undercover

Lab 10: Research Paper
Click Fraud
Click fraud is a type of fraud that occurs on the Internet in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script or computer program 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 of the ad 's link. Click fraud has recently emerged as a topic of discussion and debate regarding the potential of undermining the pay-per-click revenue model that has made Google and Yahoo the financial success that they are today. Search engine marketers believe that click fraud does occur and diminishes the success rate of many online marketing programs.

There are numerous reasons why someone will intentionally commit click fraud. In some cases, click fraud may be an isolated occurrence. In other cases, click fraud may be a malicious and well thought out systematic method of generating excessive and erroneous click activity. In other cases it may be a rival competitor who jealously has clicked on a top sponsored ad to visit your web site. Click fraud may easily go undetected if the number of clicks is not exceedingly high.

Click fraud is not a victimless crime. Victims of click fraud include the search engine marketer, the advertiser, the consumer, and ultimately the search engine or pay-per-click network. Search engine marketers who are victims of click fraud see their rate of return on marketing programs diminished by these activities. Customers have come to rely on sponsored listings to find what they are looking for on the web. Customers will find it more difficult to find what they are looking for on the web advertisers will stop spending and the search engines will suffer accordingly.

There are a variety of best practices, services and technologies available to identify and protect yourself against click fraud. If your listing appears on obscure web sites that seem irrelevant to you, you may be exposing yourself

References: https://www.adwatcher.com/is-click-fraud-a-problem.php http://community.shoppingcartelite.com/blog/how-to-detect-click-fraud-with-google-adwords-to-avoid http://www.spamlaws.com/how-ppc-fraud-works.html http://computer.howstuffworks.com/click-fraud.htm http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/finding-out-about-click-fraud.html