The PPC fraudster has no intent of buying or using your products or services.
In simpler terms, someone clicks through to your website that has no intention or interest in your product whatsoever. You're paying for useless clicks.
With the advent of Pay Per Click affiliate programs like Google Adsense - pay per click fraud is an ever-increasing problem and is starting to cost some advertisers serious money.
Why does this happen?
Well there are 3 reasons:
1) Simple Mistakes - This isn't probably the major reason for ppc fraud but it does happen occasionally. Maybe someone wanted to click on the ad above yours but accidentally clicked on your ad. You can't do much about this but then again, it's probably pretty rare.
2) Competitors - It's unfortunate but true - Success breeds jealousy (and host of other non-positive attributes!).
There are rumors floating around that sometimes companies will click on competitor ads just to drive the keyword price up. Although you probably won't run into this as much if you're a smaller business or website, larger businesses could be targets of this.
3) Website owners - People who joined Google AdSense or other pay per click affiliate programs sometimes click on the ads on their own web site to make a little money - not much mind you but it can add up.
Regardless of why PPC click fraud happens - it is a nasty threat that you can cut into your profits.
"But don't the Pay per click search engines monitor this type of thing?"
Good question. The answer is not as well as you might think. They say they do. But think about it - they're still getting paid, regardless of whether the click is fraudulent or not. So their incentive to monitor ppc fraud isn't the greatest.
Plus the search engines can't tell if someone is clicking across multiple search engines in order to hide their fraud. The responsibility to monitor ppc fraud really falls to the website owner or company.
So what can you do?
If you're a large company or even a smaller company that suspects click fraud there are a number of anti clickfraud services on the net that track and pinpoint click fraud. Two of the best are:
Anti-click-fraud services can capture the clicker's IP address and geographical location, date and time of click, keyword clicked on and more.
The system tells you which keywords are getting clicked most and detects sudden click spikes from one or more IP addresses. They can also keep IP address histories and alert you to prior offenders.
In short, they alert you to pay per click fraud on your websites. For example, Who's Clicking Who can monitor ppc fraud across ALL of the pay per click search engines, even many that most people have never heard of - and then alert you to this so you can stop it (and stop paying for fraudulent clicks).
If you can't afford these services or have a smaller website and don't mind losing a bit to click fraud, there is one small step you can take:
In your pay per click search engine, choose the option that only shows your ads in search engine results - not on other targeted websites (also called 'contextual advertising'). This might deter fraudulent clicks a bit, however you also might be losing out on some legitimate targeted traffic.
Pay per click fraud shouldn't deter you from having a pay per click campaign. The majority of clicks are from real customers and PPC search engines can still drive LOTS of targeted, ready-to-buy traffic to your website. Just be aware of it and do what you can to monitor your clicks as much as possible.
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Was this article helpful? This article on Pay Per Click Fraud is one of several articles to be found in our Pay Per Click Tips Section
