Ways to Identify and Tackle Click on Scams
Identifying and tracking examples of click fraud will be the initial step to eradicating the issue. Click scams is an enormous drain around the resources of advertisers operating on a national and international scale, estimated to occupy around 30% of all spend per click advertising investment. With so much at stake, its no wonder the search engines are investing so much time and effort into devising solutions.
One way in which Search Engines and other pay per click on programme providers have attempted to curb the growing click on scams issue is via introducing IP deal with repetition algorithms. These formulae are designed to pick up on suspicious click patterns emanating from a singular IP deal with, which can help to uncover the existence of click on farms and competitor-led sabotage, as well as identifying potential fraudsters at source.
However, there’s an array of issues with this method of attempting to identify the fraudsters. Firstly, fraudsters logging on through a dialup modem, DSL line or cable modem can nearly totally bypass this check, as with each and every new on-line session, a new IP address is generated. Furthermore, there is an extensive range of software obtainable to alter IP addresses, which again can be utilized for ‘cheating’ the algorithm. Cookie and session tracking are other techniques by which search engines can attempt to uncover potential fraudulent activity, but once more you will find ways around these for the fraudsters.
Much more comprehensive software is becoming created which profiles and reports around the browsing habits of every click-through to enable companies to track and monitor suspicious behavior, although this could be seen by several as intrusive and ineffective as anything on a small scale is still likely to go unnoticed, based on the vast coverage of ads across the internet.
The issue of click on scams recently hit the headlines with a class action raised against Google, prompting Google to offer $90million as a possible settlement. Perhaps an acceptance of their responsibilities, Google’s offer goes some way to suggest the extent of click scams, and its vast expenses to the internet economic system.
There are a number of self-help remedies that could be implemented to maintain an organization out of trouble. The first of these treatments is the reliance on search engine optimization and organic listings. If a site is well and fully optimized, it could eventually realize a ranking that another website is willing to pay $2.50 a click on for. Similarly, with organically high rankings there are no clickthrough rates, as a result the costs associated with PPC are not applicable. Although the process is significantly more laborious and takes significantly longer to see outcomes, the SEO process is much cheaper in the long run, and with an estimated 25-30% of all clicks being performed fraudulently, an organically high listing can save money which would otherwise be drained by click fraud for more beneficial reinvestment.
Yr on yr, as the pay per click marketing market continues to grow and expand, surely click scams will follow suit. Unless an effective means of preventing click fraud is developed and successfully implemented, buyers will steadily lose confidence in the advertising medium and turn to more efficient, less wasteful marketing methods, which would seriously hit the search engines and could potentially threaten the online economic system as a whole.