

Report: Click fraud at record high (17.1% of all clicks) - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/27/report-click-fraud-at-record-high/

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aneesh
Wasn't there a YC startup ClickFacts that was tackling this problem? Anybody
know what they are upto?

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inovica
There must be ways for Google, Yahoo etc to tackle this but whenever we've
approached them its been a long drawn out process with us having to provide
significant proof. We stopped advertising on content networks in the end as it
made virtually no difference to our sales.

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dhimes
I contacted G once when I noticed that someone had clicked on about 8 pages in
a couple of seconds. I had a simple question: "did I pay for this click?" They
were unable or unwilling to answer. I've been suspicious since.

And I second your observation on content networks. It seems to be largely
without useful controls.

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jacquesm
google / yahoo probably make a good bit of their turnover from fraudulent
clicks. I would suspect it to be a bit more than the percentage quoted as
well...

If the actual number would be measurable somehow I would expect the bottom to
drop out of keyword advertising overnight. Those advertisers savvy enough to
do a/b testing on google adwords on google, the channel, both and none have
already found out that just advertising on adwords on google is a very large
portion of the conversion, it depends on the product whether or not it is
worth to go after the little bit of extra sales that can be had in 'the
channel'.

The lack of transparency at google is another very large part of the problem
here, if they would make public their 'take' and the percentage of fraudulent
clicks removed then that would do a lot of good for the market. Even if it
would probably hurt Google's bottom line.

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tocomment
Hi, dumb question, but how who benefits from click fraud?

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revelude
Wall Street Executives.

I mean, who else, right?

