Archive for January, 2008

Gaming EntreCard, Is It Click Fraud?

Monday, January 28th, 2008

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I have been using a new blogging service called EntreCard recently and was disturbed to notice a nefarious use of the service in my web logs.

EntreCard for those who have not used the service is the equivalent of a blogging business card service. Users who visit your site and see the entrecard logo can drop their own card to notify you of their presence, people can also advertise on your site. It is a bit difficult to explain, but there is an excellent introductory video is available on the EntreCard home page.

As people drop card they build up credit point to spend on advertising on other sites, here is where the problem occurs, if someone can play the system and rack up a huge number of clicks, which can then be tranfered advertising, the credits can also be transfered to other users for cash. If there is money involved for clicking on links, people are going to invent ways to speed up the system. The service I noticed comes from the URL http://ec.createlf.com/

Using this system, a user can sequentiually browse through enrecards and drop their own. It is a very easy way to speed through a large number of sites. Add a clickbot and someone has a bag load of credits for very little effort.

At the top of the article I ask is this click fraud, the answer is probably no, the users are dropping their cards as the system allows, but in my opinion, they are working very close to the edge of the rules.

I have contacted EntreCard and asked about details of their invalid click filters, I will post details here when they get back to me.

As you can see EntreCard is not on my sidebar, another fine idea kicked into touch by the get rich quick squad.

UPDATE

EntreCard were very quick to answer my queries and said:

Greetings,

The application in question, which eases the use of Entrecard browsing is currently allowed, because it still requires actual people to visit the sites to drop their card. This allows the blogger to catch the attention of the visitor, and turn them into a regular reader. The use of any program or application which drops your card for you, however, is not allowed. Invalid clicks are defined by our network as any card drop that does not not come from visiting a members actual blog and dropping through that member’s widget by personally clicking the “drop yours” text.

We have gear in place to detect scripted dropping and drop bots, though we do not go into detail as to how it works. When a user is caught automating the dropping procedure in some way, they are penalized by being fined more credits than they earned. Repeat offenders are deleted out of the network.

In addition, in order to earn credits from dropping cards, you need to have an active widget on a quality blog. If you don’t have an active widget, you do not earn credits from dropping. If you do have an active widget, but your blog is spammy or of poor quality, it is deleted from the network and thus you cannot earn credits.

In addition, members can only earn 300 credits per day through drops. This limit is in place to prevent any attempt at a large-scale system abuse. It is currently less than the amount to advertise on the most expensive blogs for a single day.

Finally, our own internal accounting system allows us to track down the origin and destination of any credits being sent through the system. If we were to uncover any sort of credit ring or operation geared towards farming credits illegally to sell them, we would shut it down, track down all their credits, and remove them from the system. So, if you are attempting to buy credits from someone, make sure you know who they are, and where the credits came from, because if the credits are “dirty”, they will be deleted.

So using a program such as the one found at ec.createlf.com is allowed. However, if you attempt to automate the system by scripting the dropping process, we will catch you (as we have caught others), penalize you, and track down and delete any credits that you may have sent to any other accounts.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

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Posted in News | 4 Comments »

How to stop click fraud

Monday, January 28th, 2008

This blog is all about the battle against click fraud and other low quality clicks, here are my top posts telling you how to stop click fraud.

They should act as an introduction to the subject of click fraud.

If you would like to keep up to date with developments in the click fraud arena, why not subscribe to this site for free via RSS or Email using the links at the top of this page.

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Posted in Features, How To | No Comments »

Publisher Click Fraud

Sunday, January 27th, 2008

In this post I am bringing together all of the articles I have written about publisher click fraud in one central place.

As additional articles are added, this resource will be updated. Please subscribe to this blog to be notified of updates as they happen.

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Posted in How To | 1 Comment »

Ask Click Fraud Settlement

Monday, January 21st, 2008

I mentioned in my post It’s Click Fraud Class Action Time Again that Ask.com were the subject of a class action suit over click fraud, it appears that a settlement has been reached and people are queuing up to get their snout in the settlement trough.

A settlement has been reached “out of court”, Ask are planning to give advertising credits to users of Ask/Ask Jeeves if you have they have paid for any advertising after Aug 1 2005.

I can hear the pop of the cork and the chink of champgange flutes in the law firms executive partenr lounge as yet another click fraud class action suit is settled.

If you wish to see details of the settlement or lodge a claim, then visit the settlement site:

http://www.asksettlement.com/

This time it is ask.com who is coughing up blood and laying their money before the conquering army in tribute.

I have real mixed feelings about class action suits against PPC companies. Firstly I think they should be brought to task about allowing click fraud to happen. If they had the appropriate filters in place and they worksed 100% of the time, there would be no need for such litigation.

On the flip side, I think class action suits are an invitation to a hog feed. Money is slopped into the trough and the greedy gobble up all they can.

In the end the problem is still there and the company is ever more secret and less transparent about the problem. Click fraud is pushed underground in case future suit are filed.

As a final note, it is my opinion, that the transparency problem we see from the search engines will exist as long as the litiganous nature of US and big corporations exist, I don’t think we will see transparency from the pay per click providers.

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Posted in News | No Comments »

What is Google’s Content Bid

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

I want to spend a few moments talking about a function in Adwords called content bidding and how it can be useful in the fight against click fraud.

What is it?

If you advertise on Google’s content network, the home of the nefarious publisher click fraudsters, you need to understand content bidding.

A content bid allows an advertiser to set a separate price for clicks coming from the content network as opposed to the search results page. Google already reduce the price of content network click from the content network due to their measured lack of quality clicks, but a content bid allows you to go a step further and set the price of a click coming from a syndicated ad site.

Why it is relevant in a click fraud content?

By limiting your costs per click from the content network, you are implementing a control which limits your publisher click fraud risk to a level you are comfortable with. As in all PPC advertising analysis of metrics is key. If you are getting very few conversions reduce your content bid and concentrate on other areas to publish your ads.

The lower the price per click the less attractive you are to a publisher click fraudster, and be sure they have metrics in place to see which ads and keywords generate the most revenue.

I would advise everyone advertising on the content network to investigate content bids and to drastically reduce the amount they pay for content clicks versus search result clicks as the quality of the content click is far lower.

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Posted in Features, How To | No Comments »

Click Fraud Haiku Game

Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

UPDATE: Just thought I would bring this one back from the archives for a second outing.

Submit your click fraud Haiku as a comment to this post, the standard haiku format is a triplet of lines containing five, seven, and five syllables per respective line.

Here is my effort

The click was not real
botnet targets my keyword
reparation now


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Posted in Features | 4 Comments »

Case Study Fraudulent Clicks on Fraudulent Clicks

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

I am kicking off my first case study by analysing my own campaign.

Site: www.fraudulent-clicks.com

This site is a blog commenting on developments in click fraud. It provides excellent free content on click fraud, but it also has a click fraud consultancy services aimed at SME business to check their exposure to click fraud.

Campaign Details

The site is advertising on Google adwords. The campaign is enabled to display on the search network, including extended search partners and the content network.

The campaign is targeted at all countries and has no time limitations.

Keywords

The keywords this campaign is bidding are on relatively expensive, the max cost per click is GBP 2.00, with the average cost per click of the most popular keyword being GBP 1.30

Content bidding has been enabled at 0.10. This is a very good thing to reduce the cost of content network bids.

Publisher Click Fraud

This site is exposed to publisher click fraud. This is due to the fact that there is advertising on the content network. This is increased by the fact this campaign does not

Competitor Click Fraud

As if they would dare, all of the competitors of this site work in the click fraud arena. Anyone caught committing click fraud from this business sector would loose all credibility so my assessment of competitor click fraud is very low.

At the time of investigation, the main competitors on the keywords in use were:

  • www.ClickTracks.com
  • www.HitsLink.com
  • www.ppcassurance.com
  • www.ValidClick.com
  • www.opentracker.net
  • www.MarkWelch.com

Whilst the above links are reputable companies it is a useful activity to know who your keywords competitors are.

Low Quality Clicks

There were a large number of clicks coming from low quality sites. None of these clicks converted into sales. The following low quality sites were identified

  • www.starware.com
  • ajay.arumugam.googlepages.com
  • www.crimes-of-persuasion.com
  • www.stotis.com/
  • www.goseek.com
  • www.figator.com

etc etc etc etc - that’s what I get for un-targeted content network advertising.

ClickBot Activity

No bot activity was identified.

Actual Click Fraud/Invalid Click Attacks

Five click fraud attacks were identified. All emanated from the content network. The sites create multiple clicks from the same IP addresses.

  • www.markcarey.com
  • www.runcartoon.com
  • www.starware.com
  • ajay.arumugam.googlepages.com
  • xeonxen.googlepages.com

It has not been ascertained if the Google filters captured these attacks, this will become evident once the data has been submitted for a refund request.

The data captured is shown at the bottom of this post.

Recommendations

1) Pass data of actual click fraud to Google for refund.

2) Prevent access to ads from low quality MFA sites using the Google site exclusion tool

3) Tightly target content network advertising. At present, a scatter gun approach to content network advertising is taken. It is recommended that a) content network advertising be stopped b) analyse sites which are related to SEO and internet marketing and attempt to place ads on these sites.

4) Geo-target more tightly. Ads are being shown in all countries including the The High Risk Countries

Misc. Information.

The data was captured using Adwatcher.

Case studies are a cut down version of my consultancy service.

Reparations

A refund request has been made to Google, as yet no reply has been received, I will update this post once details have been confirmed by Google.

Invalid Click Data

Suspect Sites

as.starware.com
ajay.arumugam.googlepages.com
www.markcarey.com
xeonxen.googlepages.com
www.runcartoon.com

===============================
IP ADDRESS: 92.80.65.234
===============================
Number Of Suspicious Clicks: 6
Time Of The First Click: January 5, 2008, 4:59 pm
Time Of The Last Click: January 5, 2008, 5:00 pm
Referring URL:
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?product=esearch&client_id=6D5A2A6001C83E5F00449000&src_id=406&version=4.5.6.0
&qry=http%3A%2F%2Fpagead2%2Egooglesyndication%2Ecom%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca%2Dpub
%2D8341831326880882%26dt%3D1199552367906%26lmt%3D1199552367
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?product=esearch&client_id=6D5A2A6001C83E5F00449000&src_id=406&version=4.5.6.0
&qry=http%3A%2F%2Fpagead2%2Egooglesyndication%2Ecom%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca
%2Dpub%2D8341831326880882%26dt%3D1199552367906%26lmt%3D1199552367
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?product=esearch&client_id=6D5A2A6001C83E5F00449000&src_id=406&version=4.5.6.0
&qry=http%3A%2F%2Fpagead2%2Egooglesyndication%2Ecom%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca
%2Dpub%2D8341831326880882%26dt%3D1199552367906%26lmt%3D1199552367
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?product=esearch&client_id=6D5A2A6001C83E5F00449000&src_id=406&version=4.5.6.0
&qry=http%3A%2F%2Fpagead2%2Egooglesyndication%2Ecom%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca
%2Dpub%2D8341831326880882%26dt%3D1199552367906%26lmt%3D1199552367
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?product=esearch&client_id=6D5A2A6001C83E5F00449000&src_id=406&version=4.5.6.0
&qry=http%3A%2F%2Fpagead2%2Egooglesyndication%2Ecom%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca
%2Dpub%2D8341831326880882%26dt%3D1199552367906%26lmt%3D1199552367
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?product=esearch&client_id=6D5A2A6001C83E5F00449000&src_id=406&version=4.5.6.0&
qry=http%3A%2F%2Fpagead2%2Egooglesyndication%2Ecom%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca
%2Dpub%2D8341831326880882%26dt%3D1199552367906%26lmt%3D1199552367

Keyword Query: adwords click fraud

===============================
IP ADDRESS: 122.164.155.237
===============================
Number Of Suspicious Clicks: 5
Time Of The First Click: January 6, 2008, 8:28 am
Time Of The Last Click: January 6, 2008, 9:52 am
Referring URL:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1646322936775491
&dt=1199608094343&lmt=1199608094&output=html&slotname=9089965093&correlator=1199608094343
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajay.arumugam.googlepages.com%2F&cc=100&ga_vid=1485927419.1199608094&g
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1646322936775491
&dt=1199610191702&lmt=1199610191&output=html&slotname=9089965093&correlator=1199610191702
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajay.arumugam.googlepages.com%2F&cc=100&ga_vid=383524832.1199610192&ga
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1646322936775491
&dt=1199612946202&lmt=1199612946&output=html&slotname=9089965093&correlator=1199612946202
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajay.arumugam.googlepages.com%2F&cc=100&ga_vid=1563449697.1199612946&g
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1646322936775491
&dt=1199613118015&lmt=1199613117&output=html&slotname=9089965093&correlator=1199613117984
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajay.arumugam.googlepages.com%2F&cc=100&ga_vid=1541846055.1199613118&g
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-1646322936775491
&dt=1199613118015&lmt=1199613117&output=html&slotname=9089965093&correlator=1199613117984
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fajay.arumugam.googlepages.com%2F&cc=100&ga_vid=1541846055.1199613118&g

Keyword Query: adwords click fraud

===============================
IP ADDRESS: 203.76.124.203
===============================
Number Of Suspicious Clicks: 4
Time Of The First Click: January 5, 2008, 4:25 pm
Time Of The Last Click: January 6, 2008, 6:54 am
Referring URL:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-0747454270379786
&dt=1199550311390&lmt=1199550311&output=html&slotname=6046326262&correlator=1199550311390
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fxeonxen.googlepages.com%2Fadsense&cc=100&ga_vid=179783591.1199550311&g
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-0747454270379786
&dt=1199550478593&lmt=1199550478&prev_slotnames=6046326262&output=html
&slotname=6046326262&correlator=1199550478593&url=http%3A%2F%2Fxeonxen.googlepages.com%2Fadsense&cc=100&ga_
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-0747454270379786
&dt=1199551046812&lmt=1199551046&prev_slotnames=6046326262&output=html
&slotname=6046326262&correlator=1199551046812
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fxeonxen.googlepages.com%2Fadsense&cc=100&ga_
http://as.starware.com/dp/search?x=wKX1ILEOi+V4Si9t41cPILeCDXZ2TTLyDmv5wv8hSuvVSqjOZNs
0qOhbKdGOpkZpFjPkKZuSPgLKRCmC67c0nJlCtcpiWSFGDKU0oubcW7XnpB4MBVgiqlB0zuo2YxD6K4A8zOP62Y3
OAYQj7NYUyFtdj+gVMunag5CH+4YBHqzRYYVifgU2fgHljitGRX7qUp1AcWEe43YUxZVv/9Gyqta//1dF

Keyword Query:
click fraud adsense
adwords click fraud

===============================
IP ADDRESS: 193.220.208.72
===============================
Number Of Suspicious Clicks: 6
Time Of The First Click: January 5, 2008, 6:05 am
Time Of The Last Click: January 5, 2008, 6:15 am
Referring URL:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-3176122997812369&
dt=1199513110656&lmt=1198405846&format=468×60_as&output=html&correlator=1199513110593
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.runcartoon.com%2Fdec_13_2007.htm&ad_type=text&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ru
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-3176122997812369&
dt=1199513278968&lmt=1199053679&format=468×60_as&output=html&correlator=1199513278890
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.runcartoon.com%2Fdec_20_2007.htm&ad_type=text&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ru
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-3176122997812369&
dt=1199513419890&lmt=1198405846&format=468×60_as&output=html&correlator=1199513419843
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.runcartoon.com%2Fdec_13_2007.htm&ad_type=text&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ru
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-3176122997812369&
dt=1199513536328&lmt=1198405836&format=468×60_as&output=html&correlator=1199513536265
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.runcartoon.com%2Fdec_19_2007.htm&ad_type=text&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ru
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-3176122997812369&
dt=1199513650515&lmt=1198405842&format=468×60_as&output=html&correlator=1199513650437
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.runcartoon.com%2Fdec_14_2007.htm&ad_type=text&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ru
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-3176122997812369&
dt=1199513716375&lmt=1196637327&format=468×60_as&output=html&correlator=1199513716312
&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.runcartoon.com%2Fnov_29_2007.htm&ad_type=text&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ru

Keyword Query: adwords click fraud

===============================
IP ADDRESS: 84.13.111.70
===============================
Number Of Suspicious Clicks: 4
Time Of The First Click: January 5, 2008, 5:22 pm
Time Of The Last Click: January 6, 2008, 3:39 pm
Referring URL: N/A
Keyword Query: {keyword}

===============================
IP ADDRESS: 41.233.45.194
===============================
Number Of Suspicious Clicks: 11
Time Of The First Click: January 4, 2008, 8:01 pm
Time Of The Last Click: January 4, 2008, 8:02 pm
Referring URL:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&d
t=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com
%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/ads?client=ca-pub-5115285947811955&
dt=1199476892883&lmt=1199476892&alternate_ad_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.markcarey.com%2Fgoogle_adsense_script.html
&format=120×600_as&output=html&correlator=1199476892821&channel=5372

Keyword Query: click fraud search engines

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Posted in Case Studies, Features | No Comments »

Click Bot Honey Pot

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

In an article from Infoworld, it came to my attention that security firms are opening up honey pots in an attempt to capture bot activity.

Honey pots are machines which are deliberately left unprotected in an attempt to attract the attention of bot herders. The nefarious net users infect the machines, and details of the new bots can be reverse engineered and solutions to the problems devised.

Full details of the story can be read the Infoworld site.Infoworld: Malware Honeypots to Relaunch in ‘08

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Posted in News | No Comments »

Google Takes A Stand Against MFA

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

Google has announced that it is lowering the landing page quality score for a number of differnt types of sites incuding “arbitrage sites”.

An Arbitrage site or a site with the sole intent of displaying ads can be translated into an MFA site.

Whilst MFA sites are not creating click fraud, the dubious practices used on many sites to entice a click are near the edge of the rules. I welcome the move by Google to reduce their quality score. What this means is that Google sets a handicap on the low quality sites in the keyword auction meaning MFA sites will have to pay more to get their clicks.

The announcement was made on the official Adwords blog full details of the anouncement can be seen at

Websites that may merit a low landing page quality score.

Tags: ,
Posted in News | 1 Comment »