March 01, 2006
Click-fraud & the public Internet companies
Two recent Internet conferences (Majestic’s and Jupiter’s) highlighted the growing problem of click-fraud. Speakers described how companies are hiring other people to click repeatedly on pay-per-click ads from their competitors. But nobody mentioned that the problem is far more acute with public companies. In fact, individuals can directly impact the financial results of public companies without it costing them a penny.
Owners of ASKJ, FWHT, GOOG, MAMA, SHOP and YHOO stand to gain, while owners of AMZN, ECST, and OSTK should be worried.
What makes this particularly interesting is that despite its name,
click-fraud is not illegal, and there’s practically nothing the victims
can do to stop it. Here’s how this will play out:
Companies wishing to trash their private competitors can hire another company to repeatedly click on pay-per-click (PPC) ads. The competitor’s advertising expenses rise, but there’s no parallel rise in sales and profits. While this is sleazy, it’s not illegal.
But now let’s say you own stock in a search engine company - Ask Jeeves (ASKJ), FindWhat (FWHT), Google (GOOG), Mama.com (MAMA), Yahoo (YHOO) or Shopping.com (SHOP). You can boost the profitability of the company by repeatedly clicking on ads on those companies’ home pages, and by encouraging your friends to do the same. Click-fraud is boosting GOOG’s and YHOO’s revenues, but individual investors probably play little role in this. The companies have such large revenue streams that the impact of individuals clicking on ads to boost revenues has little proportionate impact.
But that’s not true of Shopping.com (SHOP). SHOP is a far smaller company, so a grass-roots campaign by SHOP shareholders to click on ads would have a dramatic impact on its revenues. Given SHOP’s extremely high gross margins, the impact on profits - and thus the share price - could also be large.
Posted by dj at 08:13 AM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2006
Google stock future because of Click Fraud & TV
How will Google's stock price hold up? Will Click Fraud hold it down?
Internet Outsider has his thoughts...
Also Did anyone catch the CNBC story on Google click fraud at about 7:30PM EST Jan. 10th, 2006?
Posted by dj at 09:24 AM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2006
Pornographers Turn to Click-Fraud
Sex sells but so does Click-Fraud.
Easy money for these fraudsters moving from porn now to Clickfraud.
Many 2nd/3rd tier search engines that have less regulation may have more of a problem. It's known that the more the syndication the more problems with click fraud.
We know for a fact that the porno site operators have a direct link to the databases of some of the pay-per-click advertising companies, Kessler asserted
eCommerceTimes
Posted by dj at 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
December 28, 2005
Click Fraud Seminar
Data Shaping Solutions - Market Strategies, Statistical Consulting
$895 before January 31st, 2006
$995 after January 31st, 2006
Seattle, February 24
San Francisco, March 10
Sponsored by AuthentiClick.net
Expensive but if you’re a big spender on Pay-Per-Click; I’m sure you would save a lot more money in the future and recoup that expense in no time.
Posted by dj at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
December 20, 2005
SOLD for $21 Million a Click Fraud Detection Firm
Think Partnership To Acquire Click Fraud Detection Firm
The deal calls for Think Partnership to pay $6.5 million in cash and $6.5 million in stock for Litmus. Earnout payments could push the value of the deal to $21 million.
Think Partnership CEO Gerard M. Jacobs stated, "This is an extremely significant acquisition for Think Partnership. Click fraud is a major problem for the advertising clients of the search engines and affiliate marketing networks. Click fraud currently is only dealt with after-the-fact, on an ad hoc complaints-made basis; it's a very unsatisfactory, expensive situation for advertisers. Litmus Media's technology changes the game dramatically. It identifies fraudulent clicks in real-time - 'in the clickstream', so to speak - and makes sure that advertisers aren't charged for those clicks. This gives advertisers a huge incentive to use Litmus' technology platform and to pay more for Litmus' pre-screened legitimate click stream. These higher advertiser payouts, in turn, are immensely attractive to website publishers who want to participate in Litmus' ValidClick Network. Both web publishers and advertisers profit from the technology, which explains why Litmus is so profitable and growing so rapidly."
Think Partership, with 11 operating companies including WebSourced, Inc, and KeywordRanking.com.
The Company expects Litmus to add more than $4 million of pre-tax income to the Company during 2006.
Posted by dj at 01:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2005
"You know what this sounds like don't you? It sounds like the mob,"
AIT Weaves Tales Of Click Fraud Networks
The sheer number of fraud networks that register websites only to display sponsored links that are mechanically clicked...AIT CEO Clarence Briggs
This what John Battelle calls "Type In" Traffic Markets.
Google calls it Content Network,
Yahoo calls it Affiliate Network,
and AIT calls it Click Fraud.
Does this add value to Advertisers, customers, or just search engines and Traffic Marketers?
Posted by dj at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2005
Look for click fraud to rise
iMedia Connection: The State of Search Today and Tomorrow
PPC continues to outpace traditional SEO. Look for click fraud to rise, as well as the proliferation of click fraud reconnaissance efforts. As long as the search engines aren't looking too closely at potential click fraud, companies are going to have to find it themselves. And why would the search engines look? Unless there's an obvious case, like maybe a couple thousand clicks coming from the same IP in India in one day, they don't mind taking your money. It wasn't very long ago that click fraud detection was a pretty obscure trend in search, but now a search of that phrase, in quotes, will yield nearly 40,000 results.
It's only going to get worse before it get's better....
Posted by dj at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
December 09, 2005
Goodwill Credit
Read Yahoo! Search Marketing's partial email regarding a credit because of possible Click Fraud.
After carefully analyzing the click trail for your account, our Loss Prevention Team has determined that there were no unqualified clicks.Although there were no unqualified clicks charged to this account, as a goodwill gesture, we are happy to provide for you a goodwill credit of $1,451.42.
How would you feel if you got this letter after submitting a request for a credit?
Goodwill Gesture, it might have felt more like a goodwill gesture if I didn't have to send several emails asking for it.
Posted by dj at 01:17 AM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2005
It's the biggest threat to its business model
A interesting conversation with David Vise current author of The Google Story.
David Gardner: We've talked a lot about Google's strengths. What is one thing that Google doesn't do well, in your mind?
David Vise: I think one of the things that Google struggles with is a lack of sensitivity, I would call it, to its weaknesses and an unwillingness to acknowledge that it has weaknesses. The biggest single Achilles' heel in Google's entire system is something called click fraud. Click fraud involves people clicking away on ads on Google, which puts money in Google's coffers and costs advertisers money. But if somebody is clicking away on that and they don't have any intention of buying a product or researching a product, they may be doing it just to harm the competition. Or if they're a website owner or publisher and they're carrying Google ads, they may be clicking on it because they get eighty cents of every dollar and Google gets twenty cents.
So Google approaches this problem from almost a completely technological and engineering vantage point in trying to solve it. It's the biggest threat to its business model.
Currently, Google's ads perform so well that marketers build in the cost of click fraud and just have an understanding that this is going to be an ongoing problem, but they all complain when I talk to them that Google doesn't do enough and Google doesn't do as much as it claims to do in fighting click fraud.
Posted by dj at 06:33 PM
November 30, 2005
Incidence of fraud is not as low as Google contends
A interesting story about Google.
The search engine powered by money - Technology - smh.com.au
Many advertisers and their agencies have a powerful love-hate relationship with Google. They find it a meaningful source of leads and sales, but Google has sometimes been hard to deal with. There is a growing sense that a significant number of clicks that advertisers pay for are fraudulent - made by competitors trying to deplete advertising budgets or by websites trying to bolster the revenue they get for displaying the ads. Google says it has technology to minimise "click fraud", but many think the incidence of fraud is not as low as Google contends.
Posted by dj at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Google Co-Founder and Click Fraud
Sergey Brin answers questions about Click Fraud - audio mp3 clip
Here is the transposed text of his answer.
Sergey Brin
In Conversation with John Battelle
Web 2.0 2005
Questions from the Crowd.
"So, we heard the other night from the stage, at least something that was very concerning to me, which was that Click Fraud from Google senior employee Click fraud is not a problem. Especially as it relates from the syndicated networks, from your prospective is Click Fraud a problem?
Sergey Brin's Answer
"Sorry to disappoint you but echo meets comments, it's something we have to work on certainly, and we spend a lot of effort detecting click fraud, eliminating it and so forth, but there is already a long list of protections from Click Fraud.
First, obviously we do have sort of Fraud Teams just like credit card companies they have there fraud detections things like that, occasionally people get a fraudulent charge but actually it's quite, quite rare.
Secondly, a lot of our advertisers, in fact most, even though in theory they are bidding per click or things like that, that's not actually what they care at all about. In fact they care about getting the conversions, making the sales. They have there own internal measurements which are very very precise and they know the exact ROI that they are getting. To them if there were a case of Click Fraud it would be no different then just sort of disinterested but not Fraudulent Clicks, they care about making the sales happen. And they know they happen, they measure them with ROI tools, most advertisers either use the one we provide or other third party ROI measurement tool.
The other issue you should understand is that the ad system is fairly complex. A side from all the fraud prevention measures, it's not necessarily so simple to negatively impact account based on Click Fraud, if you wanted to click on someone else ad site, we did notice that a few times, you would get a few more clicks but also increase there click through rate which would actually lose them the auction.
So there are some fairly complex effects there, that by no means completely protect people, and you're right, there are motivations especially by the syndication of partners and things like that.
But on the whole the combination of all these things and as I said the inherent all the click fraud fighting and the large team of people we have dedicated to it, I think it keeps it a very low level and the negative advertiser impact due to it is actually quite small."
Full Speech here
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail795.html
Posted by dj at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2005
Search Engine Develops Click-Fraud Tool
DMnews.com talks about a 3rd tier pay-per-click search engine SearchForIt.com that has developed a tool to help track and determine the probability of legitimate users clicking on pay-per-click ads. The product "Fraud Print" is currently only available to SearchForIt.com advertisers. They also mention that they are open to marketing the product to advertisers to use with other pay-per-click providers. They have stated that advertisers that have used this product have improved their return on investment.
It's known that second- and third-tier pay-per-click search engines have less traffic and more click fraud then 1st tier pay-per-click search engines. This is because a majority of their traffic comes from their affiliate/content partner networks and not their own search page. They partner because they don't have enough traffic to substantiate advertising only on the search pages. If they partner with just a couple of bad affiliate/content networks they may gain tons of fraudulent activity and of course more revenue. This in turn becomes a bad investment to advertisers and ultimately bad for the pay-per-click search engines.
Google and yahoo also say that they have technology that protects against click fraud. So how is this "Fraud Print" tool any different? They say they can capture a "fingerprint" of the computer that clicks on the ads. In any case this is a good way for SearchForIt.com to gain more advertisers. By opening up communications and making the advertiser feel like they are in charge and more knowledgeable of what is going on. Enabling the advertiser to track, optimize, and manage there advertising dollars efficiently.
Will they open "Fraud Print" to be able to track Google and Yahoo's pay-per-click advertising and will it identify robotic click fraud? Regardless, what advertisers really want is more clicks, sales, and signups. With more advertisers going online there needs to be good way of stopping click fraud and getting higher percentages of converting traffic. For this to happen they need more effective advertising inventory that gets a better return on investment.
DMNews.com
The online Newspaper of Record for Direct Marketers
Executives at a Canadian search engine are so intent on preventing click fraud that they developed their own fraud-prevention technology for their advertisers.
Click fraud is an elusive problem for advertisers, and even industry experts disagree on the extent of the problem. Studies estimate that click fraud accounts for anywhere from 10 percent to 30 percent of all clicks.
Search for It, Toronto, developed a proprietary technology, Fraud Print, that tracks the "fingerprint" of a user's computer when the user clicks on its advertisers' links and conducts a series of tests to determine the probability that the click is legitimate.
"The primary reason [it was developed] was to address the issue of increasing our traffic levels via external distribution channels while maintaining qualified clicks for our advertisers," said Eric Thaler, business development manager at Search for It.
Some advertisers have noticed a greater return on investment than before Fraud Print was implemented, Thaler said. The technology also benefits Search for It, he said, by "creating a situation in which our advertisers look to continue to replenish their account balance."
Though Fraud Print is used only within Search for It, executives are considering marketing it as a standalone product that advertisers could buy for all of their pay-per-click campaigns in the near future.
Christine Blank covers online marketing and advertising, including e-mail marketing and paid search, for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
Sept. 27, 2005
By: Christine Blank
Contributing Editor
cblank@dmnews.com
http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=34211
Posted by dj at 08:16 AM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2005
"click fraud is THE issue" states GOOGLE
Jeff Martin comments in both of his blogs about what Brian Devill from Google said at the Dallas/Fort Worth Search Engine Marketing Association monthly meeting.
...Google will openly work with and accept data from 3rd party providers and that they want to know anytime suspicious activity occurs in advertising campaigns.
... "click fraud is THE issue". The fact is that even advertisers that let Google directly manager their PPC campaigns (i.e. : Fortune 1000 companies) are very concerned that Google themselves is having difficulty in monitoring and detecting click fraud.
http://www.vericlix.com/2005/09/google-confirms-click-fraud-is-top.html
http://zen-sem.blogspot.com/2005/09/google-click-fraud-is-issue-for-our_22.html
http://www.dfwsem.org/agenda.html
Posted by dj at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
September 01, 2005
First Movers Advantage Tells about his Click Fraud
We are hosting this section of the web site as a courtesy to advertisers who may also be using, or considering, pay per click (PPC) advertising for their own web sites. We have very good experience with some PPC networks and very bad experience with others. The comments below are based on our experience at www.myezmove.com We must stress that none of the networks listed here have engaged directly in click fraud on their own. Instead, some networks fail to address the issue and allow unscrupulous web publishers to engage in click fraud via their networks. Enhance:We experienced click fraud from the start with this network. As a matter of fact, we could only find two possibly legitimate visitors from this source. Even then, the referring URLs were fakes, so we question the validity of those visitors. There are several illegitimate 'search engines' that carry ads from this network. These illegitimate sites engage in massive click fraud and Enhance fails to stop their fraudulent activity. Click here for more details on our experience with this PPC network. Our opinion: Stay away until Enhance cleans up its network.
ePilot:
We experienced click fraud from the start with this network. As a matter of fact, we could only find one possibly legitimate visitor from this source. There are several illegitimate 'search engines' that carry ads from this network. These illegitimate sites engage in massive click fraud and ePilot fails to stop their fraudulent activity. Click here for more details on our experience with this PPC network. Our opinion: Stay away until ePilot cleans up its network.
Google:
We are told that there may be a small percentage of fraudulent traffic coming through Google, but we have not been able to find any. We believe that Google is doing a good job of controlling click fraud. Our opinion: This is a high quality network.
Kanoodle:
We experienced click fraud from the start with this network. As a matter of fact, we could not find a single legitimate visitor from this source. There are several illegitimate 'search engines' that carry ads from this network. These illegitimate sites engage in massive click fraud and Kanoodle fails to stop their fraudulent activity. Click here for more details on our experience with this PPC network. Our opinion: Proceed with caution.
Follow-up: A representative from Kanoodle called to say that they wanted to keep my business and would work to make things right. He promised to change the traffic that was coming to my site. He was very friendly, so he will get that chance. We will post another follow-up after they make changes.
Follow-up (continued): Kanoodle gave me a credit for bad clicks and 'optimized' my account. I do not know what they did to 'optimize' the account, but we have the account in trial right now. We will post results as soon as we get them.
Lycos InSite:
We are not seeing any blatant click fraud from InSite. Of note, however, is that most of their traffic so far is referred to us by 'abcsearch', one of their network affiliates. This is interesting because we identified abcsearch as a possible fraud farm in other PPC networks. InSite appears to be able to filter out the fraudulent clicks from abcsearch -- the traffic we are getting appears to be legitimate. We will continue to monitor this network until we are convinced that the traffic is legitimate. Our Opinion: Proceed with caution.
Miva:
We are told that there may be a small percentage of fraudulent traffic coming through Miva, but we have not been able to find any. We believe that Miva is doing a good job of controlling click fraud. Our opinion: This is a high quality network.
Search123:
We experienced click fraud from the start with this network. As a matter of fact, we could not find a single legitimate visitor from this source. There are several illegitimate 'search engines' that carry ads from this network. These illegitimate sites engage in massive click fraud and Search123 fails to stop their fraudulent activity. Click here for more details on our experience with this PPC network. Our opinion: Stay away until Search123 cleans up its network.
•Yahoo!:
We are told that there may be a small percentage of fraudulent traffic coming through Yahoo!, but we have not been able to find any. We believe that Yahoo! is doing a good job of controlling click fraud. Our opinion: This is a high quality network.
http://www.firstmoversadvantage.com/click_fraud.php
Posted by Hans A. Koch at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)