ad distribution.
10. Enter a unique 'Report Name' and check the box to save your settings
as a template if you want to re-use them in the future.
11. For 'Templates, Scheduling and Email,' schedule your report to run at
regular intervals if you want it automatically generated; provide an email
address for delivery if desired; and then choose your preferred report
delivery format (.csv, .csv for Excel, .tsv, .xml, or .html).
12. Click 'Create Report.'

Roger, please let me know if you have any further concerns.

Best,


Brian W.
The Google AdWords Team

[webgal]

Go in your stats program and follow some of the links that got the person there. If it's a link farm, it's probably 3rd world country clicking. I simply go in my adwords account and block those sites. Noy full proof. It's more prevalent for some products than others. Also look and see the ones who spent 0 seconds on your site or at a strange hour for your market to be active. It's time consuming but it saves money and I don't like to pay crooks.

Why are you paying $5 per click? For a google ad? If that's the case you need to group the keywords and start working harder on your campaign to bring down that cost. A client of mine was paying $400. After I finished my makeover, he was getting more clicks and it was around $225-$250 per month. So there are many things you can do bring down the cost.

You can do site targeted which is less likely to get bogus clicks.

SEO companies and some advertising companies on the net often inflate visitation to your site with 3rd world internet cafe clickers.

[rogercbryan]

Go in your stats program and follow some of the links that got the person there. If it's a link farm, it's probably 3rd world country clicking. I simply go in my adwords account and block those sites. Noy full proof. It's more prevalent for some products than others. Also look and see the ones who spent 0 seconds on your site or at a strange hour for your market to be active. It's time consuming but it saves money and I don't like to pay crooks.

Why are you paying $5 per click? For a google ad? If that's the case you need to group the keywords and start working harder on your campaign to bring down that cost. A client of mine was paying $400. After I finished my makeover, he was getting more clicks and it was around $225-$250 per month. So there are many things you can do bring down the cost.

You can do site targeted which is less likely to get bogus clicks.

Search Engine Optimization companies and some advertising companies on the net often inflate visitation to your site with 3rd world internet cafe clickers.

You would need to understand competition in my industry (vehicle donations). There are successful companies paying upwards of $22 per click on Google Adwords. This is what it is extremly important to protect against fake clicks. Other then that thank you for the info. I'm set to start advertising again in March so I'm trying be a little smarter this year.