Archive for the ‘Features’ Category

Click Sentinel Click Fraud Solution

Saturday, February 16th, 2008

I thought I would bring this post back up from my archives, I thought Click Sentinel had dropped into the dead pool, and development had stopped, but it looks like click sentinel has risen from the ashes and a new version has been release, I look forward to seeing what they have to offer, and will bring you a full review when it arrives (note it was due for release in Jan 2008)

I came across a new product in the click fraud product portfolio called Click Sentinel.

It is one of the increasing number “community” click fraud products where data is collated from a number of advertisers to help gauge the real level of click fraud which we cannot get due to the lack of transparency from the search engines. I talk about this subject at greater length in my post Click Fraud Caring Sharing Few.

Click Sentinel is a javascript implementation of click fraud software.

I have not yet completed my review of the product but first impressions are a good product.

UPDATE: I have been using the tool and it is really good, but it looks like development has slowed and the promised IP address updates are not coming. This is a real pity, a community click fraud tools at this price is an excellent idea.

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What is Click Quality?

Monday, February 11th, 2008

I would like to lay down a definition as to what I think constitutes click quality.

In one short sentence, I would describe click quality as the factor which will turn a click into a conversion.  The lower the click quality , the less likely a conversion is going to happen.

A conversion is the end action for which the site was designed.  This can be a sale for an e-commerce enabled site, a sign-up to an e-mail subscription, a sales lead, or a click to another site for affiliate marketers.

What is a high quality click?

A high quality click comes from someone in your targeted region(s) who is motivated to buy your good or services.  This comes from a highly optimised campaign only displaying your ads in the locations and to the people who matter, this is the holy grail of PPC advertising.

Where are the low quality clicks from?

The low quality clicks from from a number of locations:

The conclusion to this post is very simple, reduce your low quality clicks as much as possible in increase your chances of conversion and increase your advertising return on investment.

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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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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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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 »

My Top 5 Posts of 2007

Monday, December 31st, 2007

Here are my top five posts of 2007 and reasons why. in a dramatic Oscar stylie, they are in reverse order:

5) Publisher Click Fraud - A Definition

I have written a lot of definition pieces for people new to click fraud. This one seems to be getting the most attention, and is usually at the top of my most read post list.

4) For the ClickBot Doubters

People are searching for details on how to program click bots, who says there is no click fraud problem.

3) Sick Blogging A Lister Commits Click Fraud

In the pro blogging community, Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net is probably the only A-List celebrity. I was able to gain a response to this tongue in cheek post from the man himself, the ability to add the hooded claw image from Penelope Pitstop was also a welcome bonus.
2) Operation Bot Roast

Not my most popular post, and not much content, but it was the one I enjoyed writing the most because of the last two lines. Sad I know but you need to get your enjoyment where you can,

1) Click Fraud - A Story of Intrigue

In this post I “out” a real incident of click fraud. It is the complete picture of detection, reparation request to refund. I still receive a huge amount of traffic for the site which originated teh publisher click fraud. I am sure the name of the site has been targnished when a search on their site name brings back an expose of the activity.

Lastly, my other favourite thing has been to collect satirical images for post, I hope you got the references.

Tags:
Posted in Features | No Comments »

What Is The Content Network?

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

I often talk about the problem of publisher click fraud from the content network, I thought it was worthwhile to write a short post explaining exactly what this network is.

The content network is a concept used by Google. The search engine giant syndicate Adword advertisments onto members of their content network through the Adsense programme.

Using adsense third party websites owners can add small pieces of code onto their site, and ads will be displayed. Google spiders the site to see what kind of content the site has and matches ads to this content, thereby having an in-context ad solution.

Google and the website owner then share the ad revenues. It is not know what the proportion of the share is, but it can be assumed that Google take the lion share.

The purpose of the content network is to increase the reach of adword ads. It is estimated that this enables Google to reach 80% of the Internet’s audience (Google’s own figures).

When you create an ad on the Adwords platform by default your ads are not displayed on the content network. You must explicitly opt into this program.

Content network clicks tend to be of a lower quality, meaning that fewer clicks convert into actual sales.

As a parting note, I always advise my clients to analyze their conversion rates from the content network. Do not use scatter gun approach, be selective and target sites you trust. Failure to do so will probably result in publisher click fraud attacks.

Tags:
Posted in Features | No Comments »

A Year in Click Fraud - 2007 Summary

Monday, December 24th, 2007

Merry Christmas to all the readers of Fraudulent Clicks. It has been about five months since the doors opened here at FC. I would like to spend a little bit of time reflecting on my first year in blogging and the plans I have for 2008.

A look back at 2007

In the first few formative months there has been much fussing with my theme and generally getting to grips with the blogging platform I use here namely Wordpress.

In the beginning this blog started as an experiment to see how people would take to the idea of a click fraud blog. I saw a bit of a niche I could capitalise on. People were writing about click fraud as part of wider PPC blogs or they were blogs tied to click fraud suppliers system and did not offer an independent view of the space.

I started using the free Blogger tool. Whilst it was adequate it did not give me the flexibility I wanted, also there is not the development and support of plugins and tools as there is for the wordpress platform.

I have built a substantial sized archive of posts, and I am ranking quite highly on the search engines for a number of key words. I am very happy with this development.

Whilst everyone else was grumbling about the last page rank update, I was quietly exstatic. Havin sat with a lowly no -page rank for a number of months I jumped to a massive 1.
Was it a success. Yes and no. People are saying good things about my blog, it is opening doors for me, but in a negative way, readership is not as high as I want, people are not engaging in the conversation via comments enough, sometimes it feels like no one is reading.

PremiumNews Theme

I have finally settled on my desired look and feel (or theme) for my site. It is a premium theme called PremiumNews, it was designed and distributed by Adii, the self proclaimed Wordpress Rockstar. This gives me the ability to run my blog like a magazine with news snippets, longer featured items, reviews and case studies (if I ever get any takers - see below).

Case Studies

I was completely underwhelmed by the silence of my request for case studies. I was honestly offering free click fraud case studies to my readers. It obvously came over as some sort of scam. As everyone knows TANSTAAFL (there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch). I will try again next year to get readers involved. The reason I am doing the case studies is to develop an archive of different types of click fraud attack to educate this blogs readership. This is not completely altruistic. The more readers, the more attractive I am to my advertising sponsors. That is my motive for case the studies.

LQ Register

I plan to do a lot more work on low quality clicks. Low quality clicks are visits which are highly unlikely to generate conversions. These come from MFAs, Adwords for domains or other sites which are completely legitimate but are working near the edge of syndicated ad rules.

I will be building a register of these low quality sites, and making it available to subscribers of this site so they can prevent their ads from being displayed

The idea is to allow people to add sites which are low quality to the register, these will of course be quality controlled to avoid abuse.

The list will be available for download to add to your ppc accounts and block your ads for being displayed by these type of sites.

I have trepidations at the moment that the list might be too long, but we will see. Please leave comments on this post if you are interested in the LQ register.

Blogging on Click Fraud Network

Towards the end of the year I was asked by Tom Cuthbert of Click Fraud Network (CFA) to develop the blog on their network. This is a big deal to me as there is a huge readership on the CFN but very little content production. I aim to create a steady stream of posts and develop a conversational feel.

What I get from the network is OPT (Other peoples traffic). I hope my exposure on CFN will drive traffic here.

Click Fraud Risk Assessment

I am developing an e-book which will go on sale early next year. It is a practical course on how to perform a risk assessment of your ppc campaigns. It is a DIY version of one part of my consultancy product. It will take the reader through the various types and forms of click fraud, how to assess their campaigns to decide if they are at a low or high risk of click fraud.

The other alternative is to set this up as a subscription on my blog. This would then create a more interactive audience and I can participate in the converstation to bring my expertise to the risk assesments. Please leave a comment on which you think is the best route.

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

That’s me for this year, finally I would like to say Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year to all my readers.

Neil Matthews

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Baselining - Bouce Rate

Thursday, December 20th, 2007

In a continuing series about base lining, I discuss Bounce Rate.

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is a metric which describes a users activity when they visit your site. If a person clicks though from an ad, or search engine result and immediately leaves your site, without looking at other pages, they have bounced. It is the aim of sites to have as low a bounce rate as possible. This means they are engaging with your content. A highly desirable thing for search engine marketers.

The Google Analytic Bounce Rate

As mentioned in Baselining to Protect Your Campaigns I suggested you should install and begin collecting data using Google analytics. This free tool collects and presents a large number of useful analytics.

The benefit of using Google Analytics is the fact that bounce rate is presented by default on the front page, and no complex analysis of time on site and depth of visit is required.

Why Baseline Bounce Rate

As mention bounce rate is an analysis of a users activity when you visit a site. The profile of a click fraudster is someone who will click through on your ad, and immediately leave.

This is especially true of bot activity and publisher click fraud where the main point is to click on as many ads as possible leave a site as soon as possible.

What to Baseline

You should be aware of your normal bounce rate. Mine is currently in the range of 43%. You should monitor and perhaps plot your bounce rate using analytics. If you see a sharp increase in bounce rate, this should make you ask questions. What have you done? Is there a change to your site? If not, and it is business as usual, you should start investigating your logs files in depth. I will discuss this in much more detail in another post in this series.

Caveat

Bounce rate should be used with other metrics to judge if your campaigns are at risk. The reason people are using click farms is to imitate a real user visiting your sites, clicking through to multiple pages, and perhaps adding a

Previous Posts In This Series

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