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What is click fraud?

A simple definition of click fraud is: any click done in bad faith  - that is, any click where there is no intention by the clicker to purchase, browse or gain information from the website they visit.  Click fraud occurs If the only goal of a click is to either to drain your marketing budget or generate revenue from the click.

Click Fraud Examples

Click Fraud: A competitor knows you pay $5 per click, and clicks on your ad once each day or a few times per week, wasting thousands of dollars per year from your marketing budget.

Click Fraud: A web publisher has a friend (or a network of friends / partners) click on advertising on his site so he can make money.

Not Click Fraud: You see a new advertiser in your category and click the ad to learn more about them.

Click Fraud:  A competitor or publishers uses a piece of software to artificially generate clicks on your ads either to deplete your ad budget or make money for themselves.

Google and Overture recently gave their definitions of click fraud click here for details.