Comments for Click Fraud Blog

Comment on Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads by Jbenet

Jbenet — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:08:14 +0000

I have been experimenting with FC ads 3 times now, and for certain Statcounter shows that I was billed TWICE for every incoming click from falsebook on my last campaign.

Just set up a new site, with google analytics AND statcounter, the site is getting zero organic traffic, and FB tells me 5 people clicked in, YET I have had zero visitors still…

So either google and statcounter are junk, or… my guess is that Facebook is running a scam, and maybe Ralph Nader should get his Consumer Reports to look into it.

Comment on Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads by Taavi Tiganik

Taavi Tiganik — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 21:49:06 +0000

I have reached this page for exact same reasons. I noticed that Google Analytic shows about 30% less visits that Facebook shows(and charges clicks). I also noticed that i still get visits from Facebook although my ads have been switched off. But the reason why i started testing it was that i had very similar problems with MySpace but they charged me TWICE as many clicks than tracking showed visits(i tried 3 different campaigns). MySpace so far has only responded that they can not comment on 3rd party tracking software. Would be interesting to hear what was the outcome your dispute Jesse?

Comment on Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads by Fernando

Fernando — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:28:39 +0000

Same issue here, just today, charged me for, 800+ clicks but my 2 site trackers reveals only 500 visits.

I am going to contact them for an explanation otherwise I will contact my credit card company.

Comment on Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads by Steve Barber

Steve Barber — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:39:26 +0000

For those of you who are running deliberately fraudulent ads, such as “make money typing for Google”, you are in fact being targeted by Facebook users. There is a network of us who are deliberately clicking on these ads repeatedly to drive up the fraud artists’ costs, thus hopefully putting these criminals out of business.

Comment on Case Study - Sometimes It Ain’t Click Fraud by Russell Taylor

Russell Taylor — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:39:12 +0000

“These clicks were perfectly valid, and internal grudges is not an acceptable reason for a refund from Google.” Fortunately in both US and UK Law Google is responsible for their employees action and because the Cost Per Click was amended without the customer’s authorisation then they are responsible for the bill and not the customer. Google would legally not be able to recover this amount from their customer regardless of their stated Terms and Conditions. There are already several exaples of case law I know about which sets precedence for this, and these are well documented for anyone willing to search leagal records.

Comment on Click Quality And Facebook Social Ads by Russell Taylor

Russell Taylor — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:07:50 +0000

I am having similar problems with what I consider to be click fraud. Google Analytics tells me that I am receiving around 30% less clicks and those that are coming my way are bouncing at a much higher rate than other traffic - referred and organic. The conversion rate is also much lower - around 1/2 that of organic traffic, so I think it is pretty clear that it is not legitimate traffic. I have yet to contact Facebook - I cannot even find their contact form on their site yet - but will post Facebook’s response.

Comment on Click Fraud - A Story of Intrigue by Richard

Richard — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:53:50 +0000

Great and informative article. I am in the U.S. and have a large e-com beauty site, and guess what?? They are back! I installed better tracking tags on my ads and sure enough on my Nextag ads there were a number of rapid successive clicks from RIPE in Amsterdam. Further investigation led me to this article and beyond to them. Nextag refuses to GEO-target my ads to U.S. only IP blocks. So they are going to lose a customer. Amazing that the fraud filters aren’t better at the CPC organizations. Or I guess their interests are really aligned with the crooks, aren’t they??

Comment on Click Fraud and The Presedential Race by admin

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:56:01 +0000

Sorry about that - I have now removed the link as the page seems to not be available any more.

Comment on Crusade Against Parked Domains by admin

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:51:25 +0000

By “you pay a premium for these clicks”, it was meant to suggest to advertisers, that they are paying the same whether the click was on Google (next to natural results) or from a parked domain. However, you can bid (max CPC or ‘cost per click’) separately on ‘content’ ads - meaning that if you feel content ads are worth less, then you can bid less. However, you can’t get stats (e.g. which words/phrases were clicked against) when content ads are clicked.

Comment on Click Fraud and The Presedential Race by Lee Bola

Lee Bola — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 04:54:44 +0000

Hi,
I cant seem to access the link?