Ask a web marketer about their key tool they suggest for instant growth in their web-traffic and conversion, the answer will always be PPC (Pay per click), though, some exceptions will always be there. And, PPC is quite popular among marketers irrespective of their industry size or orientation.
But, Whenever a business, no matter in which domain is regarded, there’s always a possibility of holding a list of contestants or competitors who are always on a lookout for chances to destruct the another. Some obey the ethical practices, some prefer the dishonest medians to sabotage their market competitors.
Unethical practices concerning PPC (Pay-per-click)
There’s a terminology used by PPC service provider, and no term is more ‘hateful’ or offends someone in the associated with PPC more than this term “Click-fraud”. This is an unethical practice employed by the those who don’t dwell by rules.
What is Click Fraud- The Elaboration
As we know, even if we have very basic knowledge about PPC, PPC is a tool that charges the advertiser according to the number of clicks on the ad which is generally at the top of the search result, if the particularly associated keyword is searched.
Popular search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo are the host who provide PPC services to the web marketers or advertisers. PPC is an effective tool to bring quick and instant traffic to a particular website.
Taking an example, I am an advertiser promoting my newly established SEO service provider company. I set up a PPC account with Google. Now, if anyone searches for the word ‘SEO services’, this is what he/she will get as the result.
The search result which says, Affordable SEO services-Guaranteed Page #1 Ranking is the advertiser who has opted for PPC.
Now, let’s say I am his competitor and to degrade his budget, I click on the link for more than 100 times which would be enough to drag my competitor into a loss. If he has a CPC (Cost per click) the amount he’s paying per click to Google is $50 – $60, he would be closing within a week if he continues with the PPC and I continue to do the clicks.
How do they do it?
Either a competitor will hire a specialist who obviously is a pro in this field. Or he can get bots to do the job. Web-bots are especially designed to target a specific keyword and click on it multiple times. So, if your PPC ad is targeting SEO services, the competitor will design the bot to target the same keyword. And, a few clicks every day without any conversion will lead to a huge loss.
How to prevent ‘click fraud’?
Google has established a robust anti-click fraud program, employing their own team of experts to detect the fraud and save the advertiser from loss. The team uses advanced algorithms to detect fraud, and conduct offline analysis to eliminate any clicks they deem invalid based on,
- IP address
- Click timestamp
- Action timestamp
- User agent
Also, there are companies in the market which provide anti-click fraud services.