Search Engine Optimization News Blog

All of us know the menace caused by click frauds that eat up the advertisers’ money and the search advertising company’s reputation. Major advertising company’s like Google is constantly taking efforts to curb this menace. Even recently, Google tied up with Click Forensics in as part of their efforts to handle abuse in this area. As per one of the latest reports there is some good news to the advertisers. The latest reports say that the fraud levels on Pay per click campaigns have come down by 0.2 percent in this quarter of 2008.

When Click Fraud Index calculated the fraud rate it was 16.2 percent in September 2008 whereas now it has come down to 16.2 percent. However, it is no good news when it comes to the issues caused by botnets in click fraud. They are on the rise and for that matter a steep rise. As per the previous report the rate of click fraud by botnets was 25.2 percent where us the latest report on the rate of click fraud shows an increase and it has gone up to 27.6 percent.

Interestingly, the major players of click frauds are not the Asian markets. It is France, UK and Russia that have the highest fraud rates. However, North America tops the list in its own right. As per the statement of Click Forensics, “The growth in click fraud traffic from botnets continues to rise and it should be one of the top areas advertisers and the industry should monitor closely”.

This gives Google and other major advertising companies something to tackle about. It is difficult to handle the enemy without identifying them first. Now that we have a specific area to tackle it might be rather relatively easier to tackle the problem. The reports of Click Forensics should be considered valuable by these advertising companies and advertisers alike. The advertising companies should take extra precautions and should spend enough on this area because once the advertisers get too unhappy with the fraud rate then even major advertising companies will lose business with the major advertisers looking for alternative and more effective means of advertising.

Click Fraud Index released the above statistics on Thursday and it collects the data from search providers, current trend and industries. Over three quarter of US markets PPC revenue comes from Google.

While North America topped the Click Fraud Index, Russia showed 4.9%, UK with 3.5% and France at 4.8%. Botnets whose fraud rates have increased are a collection of destructive codes that infect the users’ computers and their network without their awareness and make each computer they infect a click fraud factory. They also become the source of all spam mails. Botnets seem to escape most antivirus and malicious software removal tools. The burden falls on the shoulders of the advertising companies to monitor the illegal activity on their ad networks as it eats up the advertisers’ budget producing no positive results.