He didn't acknowledge any such thing.
It's called sarcasm, and I apologies it seems to dilute my point so I won't use it again.
Let me reiterate:
Firstly Google is not bad at picking up ad fraud, in fact they have better systems in place than most. Just do a quick Google for phrases like "google ad fraud prevention" and you'll quickly find that many authorities on the subject like Wordstream.com for example agree. Google is amazing at detecting many kinds of spam, the reason that they are the largest search engine in the world. They are able to keep their results in good shape despite black hatters trying to hack the system and rank organically for all kinds of spammy websites.
Secondly when we talk about ad fraud, it happens either on a large scale or a small scale. When it happens on a large scale it is much easier to identify (usually these appear as invalid clicks in your Google Ads account), so this is less likely to impact the average small business.
The case that I am saying is most likely is when it happens on a small scale, so if a competitor casually clicks on your ads at random times over a period in order to use up your ad budget. This scenario is much more likely than the large scale ad fraud mentioned before, and is the most likely situation to not be picked up by Google as invalid click activity (because the behavior seems more natural than if you tried this with a service or software).
Now in the case of this small scale ad fraud, it really sucks that it does use up your budget (and it's not a good thing). But a little known or thought of mechanic (even if it's a bit controversial) is that it improves your click through rate (% of times an ad is clicked on vs it appearing - just making sure you know - sorry I said I wouldn't but couldn't help it).
If you deny that a competitor clicking on your ads improves your click through rate then I understand why you're having an issue with this. The concept is that if a competitor performs a search, your ad appears and they click on it = higher % CTR - simple concept. This all happens under the assumption (again) that it is on a low volume and has a much more natural behavior pattern than a full scale black hat click fraud attack and so will not be picked up as click fraud.
Now we get to the second part of the logic: Click through rate is one of the highest contributing factors for improving your quality score. The reason for this is that if you user performs a search, and then clicks on your ad it gives Google a signal that your ad was relevant to their search. Relevance being the aim of the game from a search perspective, again something that greatly contributes to the success of Google as a search engine. This is very well known and documented, you really just have to search for anything to do with quality score and you will find loads of information.
Let's bring this home: If a competitor clicks on your ad, it results in a higher click through rate than if they did not click on your ad (again, at low volumes). If higher click through rate improves your quality score. Then bringing these two concepts together proves my point. Unless somehow I've missed something completely obvious...?
I mean how (assuming it is not picked up as click fraud) would it be possible for a competitor to click on your ad and up your CTR, but then have this disregarded by Google when trying to determine your quality score?
If you would like to explain where I've gone wrong, please do say. Also it doesn't help just dropping a one liner "you're wrong", it would be great if you could support your view with external information as I have.
I honestly thought that these forums were for learning, giving advice and discussions. Seems like they are more about opinion and speculation. I make a controversial but accurate point, then I get shot down because two of you disagree even though you've probably never even though about it longer than it took you to write your message.
