Credit: Avolore

Online marketers are quite familiar with the idea of click fraud. Let’s face it. When you are in a highly competitive market, there are going to be competitors who will do anything and everything to bring you down. Google discourages click fraud and does its best to catch clicks that are generated fraudulently. But who are we kidding? It’s almost impossible to catch all clicks that are generated by your competitors. Has Amazon been able to stop fake reviews so far? Yes. That’s a very different issue. But people seem to leave negative feedback for competitors’ books all the time, and Amazon does not have an easy way to remove those reviews. With Google, the problem is a bit different. After all, there is really no foolproof way to stop click fraud. Your best bet is for the fraudsters to be stupid enough to give their scheme away.

What’s surprising about click fraud is how it is perceived by most folks. People seem to be OK with clicking on ads for the fun of it. Of course, online marketers know the rules. But the average individual does not view these paid ads as they need to be perceived. If you are not interested in purchasing something from someone or finding more information about something, you should not click on those ads. They are not there to be clicked if you are not interested. It’s not a game.

I remember from this past presidential election in the U.S. that some were encouraging their supporters to click on the other party’s ads to empty their budget and make them spend more money. That seems to be still happening around the world.

Credit: www.marketingpilgrim.com

Of course, this is done for fun and all. But the practice is still going on. That’s the problem with pay per click advertising. Don’t get me wrong. Google does its best to track and compensate advertisers who are victims of click fraud. But how can you stop click fraud completely?

I have seen many companies that write off click fraud and don’t pay too much attention to it. If you have a limited budget, your click fraud costs may not be that high. But what if your competitors manage to empty your daily budget and make you disappear from the results? That can have more affect on your business than just losing a bit of money. The consumer needs to be more educated about the advertising model used on Google and Yahoo. Don’t search for websites and click on ads when you can use the organic results. Don’t click on ads for fun when people are paying for them. Don’t encourage others to click on other people’s ads for no reason. Sure. There may be no easy way to catch this, but it’s not exactly ethical.