PPC Fraud, Google Stands to Lose Millions

Google stands to lose millions if fraud continues. It is only a matter of time before the current problem of click fraud implodes on Google.

You've seen them, there impossible to miss, glaring at you on virtually every page of your favorite website, those little blue boxes that webmasters have become so fond of, the infamous Google Ad's. Everyone wants to get in on the big bucks action. If you listen to the stories, Google is writing some impressive checks and the temptation will be just to much for the hackers. The target is so obvious.

You see, hackers don't care who benefits from their efforts as long as "the Man" suffers. For many years now the man has been Bill Gates and Microsoft. Hackers have done everything possible to disable his empire, creating virus after virus just to mess with him, even the US Government got into the act. Now the new giant on the block is Google and the hackers are drooling with anticipation. It is just a mater of time before some genius hacker figures out how to get a spider to do his dirty work and turns loose a new age type of virus, the "clicker bug."

Here is a quick overview; the search engine advertising market is currently almost $4 billion per year with fraud estimated somewhere in the 5-15% range. The majority of this fraud is done at the search engine listing page level and most is accomplished by hand. The object is to drive up the click counts of a targeted website to use up there budget and consequently disable there ad or better yet get the company (your competition) to remove them entirely.

Both Google and Yahoo/Overture acknowledge that the click fraud problem exists. Their in house experts claim that improved internal controls will prevent this problem from escalating. Their stated position seems to be that they are concerned about click fraud, but that it is not a material issue so far. Given how much they stand to lose if advertisers cut back on advertising spending, this cavalier attitude certainly is surprising. Industry research firm eMarketer expects $7.4 billion to be spent on search engine advertising by 2008. At the current fraud rates that amounts to $750 million, about three quarters of a billion dollars!

Now along comes the "clicker bug" and instead of attacking the case hardened, almost bullet proof, servers of the search engine giant, they crawl the internet and click indiscriminately on 3 or 4 ads per website every night. The clicks would appear harmless and the bugs effort will only generate revenues of $ .25 for the page owners. After all, the object is to take down the man not generate revenue for any given website. The search engines will be so busy guarding the vault against monsters they won't notice the ants walking away with the refrigerator, but multiply that quarter times the total number of websites available and in just a few days Google could be overwhelmed. The only way to stop it would be to encrypt every ad or employ pattern gif's like the "who is" pages do.

Grant it the technology is not quite there yet but hackers are some the industries brightest, if a bit deranged, programmers and they will figure it out. If I can think of it they can do it.

Michael Klasno is an Assisted SEO Marketing Specialist and CEO of Net Performance Group Inc. Net Performance specializes in fishing and outdoor website design and marketing. For more internet marketing articles by this author please visit: http://www.netperformancegroup.com/A rticles/articles.htm

---

Adlink Success - A New Advertising Style From Google Adsense

There is a new advertising style from Google Adsense that... Read More

Adsense Secrets

Pst! Wanna know some Adsense secrets? The only secret is... Read More

The Perils and Pitfalls of Pay-per-click Advertising

In this age of speed dialing, T1 lines and other... Read More

Per Click - Do They Know Something We Dont?

I have utilized pay-per-click (PPC) advertising since its inception about... Read More

Profit from Adsense with Adwords

Here's a feisty trick where you can profit from Adsense... Read More

Managing PPC Campaigns Inhouse

Pay-per-click search engine advertising has generated ample interest in the... Read More

How to Take Advantage of the New Google Adwords Changes

On Friday, July 15th all Google advertisers got the email... Read More

5 Ways How You Can Boost Your Google AdSense Earnings

Google AdSense is a great way for webmasters to monetize... Read More

Double Your Adsense Income in 60 Minutes

Google's Adsense is one of the most powerful weapons in... Read More

Targeting Usage Demographics to Increase Paid Search Conversions

During conversations with web business professionals about pay-per-click search engines,... Read More

Adsense-ble, Or The Art Of Promoting, Without Promoting

Hey, wait a minute. You can't have popups on the... Read More

Google Adsense, The Smart Way To Earn

Do you want to get paid for posting ads on... Read More

Adsense or Affiliate Programs?

As my sites get more and more search engine traffic,... Read More

AdWords Ads: To Syndicate or Not to Syndicate

When running ads on the AdWords network, one of the... Read More

A Smart Trick for Attracting Higher Paying AdSense Ads

There are no guarantees in life, so I don't guarantee... Read More

How to Make More Money from the Google Adsense Ads on Your Blog

Numerous bloggers these days are looking to earn extra cash... Read More

How to Double Your AdSense Income Instantly

As you probably already know, AdSense is revolutionizing the way... Read More

The Google Revolution

Google is probably one of the single most important revolutions... Read More

3 Strategies to Profit When Click Prices Increase (Part 1 of 3 Series)

Although the degree of increase varies among industry resources, a... Read More

Irresistible Click-Me Tools for Marketing

Never mind the irritating, but effective, pop-up window. There is... Read More

Broad, Phrase, Exact, Negative - Four Google AdWords Terms You Must Know for Advertising Success

A few days ago, I was setting up my latest... Read More

The Future of PPC Advertising

For those of you who haven't used a Pay Per... Read More

The Truth About Pay-Per-Click Ads

Are pay-per-click ads the best method of getting customers to... Read More

Choosing the Right Strategy for Your Online Business: Pay for Inclusion vs Pay per Click

Back in the old days of the Internet - in... Read More

PPC Fraud, Google Stands to Lose Millions

Google stands to lose millions if fraud continues. It is... Read More

How to Beat Your Rivals on Google AdWords

Google AdWords is a great tool for driving traffic to... Read More

The Effect Of Smart Pricing In Adsense

We constantly receive phone calls from clients, prospective clients and... Read More

Campaign Strategy for Paid Placement

Campaign strategy for Paid placement:A Paid Marketing campaigns provides immediate... Read More

Work At Home Business Tip - Test Everything

Dinner With Mark JoynerAbout 3 Years ago in Los Angeles... Read More

When AdSense Goes AWOL

No matter how hard you work to optimize your page,... Read More

How to Increase Your Adsense Revenue

If you're a webmaster, you've probably heard about Google's Adsense.... Read More

Is Click Fraud Really a Problem?

Click fraud is currently a major topic in online advertising.... Read More

Discover How to Create Ads Which Give Incredible Results!

Many people decide to spend a lot of money putting... Read More