Click Fraud is one of the most serious issues effecting both Google Adwords and Google Adsense. SEO Click Fraud is also evident on other search engines like Yahoo, MSN. The issue of Click Fraud is giving sleepless nights to several companies who spend thousands of dollars on their online marketing.

What is exactly meant by Adsense/Adwords Click Fraud?

SEO Click Fraud is more like a hallucination . Website owners get an impression that they are receiving legitimate clicks through Adsense/Adwords. However, the story is completely different.

SEO Click Fraud is more like a fake click for which a particular company has to pay to Google or Yahoo. This fake click is not generated by legitimate customer/client. If you log into your analytic section you will clearly observe a clicks which never got converted into lead. The bigger problem than click fraud is incapability of search engines to detect click fraud.

How can I detect Adsense/Adwords Click Fraud?

Click Fraud can be detected through advanced click statistics. If your target location is US, UK, and you are receiving certain clicks (even 20-50%) from countries such as Syria and Botswana, then it is a sure indication of click fraud.

There is a huge pool of marketing techies who have mastered this art of click fraud. Normally they create a network of users who make profits by clicking on ads. There might be hundreds or even thousands of people who do just nothing, but click on sites. Google and Yahoo have been trying hard to cut-down click fraud, but it is virtually impossible for them to nullify click fraud. It is estimated that 10% to 15% of all clicks are fake, and 300-500 million dollars of advertising budget gets exhausted each year into click fraud.

However, there are various benchmark tests which you can follow to detect fake clicks. These are as given below:-

1) If you observe a unusual click trend or CTR (Click Through Rate) in your adwords account, then it could be an indication of click fraud. You should manually monitor your adwords account to detect click fraud.

In case you observe a sudden increase in no. of clicks within a short timeframe of 15-30 minutes during a day, then it could an indication of unusual click trend. Moreover if none of those clicks actually convert into lead, then it could be an indication of click fraud.

2) You are receiving 5000-15000 clicks from adsense, but none of those clicks actually get converted into lead. Moreover, if you observe sudden drop in conversion rates, then it could be an indication of click fraud.

3) If you observe your Google analytic section, you will clearly come to know how many pages were visited by a particular user. Moreover you will get to see how many minutes that particular user stayed on your website. If you observe 1 page visit/ 0 minutes stay, then it could be an indication of click fraud.

4) Normally fake clicks originate from 1 or 2 particular locations (depending upon your competitors/industry). If you observe a regular pattern of several clicks from one geo location, but none of those actually converting into lead,

then it could be an indication of click fraud. You should keep tabs on clicks from suspicious or untraceable I.P addresses.

There are business sectors like online gaming, seo marketing, website development where click fraud is really high. Click Fraud is also evident in other business fields.

5) Use advance tracking codes to keep tabs on your online visitors. Google analytic coding is fine, but you can also use some other effective and efficient track codes. You can also use conversion tracking codes to detect clicks which

are converting into leads/sales. This conversion tracking is available within Google adwords account.

6) Click Fraud detection should be a part of your PPC Marketing policy. You should keep close watch on issues like click fraud.

What should I do, if I detect click fraud issues within my adsense, adwords/ppc account?

a) You should make sure that you are targeting right set of keywords for right

set of audience.

PPC Tip 1 : If you are only selling pizza , then do not target keywords related to Pop-Corns . It is as simple as that.

Targeting wrong keywords will always result in lower conversion rates and higher clicks.

b) Use advanced online tracking codes from google analytics or some other. You should keep a close watch on your daily/hourly stats, if you observe any unusual click behaviour.

c) Target specific cities/locations, rather than targeting whole country. This will lower click fraud to a great extent. If you are a lawyer who is based in New York, then concentrate on regions nearby New York rather than whole US (since you know that 90% of your potential clients will be from regions around New York).

Who could be behind Click Fraud of my company’s website. I got kicked out of my seo job last month since conversion ratios suddenly dropped in the last few months.

SEO Click Fraud could be triggered by your company’s competitor, competitors of your hired marketing company, or any other. This type of click fraud is even harder to monitor since you are unable to trace the real culprits. Click Fraud could be triggered by any of the following:-

1. Competitors of adword advertisers: Their sole intention is to harm a competitor who is “unluckily” advertising within the same niche market. These culprits will click on their competitors PPC ads. The real objective of these perpetrators is to force advertiser to pay for invalid or irrelevant clicks thus weakening or reducing a source of competition.

2. Competitors of adsense publishers: These persons may wish to frame an online website which generates revenue through adsense and other banner advertising. It is made to look like the website owner is clicking on its own ads to make profits. The advertising network may then terminate the relationship with that particular website. Many online websites and publishers rely exclusively on revenue from advertising and can be put out of business by Click Fraud.

3. Other malicious intentions :

There are several people who wish to cause harm to either an advertiser or a publisher. These people do not have any financial motives. Their motive could be political or personal rivalry.

4. Unintentional Click Fraud:

Sometimes your fan, family member or a personal friend will click on your online ads to help you generate more profit. However this action can backfire where the publisher has to face the brunt of click fraud by their advertisers.

We are sure that addressing these issues will help you lower click fraud to a great extent. Every coin has two sides, and this rule is applicable to PPC too. However, you can minimize fake clicks by following instructions given in this article.

Everyone knows how important it is to get your website ranked near the top results on Google. However, not everyone knows the importance of selecting right keywords. Every single business owner who wants to select best set of keywords either goes to Google Keyword Research Tool or any other similar keyword research tool such as word-tracker.

However, there are various parameters which are not explained in Keyword Research Tool. Take for example, there is one particular keyword “ABC Services”. Now this ABC services are offered by 1000 websites all across USA. Each of these website owners want to get their website ranked near the top results of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

These website owners will keep optimizing their websites for top results until one day they realize that they are not generating enough queries/sales as they had expected. What are the reasons behind this low turnout of traffic/sales? Several of these questions pop-up in the mind of business owners. In the end, they feel like SEO optimization/marketing has lost its sheen. However, the truth is that these clients started-off with right set of keywords, but instead these keywords did not churn-out the level of traffic/sales they were expecting.

There are several reasons behind this unexpected behavior for few keywords. Some of the reasons are listed below:-

a) Inaccurate Keyword Research Data - Keyword Research Tool will show you traffic (Global Monthly Search) for keywords which are being searched by (1) Search Engine Users as well as (2) Marketing Companies which keep a close watch on rankings for those particular keywords. Marketing firms keep a close watch on the rankings of their client’s websites for their specific keywords.

b) Domain Knowledge - Most of the Marketing companies spend little time understanding the business they are promoting. Domain knowledge is the key to success when you are planning to market your business. Your client might be a novice in SEO, but he/she posses a level of domain knowledge which will help you select best set of keywords.

c) Local Traffic Data - Most of the keyword research tools do not give any information on the traffic emerging from one particular area/region/state. Take for example, if you are planning to optimize your website for keywords specific to New York search engine users, then you wont get this localized search data anywhere.

What are the best options available?

a) Try PPC - PPC or Pay Per Click can help you see and experience real-time traffic stats and conversions. You can immediately start picking up right keywords and can easily omit keywords which do not live upto your expections after 1-2 Months. Once you are sure about the keywords, only then you should start the actual SEO optimization.

b) Do not rely 100% on the Keyword Research Tools. Instead, use your domain knowledge and experience. If you do not posses adequate domain knowledge then you can always ask your client for advice. I am sure it will help you focus on right set of keywords and to generate more quality links and leads for your client’s website.

These two techniques which can help you pick best keywords for your website. Once your website is optimized for the right set of keywords, you will generate quality traffic, sales and conversions. On the other hand, if you end up optimizing your website for wrong set of keywords, you will surely end up wasting both your time and money on Search Engine Optimization.

It is always a good idea to test your keywords before you actually start surfing into the SEO waves.

Google Adwords is one of the most effective mediums of promoting your business on search engines. If you are focussing your efforts on search engine optimization, then it can easily consume around 6-8 Months ( even higher than that) to get your website optimized on top pages of Google, Yahoo and several other search engines.

Yahoo on the other hand provides similar feature which is bit more advance than Google. However, the popularity factor of Google is higher than Yahoo, but Yahoo’s Sponsored search provides you more flexibility in terms of selecting text, link, and ads. Similar to Google, Yahoo will also advertise your website on popular websites.

Watch This useful video which will help you optimize your Adwords campaigns

Following are some the tips offered by the internal team of Adwords optimizers which will help you generate more ROI from your existing adwords campaigns.

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.
2. Use value-related keywords.
3. Make sure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.
4. Don’t waste money on irrelevant clicks.
5. Make it easy for customers to buy.
6. Focus your money on your high-performers.

Let us watch another useful video on how to optimize your Adword ads.

You can read more about each of these tips including examples and instructions at http://www.google.com/adwords/tactics and you can also view these tactics in a pdf format at http://www.google.com/adwords/tactics/top_tactics.pdf. We hope these tactics will help you continue to see good returns from your AdWords investment.

Google SEO Adwords Guide : View (pdf)

Conversion Tracking Google Guide : View (pdf)

You must have saved several useful bookmarks in your web browsers. Even I have collected a large list of most creative website on the net , but what will happen if several users located worldwide try to access and view my bookmarks. This is simply not possible due to strict internet security guidelines.

However there is another way of making your bookmarks accessible to worldwide audiences by saving your bookmarks on Social Bookmarking websites. You can not only save your favorite websites, but you can also send them to your friends. This helps to exchange bookmarks with your friends just like sharing some nice stamp collection with your friends.

Social Bookmarking is a way to store, organize, manage and search useful bookmarks from a variety of business topics arranged in specific folders or tags.

Watch This Useful Video

So you can simply jump into Social Bookmarking websites to save your useful bookmarks. If you have found some useful article/video/news or anything, then you can save this link as a bookmark on a Social Bookmarking website. This will help others to view and access your saved bookmarks. If your article/blog or anything else was informative and helpful, then several other users will start linking your bookmark, thus helping you to receive clicks from several online users. Moreover links saved on Social Bookmarking websites receive instant exposure from search engines. Most of the bookmarked links are immediately crawled by search engines.

So, something that started as a way to send bookmarks to friends has now grown into social search engine. You don’t need to find a needle in a haystack. Now, you can just simply go to any Social Bookmarking site, choose the right category or tag that matches your interest, and find the most popular websites in that category.

Some of the popular Social Bookmarking websites are :-

• Digg - Digg is a place for people to discover new website and share content from anywhere on the internet.
• Technorati - Technorati is the most popular website that keeps you updated on what’s happening on the Web, right now.
• Del.icio.us - Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website which enables you store your bookmarks online and share it with your friends.
• Mixx - Mixx is a good social bookmarking website and simple to use.
• Propeller - Propeller is Social Bookmarking Website and is a part of the AOL Network .
• StumbleUpon - It is a Bookmarking website that helps you discover and share good websites.
• Reddit - This is a very popular Bookmarking website that lets you discover new websites and share it with other users.
• Fark - Fark is a Website,which is a news aggregator and a social networking news site.
• Mybloglog - Mybloglog lets you share your favourite Blogs and discover new ones.
• Slashdot - Slashdot is a fusion of Article submission and a Bookmarking website and it is owned by SourceForge, Inc.
• Kaboodle - It is a kind of social shopping community where people discover, share products that they like.
• Bloglines - Bloglines is a website for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing news feeds, blogs and great websites.
• Newsvine - Get latest news topic wise,also you can share news with your friends using Bookmarking.
• Brinklist - This website allows you to save websites, share with others and you can also keep your bookmarks private.
• Netvouz - On Netvouz you can share your bookmarks with other users and, of course also benefit from other’s bookmarks.
• Clipmarks.com - On Clipmarks bookmarking, you can see clips of text, images or video about various topics that other people find while surfing net.
• Furl - Furl gives you ability to save the important websites you discover on the Web and enables you to quickly find them again.
• Mister-wong - This is a Bookmarking website that allows you to save ,share your favourite links online.
• DZone - Dzone is a favourite links-sharing community for developers,programers .
• Gnolia - It gives you ability to find new websites and build your online community.
• Shoutwire - On shoutwire you can share News for the masses that you feel important.
• Simpy - This is a simple Bookmarking website which gives option to save, search your own bookmarks and notes or browse and search other users’ links.
• BlogMarks - Blog Marks is a collaborative link management project which allows sharing and key-word tagging for blogs.
• Bluedot - It enables you to discover ,share websites from people like you.
• Linkswarm -This provides bizarre news, updated every day with fresh new links.
• Spotback - On Spotback you can add your website and allow users to rate everything that you publish.
• Plugim - On Plugim you can ubmit content, share articles, comment and promote your favorites .
• Mybookmarks - This website allows you to access your bookmarks online anytime, anywhere.