Flashback to 3-years ago – Click Fraud and IP exclusion Still Important

As one of my many new year’s resolutions I was doing some house cleaning on my sites and stumbled upon this post I wrote back in 2007 about Google’s IP Exclusion tool. I think it’s a topic that needs to be revisited. I’ve seen consistent increase in competition and CPC’s across my client base for…

Google Releases Clickbot Clickfraud Study

According to Google Clickbot.A is the name of a botnet that Google’s Click Quality and Security Teams investigated last year. Using our findings, we published “The Anatomy of Clickbot.A” – a detailed case study on botnet-based click fraud for the benefit of the technical research community. Clickbot.A is an example of a botnet operator attempting…

Google invites advertisers to enjoy some more click fraud

According to Google’s AdWords Team, there is a new BETA for advertisers wanting to test cost-per-click site-targeted campaigns. The new BETA will help advertisers with increased flexibility. If you are site targeting it allows advetisers to choosing the bidding option of most interest. In addition, it will be possible to create new CPC campaigns and…

BusinessWeek: The Vanishing Click-Fraud Case

BusinessWeek.com has a nice follow up to the forgotten click-fraud case that pitted Google versus a click-fraud extortionist. To make a long story short, back in 2004, a guy named Michael Anthony Bradley rolled up to Google, showcased his click-fraud program dubbed “Google Clique.” Showing off his program that could generate millions of false clicks…

Google Finally Pays Up

Reports are going around that people are finally receiving their checks from the click fraud settlement a few months back. There is a webmasterworld thread about it here but for the lazy folks, here is what people are saying ” Got my $6.45 wohhooo! headed to McDonalds for a Big Mac on google. “ ”…

Click Fraud on the Rise

Greg Sterling points out this press release by Click Forensics that documents the rise of click fraud. According to Click Forensics Google and Yahoo are better at weeding out click fraud than smaller Web sites, but Click Forensics still concluded both companies are being hard hit. About 12.8 percent of the clicks on ads served…