The History Of Click FraudThe internet has always had people who are prepared to break the law to make a quick buck, and the area of online advertising is no exception. Click fraud has been around for as long as pay per click advertising, and each time the advertising networks take steps to guard against the crime, new methods emerge. Original Click Fraud Originally, click fraud was a very simple act. The search engines didn't really have a framework in place to monitor or stop fraud, so it seemed the easiest thing in the world to click on adverts on your own website and make money. This type of click fraud was very widespread in the early days, but for the most part it was also low level - a webmaster would click on his own links once a day, for example. Although this is still a problem, it doesn't turn into the massive issue that can be created when someone perpetrates click fraud on a massive scale. As criminals started to increase the scale of the click fraud, it became clear that the advertising networks and search engines had to do something about it. Large companies like Google and Yahoo devoted part of their resources to developing algorithms that would identify click fraud so as to negate it. Of course, the fraudsters evolved their own methods to find ways around the algorithms. Court Cases The seriousness of the crime was made clear when Google sued a company called Auction Experts International in 2004. This made a statement to all the fraudsters - if you are caught, you will be punished. Having made a big step forward with their new Bing search engine, Microsoft are also getting involved in the legal side of click fraud, having filed a case against a family earlier this year. Ad Trackers Although ad trackers are a fairly recent addition to the click fraud story, they have a major part to play. Good ad tracking software with click fraud protection can monitor clicks through PPC tracking, and make a note of any suspicious activity. This allows the advertisers to play an active role in the act of watching for click fraud, and empowers them with the knowledge they need to make complaints to advertising networks if necessary. What Can We Learn From Click Fraud History? Regrettably, the history of click fraud tells us that the problem of click fraud will most likely never be completely solved. Every time a new method was developed to combat click fraud, the fraudsters found a way around it. The problem is that it is very hard to tell exactly what is going on in the head of the user clicking on the advert, and therefore each click is given the "benefit of the doubt" as a default position. While it may never be possible to eradicate click fraud, it is certainly possible to protect against it, and the history of click fraud tells us something else: by pro-actively fighting against the crime, we can protect ourselves better. |
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| AdWatcher | 9.3 |
| HitsLink | 6.4 |
| HyperTracker | 6.4 |
| WhosClickingWho | 6.4 |
| DynaTracker | 6.2 |
| ConversionRuler | 6.3 |
| AdTrackz | 5.9 |
| AdMinder | 5.1 |
| ROIWiz | 5 |
| ClickAlyzer | 1.6 |
| ProAnalyzer | 0 |
