Click fraud

[4little1s]

Is there a way to somehow combat click fraud when you are using PPC campaigns ?

[robertt]

In theory the likes of Google police this themselves and then can recredit where they claw back dodgy behaviour.

The systems do lack transparency so it is hard to know exactly what goes on.

I would strongly suggest making sure your tracking from click all the way to sales completion is watertight so you can measure ROI and target away from non-productive clicks , which in turn would mean filtering out click waste which could be due to fraud.

[OldWelshGuy]

yep, I have tracking software that can tell me multiple clickers, referers etc, so I can identify not only rogue clicks, but rogue sites (in the content network). Just pull the data together fire it over to google, and they will refumd you in time).

[4little1s]

hi, can anyone recommend a software package to help with click fraud ?

[Ali-v-8]

hi, can anyone recommend a software package to help with click fraud ?

Did you just miss the last post.
OWG has just mentioned it.

[Idontbuy]

Did you just miss the last post.
OWG has just mentioned it.
Did he mention the name there?

[4little1s]

lol errr....sorry guys, I must be missing the plot somewhere (sorry)....whats the software that is getting recommended to help sort out click fraud here ?

[BoilerBoy]

I know someone who uses Doogle (doogleonduty.com) and rates it. You can also exclude your competitors IP addresses from seeing your ads, if you can find them, which is good practise for a number of reasons.

[4little1s]

thanks BoilerBoy

[F1SEO]

I know companies who use Who'sClickingWho -> http://www.whosclickingwho.com/

It somehow catches clicks from the same IP.

I know a few clients that have used it and found that it does work. Got a subscription on it though - still it might be useful if you suspect your competitors are clicking your ads and costing you a lot of useful cash.

[4little1s]

In Google, Webmaster tools there is an option to exclude IP addresses for Adwords. This sounds a great way to ensure my competition doesnt click on my Adwords advertising. However, how do I find out the IP address of my competitors in order to then exclude them ?

[Cruel Lady]

Um, well in Firefox, you just right-click a website's home page and use the 'info' thingy in the menu. I can't remember how to do it in Internet Explorer, as I only use this to check page appearance these days. However, in Windows, if you open a command line (under Accessories, Command Prompt) you can find it easily with the old Unix 'ping' command. Type in at the prompt/syntax:

ping hated-rivalsite.com

Then hit 'Enter' - the terminal will show you the current IP address of the website with the standard four 'pings'.

Bear in mind, however, that most folk don't have a fixed IP address - e.g. when I reset my modem on Virgin Broadband, it assigns me a different IP each time from a selection, so you may have to record a number of IP addresses for this to be effective against spiteful clickers.

Cru
x.

[NMHancock]

Um, well in Firefox, you just right-click a website's home page and use the 'info' thingy in the menu...
That wont work as it will just give you the websites IP address and not the IP address that your competitors use to access the Internet. To do that you need to check your log files, each users IP address will appear in that. If you know the pages/times of the day that they have accessed your site then their IP address should regularly appear in the log file lists.

Naturally this is easier if you do not have many visitors as they will stand out like a sore thumb, but if you have lots of visitors it may be more difficult.

Oh, you should probably find out your own IP address first so you do not mistake yourself for a competitor. Check your IP address here (http://whatismyipaddress.com)

Hope this helps,

Neil M Hancock

[4little1s]

hmmm..not as easy as I though then...I will give it a go thanks guys

[Cruel Lady]

Ahem - quite right. That'll teach me to post when I should've been in bed 2 hours ago :redface: