helping prevent adwords click fraud?

[ryan4444]

What is the best way to help prevent your competitors clicking on your ads until they have rinsed the daily budget then don't appear!

 

[Normansmith]

Not possible, although Google do monitor if it becomes a problem and you report it. But you would have to spend a small fortune for them to get into gear and do anything There are other sources to use that have less of a problem, but not as much traffic.

 

[ryan4444]

Not possible, although Google do monitor if it becomes a problem and you report it. But you would have to spend a small fortune for them to get into gear and do anything There are other sources to use that have less of a problem, but not as much traffic.

what sources?

 

[directmarketingadvice]

What is the best way to help prevent your competitors clicking on your ads until they have rinsed the daily budget then don't appear!

You can use your weblogs to see what the IP addresses are and then block dodgy IPs. (Assuming they're clicking from the same IPs.)

Personally, I think that people spend way too much time worrying about this for a couple of reasons:

(1) Click fraud on the search network is relatively rare (down to a small number of jackasses who are failing in business and think their time is best spent trying to undermine their competitors).

(2) Adwords is closer to pay per impression than pay per click. If people do click your ads, they're increasing your ctr and, therefore, your quality score while (if they're also advertising) lowering their own.

Steve

 

[ryan4444]

Thank you, makes sense!

I did notice when i did a geographical search thing (thats the technical way of saying i cant remember how i did the search!!) that £80 the vast majority of my clicks were from Birmingham but with no enquiries from anyone in birmingham so i will now put birmingham in my negative words and make sure ads dont appear in birmingham any more! I have plenty of other areas to choose!

 

[JohnnyCash]

Thank you, makes sense!

I did notice when i did a geographical search thing (thats the technical way of saying i cant remember how i did the search!!) that £80 the vast majority of my clicks were from Birmingham but with no enquiries from anyone in birmingham so i will now put birmingham in my negative words and make sure ads dont appear in birmingham any more! I have plenty of other areas to choose!

Putting Birmingham in your negative words list won't stop people from Birmingham seeing or clicking your ads. It'll only stop the ads showing if people actually use "Birmingham" in the search phrase.

 

[Normansmith]

what sources?

Yahoo, Bing, Adbrite, Facebook...

 

[MASSEY]

Thank you, makes sense!

I did notice when i did a geographical search thing (thats the technical way of saying i cant remember how i did the search!!) that £80 the vast majority of my clicks were from Birmingham but with no enquiries from anyone in birmingham so i will now put birmingham in my negative words and make sure ads dont appear in birmingham any more! I have plenty of other areas to choose!

Do you mean they searched for Service + Birmingham or just the word Birmingham.

You have to be carful i burnt at least £100 of my own money playing around learning a little bit.

If you make sure your ads only appear on the google searches themself and have a well thought out negative keyword list then you can get targetted traffic and waste very little.

 

[clairejarrett]

There is a tool called Adwatcher that allows you to track click fraud, as you divert visitors through their site, so they check IPs for you.

Having said that - I have seen Google charge just once for 10 clicks from the same person - so I have proof that Google does filter out fraudulent clicks.

 

[ryan4444]

Yahoo, Bing, Adbrite, Facebook...

I have just googled adbrite and am none the wiser even after reading their really short about us page- what is it!

 

[DesignerNick]

It is abit like Adsense / Adwords Content

 

[ryan4444]

It is abit like Adsense / Adwords Content

sorry being a bit slow what do you mean by adwords content?

 

[DesignerNick]

You know so you appear on other sites rather than on Google Searches?

 

[ryan4444]

You know so you appear on other sites rather than on Google Searches?

oh so its the same as display network in adwords?

 

[ScottBaxter]

Hi Ryan,

I have a simple php script which instantly emails you telling you the visitors ip address and where they have come from. let me know if you want a copy

One other thing - sign up to 'who's on' it's like an online chat app and you can then messagemthe visitor and say 'Stop costing me money' or you could get more aggressive!

 

[gordano]

An interesting thread. I have been looking into this since also noticing that some adwords are getting a well above average click through - it is nothing to do with ad copy/relevance, it appears the some adwords are being targeted by competitors.

I have been searching online and there are a few products out there that offer some help ... although I have not yet tried them. These services seem to work by identifying IP addresses of those clicking and reporting any suspicious pattenrs, e.g. if a given IP address is clicking on your ads each week it is suspicious. It seems you can then block this IP in your adwords account.

I have not tried this out yet but it seems a good solution. Service providers found so far are:
whosclickingwho
search-doctor
clickprotector
adwatcher
... there seems to be quite a few

Has anyone tried these services?

 

[ryan4444]

trouble is if you have a motivated competitor he can get a new ip address by re booting modem so im told