Ways to Identify and Tackle Click Fraud

Ways to Identify and Tackle Click Fraud

Identifying and tracking examples of click fraud is the first step to eradicating the problem.  Click fraud is an enormous drain on the resources of advertisers operating on a national and international scale, estimated to occupy around 30% of all pay per click advertising spend.  With so much at stake, its no wonder the search engines are investing so much time and effort into devising solutions.

One way in which Search Engines and other pay per click programme providers have attempted to curb the growing click fraud problem is through introducing IP address repetition algorithms.  These formulae are designed to pick up on suspicious click patterns emanating from a singular IP address, which can help to uncover the existence of click farms and competitor-led sabotage, as well as identifying potential fraudsters at source.

However, there is an array of problems with this method of attempting to identify the fraudsters.  Firstly, fraudsters logging on through a dialup modem, DSL line or cable modem can almost completely bypass this check, as with every new online session, a new IP address is generated.  Furthermore, there is an extensive range of software available to alter IP addresses, which again can be used for 'cheating' the algorithm.  Cookie and session tracking are other methods by which search engines can attempt to uncover potential fraudulent activity, but again there are ways around these for the fraudsters.

More comprehensive software is being developed which profiles and reports on the browsing habits of each click-through to enable companies to track and monitor suspicious behavior, although this could be seen by many as intrusive and ineffective as anything on a small scale is still likely to go unnoticed, based on the vast coverage of ads across the internet.

The problem of click fraud recently hit the headlines with a class action raised against Google, prompting Google to offer $90million as a potential settlement.  Perhaps an acceptance of their responsibilities, Google's offer goes some way to suggest the extent of click fraud, and its vast costs to the internet economy.

There are a number of self-help remedies that can be implemented to keep an organization out of trouble.  The first of these remedies is the reliance on search engine optimization and organic listings.  If a site is well and fully optimized, it could eventually realize a ranking that another site is willing to pay $2.50 a click for.  Similarly, with organically high rankings there are no clickthrough rates, therefore the costs associated with PPC are not applicable.  Although the process is significantly more laborious and takes significantly longer to see results, the SEO process is much cheaper in the long run, and with an estimated 25-30% of all clicks being performed fraudulently, an organically high listing can save money which would otherwise be drained by click fraud for more beneficial reinvestment.

Year on year, as the pay per click advertising market continues to grow and expand, surely click fraud will follow suit.  Unless an effective means of preventing click fraud is developed and successfully implemented, buyers will steadily lose confidence in the advertising medium and turn to more effective, less wasteful marketing methods, which would seriously hit the search engines and could potentially threaten the online economy as a whole.

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Turning Traffic in to Adsense Traffic

Turning Traffic in to Adsense Traffic

If you've been running AdSense ads on your site for quite a while and you feel that you aren't making as much cash as you could, in 99.99% of cases you're right. Most people feel frustrated that they cannot generate the revenues they expected, and this is down to traffic levels as well as click through rates.

There are many ways to turn traffic into AdSense traffic and here is a short list of them with a description for each.

The first thing that you need to do is tune up your site's contents. While for some people this isn't an option (if you're running a forum for example it's a lot harder) most people can make their AdSense sites veritable cash cows.

To begin, you should find out what your site's keywords are. This is a basic technique in SEO (search engine optimization) known as keyword density verification. A good tool for this job is SEO Density Analizer.

You should then take this list of words and search the Overture Search Inventory or Google AdWords Sandbox to find out what other words could be doing better then what you currently have.

From that point on try to keep your site focused on the things that appear mostly in the keyword suggestions you receive. Try to include those keywords, or at least some related keywords as often as you can in the links on your site.

Because of the way Google AdSense works this is a sure way to increase your earnings because you'll get better ads in your AdSense banners, similar to how you would get a better Google PageRank

It's also important that you continuously add new pages to your site. This is very important, as the more pages you have, the higher the chance is that you'll get more hits on your ads.

It's also very important that you choose the appropriate formats for your AdSense banners and the best locations for them. While this is a much wider subject you should generally know that the top three Google AdSense formats are: 336x280 large rectangle 300x250 medium rectangle and 160x600 skyscraper.

Make sure you choose the appropriate colors for the ads, as making them too different from your site's content (or just different in a bad way) is sure to make visitors regard them as banners which have nothing to do with the site itself.

Make sure these ads are positioned where they'll generate the highest amount of profit. Most times, that location is said to be right before the beginning of your site's actual content.

On pages with a long text body, you might find skyscrapers to do better, simply because users get exposed to them for more time. Also, for sites with news or similar items, you might find a good position to be at the bottom of your content, because that's when people are finished reading your story and are looking for something else to do.

You should use more AdSense units if you have a lot of text on your page. Just make sure not to overdo it because you might find that you will get a lot lower CTR and lower revenues then you were getting in the first place by employing this technique inappropriately. You can add as many as three units, so use them wisely.

There's a Google AdSense Preview Tool that will let you visualize what ads would get served on your page and it can come in very handy as a testing mechanism.

Just make sure you respect the AdSense policy regarding click fraud. As a pointer you could place a picture next to your adds, just make sure to leave some room in between in order to make sure this isn't regarded as encouraging visitors to click the link.

Of course there are more ways to increase AdSense traffic from your site, but these should serve as a good starting point for income maximization.

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Top Paying Keywords

Top Paying Keywords

In people's search for higher incomes from Google AdSense a lot of AdSense publishers are looking to find those keywords that really bring the best income possible. The higher an advertiser pays for a keyword, they more the advertiser receives when they click on a link.

But how can you find such words for your site? Well, the answer to that question depends a little on who you are and what you're prepared to do to get those keywords. But the general good news is that you can indeed find such words if you need them.

Of course, if you can afford such a solution, one of the best ways of getting your hands on those words would be to pay for them. There are specialized companies that do business by finding people good keywords, not only for the purpose of more AdSense revenue but for search engine optimization as well.

Such a service can be found on "Top Paying Keywords" http://www.toppayingkeywords.com/?hop=moneymkr and this is a no-brainer to getting relevant content on your site and increasing your revenue by a whole bunch quickly.

Of course, if such a solution does not work for you, you can ultimately resort to a method of personal investigation. That means you try out keywords by yourself and see which ones work better or worse for yourself.

While you might also be doing this for the first method (paying someone else to get the keywords) it would probably be better then this because you'd at least be narrowing down search to certain items.

While you're trying this make sure to keep using AdSense's 'channels' feature along the way as it can be a very good way of letting you know which sections of your site are generating income and which aren't.

Of course, you can also yield a great amount of help from AdSense's arch enemy Overture. Overture gives you the possibility of entering keywords and finding out not only how much advertisers are paying to get them on your page, but how much people are clicking on the words as well. This service can be found at: http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/

You can also try out a tool called Word Tracker http://jeremyburns.com/a/wordtracker. What this tool can do is tell you how many sites are already using the same keywords. Learn from this lesson and don't try to use the words that a lot of people are already using.

Also, a great aid may very well be found in Google itself. Search Google for any keywords you may wish to include in your pages and look at the results. The results on the left will probably be your competitors (and if they have Google AdSense ads on their page you can bet then are) while the links on the right display ads relevant to your search.

If your search doesn't yield any AdSense results then you might want to reconsider including those keywords in your site.

Make sure you don't use any dead words (words that don't get any links on AdSense other then public ads. That is probably the most important thing you should be doing.

Of course these are only a few methods of getting out of the dead zone and starting to make serious money with AdSense. If you've seen a lot of people with "not so hot" websites generating a lot of AdSense revenue, using these tips can get you right behind them (or in front if you're really smart) very fast. Although this is the case it is also very important to remember that having the highest paying words does not mean that you make the most money. You have to also consider how many times the advert is clicked on.

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Tools for Adsense

Tools for Adsense

If you're just boarding on the AdSense train, and looking to find a quick way to make the profits you've seen all being pulled of all over the Internet, you might be interested in a couple of tools.

These software tools are designed to aid AdSense publishers in getting a better understanding on how traffic flows through their site. Some will help you in understanding which keywords gain you more money and which locations give you the best AdSense payment.

One of the best such tools available is AdSense Gold (http://www.profitbooks.com/go/astracker) which allows you to have a better understanding of which ads and formats actually get more clicks and which are useful or nearly useless.

This program works by tracking views and clicks on all the publisher's pages. It even goes as far as offering you the possibility to see which referrer each visitor came in through.

There's a free tool called SynSense (http://www.singerscreations.com/RSS/Posts/235.asp) which is more of an AdSense monitoring tool. This sits in the tray and offers actualized AdSense stats as you hover your mouse over its icon. It's a very nice tool for those which like to be informed on how their AdSense is doing at all times of the day.

Google provides you with stats in a csv format on their site. So someone made a tool that can automatically download such files and extract a lot of information from them. The name of this tool is CSV AdStats and it is available from http://www.nix.fr/en/csvadstats.aspx?q=download

It has a large number of features, including the possibility to highly customize reported stats, exporting data and charts to other formats. It's in French but the language can very easily be changed to English.

Of course any tool can only access these stats as often as 15 minutes but the authors are well aware of that fact and none of these tools will get you in trouble with Google because of that.

If, however, you're browsing content most of the time, and your tool of choice is the Firefox Internet browser, there's an extension for this program that allows you to view the stats in your status bar.

Again, this software is aware of Google's 15 minute rule and enforces its usage, 15 minutes being the minimum time between updates.  The Google AdSense notifier for Firefox can be obtained from http://code.mincus.com/?p=3

There is also a program called Golden Keywords out there that helps you in getting the best keywords for your site. It's really efficient and very easy to use. It does come with a price tag though, it costs $49.95 and it can be obtained from http://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=8616-2

So as you can see, software developers are making more and more programs meant to help you in your quest to maximize your AdSense profits. But before you go out looking for them remember that Google has a few features of its own as well.

It does offer some reports (albeit a bit more limited) and using the 'channels' feature is a good way of finding out which ads on your site are really bringing in most of the revenue.

Be on the look out as new tools appear daily and make sure to invest time in your site, as that is the real key in success with AdSense.

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The Future of Google Adsense

The Future of Google Adsense

There are many ideas springing up concerning what AdSense will look like in the future and how the system will change as opposed to what it is now.

Firstly, it's clear that targeting algorithms will become even better and more powerful then they are now. This has clearly been seen with the Google search engine itself over the last few years and it should be of no surprise as this happens with AdSense. Advertisers will appear in more appropriate results and those advertisers who manipulate their content to allow high paying keywords to appear may struggle to do this unless it is actually appropriate to their content.

Another thing which is bound to happen is more protection for AdWords advertisers concerning click fraud. Google acknowledges this to be a very key issue that it needs to address as quickly as possible and there's no doubt it will happen as fast as possible. At the moment those who have high levels of traffic, can easily disguise IP addresses and increase CTR ( Click Through Rate).

Google is always keen on improving its products and this has been seen before in AdSense. The search engine company has introduced site-targeted AdSense CPM, "smart pricing" and domain blocking and there will probably be improvements that have already been added by other similar sites.

One such example is the option for the advertiser to have more control over where the content is being displayed. This could mean blocking your site from displaying on several addresses that host AdSense banners.

Another idea that has been advanced is that Google will integrate AdSense in other forms of media like newspapers or television and so on. While this might seem to be more on the science-fiction side of the facts there's no indication that this might not happen.

Google have access to an international array of over 150,000 advertisers of whom may choose to penetrate offline markets in different countries. With Google’s strong network of advertisers, they may choose to appoint or allow offline distributors to create a format for Adwords advertising in content, in search and now offline.

More options could be implemented for AdSense publishers, allowing them to specify keywords of their own. While Google has been reluctant of this there's no indication that this will not happen in the future.

Also, a lot of people are demanding a clear specification of the pricing policy of AdSense. Google has given no indication of why this isn't public information but at this moment it seems highly unlikely that such information will ever be present on Google AdSense.

Another feature that could find itself into AdSense would be letting website publishers see which links are generating clicks on their website and based on what keywords they arrive there.

This could end up being a major issue that could threaten the entire system as it could perhaps encourage more adsense only websites as profits become more transparent. A lot of people may make AdSense-only sites, designed just for making profits through AdSense.

While this is already happening today, it might be foolish of Google to put such tools in the hands of its publishers.

However, one thing that could happen is a way for users to fix their issues with low AdSense generated income on their site. This could be done through an on-line wizard or something similar that would make suggestions to website owners based on their contents.

But the major buzzword of the day is RSS. The possibility of sending targeted ads directly to users without requiring any navigation on their behalf is becoming a reality with RSS. And there are clear signs that Google isn't going to let such an opportunity pass by.

This is what "interactive television" and similar items have been trying to do for quite some time now. But the Internet would be a much better medium for this, because there are no mediums quite as interactive as the Internet.

But in the end, this is mostly speculation and we are bound to have Google surprising us with new features we would have never thought of.

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The Disadvantages of Adsense

The Disadvantages of Adsense

As adsense becomes the most popular publisher program for Price per Click advertising, flaws and disadvantages still exist. Since its inception advertisers have chosen to advertise in search because they felt that visitors would be less targeted. This is a genuine concern and one that makes perfect sense. If you are visiting a website, and notice an advert then the chances are you are not particularly concentrating on its content.

Adsense has also become so popular that people can distinguish them from other adverts. Therefore people may choose to ignore them without even paying them a thought. This has been a hot topic discussed by Bloggers and one that could contain a lot of truth. Many have blamed Google for this, and their decision to include text that says “ads by Google” beneath the advert.

Many publishers also fail to ever gain the revenues they anticipated when starting the program. Those only gaining 30 – 40 visitors a day to their website would be unlikely to earn even one dollar a day. Many advertisers talk of rates such as 1.5%- 5% for traffic to click conversion, whilst only gaining around $0.10 per click. The maths doesn’t work out great, but you can hardly blame advertisers or Google if you are not bringing enough traffic. The key is to bring targeted traffic to your website that are likely to click on adverts, however it is said that it may be easier on other programs which allow figures such as 75% share of advertising revenues for publishers.

Another disadvantage in adsense is that it has almost become tacky. Its appearance on websites that generally appear to be designed in a DIY fashion has lead people to associate them inextricably. This can only be tackled through adsense evolving to be more attractive to the bigger brands, whilst those who currently use adsense are restricted.

Google Adsense also has to tackle the issue of click fraud which is anticipated to count for over 15% of click through rate in content. This has meant that advertiser’s who have been particularly affected, have moved away to other programs or have restricted their advertising to search.

This has meant that there is less competition in content and therefore smaller revenues for publishers. Publisher’s who previously had high yielding ads, are now having to alter their content to ensure they get any adverts at all. This has largely been the fault of the publishers themselves however the issue is one that; if not addressed could bring adsense to its knees.

Google Adsense also has the disadvantage of not paying enough for their search program. Other similar programs pay higher rates, and if publishers decide to go elsewhere then problems will occur for advertisers and publishers alike. Although Google fail to pay enough for search another major problem with Adsense is that it does not have a powerful database of graphic adverts. Many advertisers prefer showing graphically drive advertisements, however this has yet to materialise. As several other programs exist for PPC graphic distribution problems could occur.

Whilst this may not be a problem for all publishers, many complain that the adverts within their site do not change, so their repeat visitors fail to see fresh adverts so therefore fail to visit them. This is a problem which could be addressed through making adverts rotate. However if adverts rotate then how will that be linked with advertisers paying a rate per click? These are all problems which Google has to address to ensure that Adsense remains the market leader.

Adwords on the other hand also has major advantages, and remains the best in the market. It’s CPC rates can be chosen by the advertisers so that even when they feel that they are not getting the results they expect they can lower their prices whilst still using the service.

Whilst many issues remain with adsense the program still remains the most popular amongst publishers, whilst Google Adwords remains the most popular amongst advertisers; with a database of over 140,000 Adwords will remain on top for the time to come.

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The Advantages of Adsense For Search

The Advantages of Adsense For Search

Adsense for search provides publishers with the opportunity to provide a search tool through their website. The search tool provides results which contain adwords adverts, and therefore publishers can generate revenues.

The effectiveness of this tool for publishers comes in its functionality for website visitors. Those who have browsed resources on a website may return to Google to complete a search. If this resource is contained within a website they are currently on, then they are likely to use the publisher’s website for search, and therefore the publisher can receive returns.

Publishers often claim that having a search tool within their website is a good way to generate Adsense revenues without the concern of diminishing their brand. In the way that a company who sells a product would not want a rival provider having an adsense advert within their website, they will not feel that this disadvantage is relevant. The advantages of adsense for search also lies in the space that it occupies on screen. The results are displayed on a separate page, so publishers do not feel that they are sacrificing space where Adsense would previously appear.

The tool may also lead to visitors selecting the given website as their homepage. If the website contains relevant resources, and still has the functionality associated with Google then the website has broader general appeal. Those who are visiting the website for the first time, and realising it will not satisfy their needs may still use the websites search function.

Adsense publishers often state that they receive less per Click Through with Search.  Although this is the case surfers are more likely to be targeted towards adverts than with Google Adsense. If a visitor has have changed the item or topic they wish to search for, and isn’t compelled by the adverts; they can still find what they are looking for as the publisher earns a percentage.

It is also a good tool as publishers can allow their site to be searched using the same technology. Therefore surfers are more likely to also find the resources within the publisher’s website that they require.

Google has a lesser database of advertisers for Adsense through the selectiveness of advertisers. The search toolbar provides results which include advertisers that do not want to appear in Adsense for content.

Google for search is also used by large market leading websites where this is rare with adsense. Companies who provide a service or sell a product are more regularly opting to incorporate the search toolbar into their website whilst not feeling that it depreciates their brand.

In fact; many businesses actually feel as though their brand is strengthened through it’s alignment with the Google logo. Other’s who choose not to use the Google logo, may benefit from the customers assumption that the search technology used belongs to the website they are on, and therefore further benefits are reaped by the publisher.

As adsense is plagued with click fraud, the same is less likely to happen with search. Click Fraud would require the person or persons committing the crime to follow realistic searches, and to avoid any suspicious behaviour. This could be particularly hard, and with less revenue per click those committing click fraud are likely to stay away from search all together. 

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