March 2nd, 2007 by James Omdahl
Pop-quiz hot shots - true or false - Only 0.02% of Google Clicks are Invalid
Well, Google says the answer is true - and they are feeling pretty confidant that their AdWords anti-fraud countermeasures are working quite well. Based on a post at the Inside AdWords blog, Google says that an external audit showed that 10% of AdWords’ clicks are invalid - but after filtering out the clicks that advertisers aren’t charged for, advertisers only experience a 0.02% invalid-chargeable click rate.
I am a little skeptical about this one…mainly because the 0.02% represents the invalid clicks they found through investigations of click fraud that was initiated by advertisers. As we all know, most advertisers write off fraudulent clicks on Google as a cost of doing business, so I think a lot more than 0.02% of charged clicks are invalid.
Also, while many clicks are not “invalid” to Google, they may still be very low quality and generally worthless to advertisers. More specifically, I am thinking about the clicks that come through the content network. (And if they are anything like Yahoo!, on the search network too.)
On the proactive end of things, MarketingPilgrim reports Google will start to allow advertisers specify IP addresses to block from seeing their ads. Google will also be rolling out a number of tools that will hopefully provide a bit more transparency when it comes to invalid clicks. I applaud Google for realizing that being transparent in this area is a good thing, and hopefully they will work closely with advertisers to improve their fraud detection and prevention.
But back to that 0.02%…am I being overly paranoid? Do you believe that only 0.02% of the clicks you are being charged for are invalid? Let me know, I’m curious to hear your thoughts…
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March 2nd, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I understand your scepticism. After four years of dealing with search engines in general I dont have much trust in them left. They have their business model and I have mine, and as you say, “most advertisers write off fraudulent clicks on [search engines] as a cost of doing business”.
But I know of only three sources of “false” clicks:
- users coming back to click on an ad repeatedly because they are too lazy to bookmark the page - thats not really fraudulent, albeit expensive for the advertiser.
- site owners clicking on their own content advertising ads to generate revenue for themselves - this is why I dont use content advertising, and so I dont have these clicks.
- competitors that click on my ad to increase my advertising costs - this is a real problem, but perhaps some of the major search engines have algorithms that let them detect this behavior and prevent it?
If you disable content advertising you may reduce “click fraud” to a very low number with the major search engines. With content advertising active, you typically get more - and often a lot more - than 25% false clicks.
In my experience, a search engine claiming a click fraud rate of 0.02% is simply telling lies straight in your face.
(… and all this without once having to use the “G” word - impressive, eh?)
March 4th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Entirely agree. Google SEARCH has really that low fraud, but google content is like providing 98% of fraud clicks
Though Google Search Bids are RATHER HIGH. Couple of clicks will cost you $100 but if your business model is proper, it will bring you at least $200.
Good Luck to al of you Guys.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Thanks for the comments Magnus and Mark. Very impressed by your “G” restraint Magnus
A follow up question for anyone who wants to chime in…it sounds like Google is going to let advertisers decide which sites their ads display on through the AdWords interface. Will you be more likely to use content match if you can select the sites your will be displayed on, or do you think it will be too much work for what it will be worth?