SCAMS INFO

Marketers beware: the ever-expanding pay-per-click arena is attracting plenty of unscrupulous players. Click fraud, once considered a minor inconvenience, has become a major concern for advertisers and search marketers. Estimates of advertising dollars lost to click fraud run as high as $500 million per year.

Click fraud occurs when a person or computer program clicks on a PPC ad for the purpose of generating an improper charge. While computer programs, usually employing on-line robots, or “bots,” are hard to detect, illegitimate clicks made by workers hired to “click out” the competition are even more elusive.

A competitive spirit is behind some of the unethical behavior. Companies will click on a competitor’s ads to chew up his advertising budget or drive him out of a particular keyword market. Businesses with small budgets that bid on high-priced keywords especially are vulnerable: if a $40 keyword gets only one fraudulent click per day, the business stands to lose $1,200 per month - possibly their entire PPC budget.

Publishers and search-engine partners engage in click fraud to grab some easy money. Since these companies earn a percentage of PPC revenues from the sites they own and operate, they can make significant profits by piling up additional clicks on their own sites. Not surprisingly, schemes motivated by direct financial gain often involve a high degree of organization and sophistication.

No one has a quick fix for click fraud. Some activity is big enough to hurt a competitor or two, but too small to be statistically noticeable. New and better prevention and detection software comes to market all the time. For instance AdWatcher, a leading on-line monitoring service, offers a product called Fraud Blocker that sends warning messages to Internet locations logging an unusually high number of visits to their client’s site. While not foolproof, telling the fraudulent clicker his activity has been detected and reported is a powerful deterrent.

However, high-volume, computer-driven scams remain sufficiently random and seem to have the upper hand - at this point. Compounding the problem, search engines, who have more control over PPC technology than anyone, have little incentive to detect or prevent fraud. They do investigate fraud reports and attempt to match the reporter’s data with their own to confirm it; however, their list of “alternative explanations” can be lengthy.

Despite the difficulties, PPC advertisers can watch for signs of click fraud, including:
Multiple clicks from a single IP address;
High click volume at a particular time;
Unusually high search activity on an expensive keyword, and
Clicks from parts of the world where business is not conducted.

Marketing lobbyists are fighting at the federal level for tighter policing of click fraud, but the effectiveness of potential legislation, if or when it occurs, is unknown. In the meantime, advertisers should connect with search-marketing firms that monitor their PPC data carefully and stay current with developments in fraud and fraud-prevention technology.

Aaron Wittersheim is president of Whoast Inc., a suburban Chicago search marketing firm. For more information, visit http://www.whoast.com.

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Since I own my own business web site and have looked for many ways to advertise cheap and for free, I have noticed how many sites there are out there that will try to get you to either join or buy advertising in one form or another. There are sites out there that will promise you the moon if you either join their “viral marketing” scheme or site that will cause your email box to become inundated with email ads from others who have fell for this.

But there are plenty of offline and online ways to get free or cheap advertising without joining these things and risking a backed up inbox or having your email address splattered all over the net for any desperate advertiser to get hold of. And here are a few.

Magnetic signs:
How many times have you seen a car that obviously belongs to a real estate agent or a plumber with his or her ad on the side of it? This is a good and inexpensive way to be a rolling billboard for your own web business, wherever you go.

Flyers:
How many times have you visited a shopping center or mall and came out to your car to find something on the windshield? This is a good idea, but in some cities and parking lots it may be illegal to do this, so check it out with the business and you local city office first.

Free enterprise:
Many convenient stores, drug stores and grocery stores, etc. have bulletin boards you can place flyers on. And if not, some may even let you place a flyer ad in their window. Just be sure and ask first.

Free online classifieds:
There are lots of free classified ad sites on the web, some you have to sign up for, others you don’t. Just write your ad and keep it on your computer then simply join, copy and paste your ad every where you can find a free classified site on the web.

Link exchanges:
I know many people already know about this, but some newbies to the internet actually don’t, and I have visited lots of new sites who aren’t doing this yet. So if you’re new to the web and have a site, join a link exchange site and open a links page and go to town trading links with other business web sites! (This is also good for the search engines for link popularity)

Business cards:
I know most already do this, but sometimes it slips our minds to hand a card to the convenient store clerk or the person behind the counter at the dry cleaners. Also put them on the bulletin board in the break rooms of manufacturing companies. You can also place them on counters (after asking) in stores or businesses that may be pertinent to your business (for example if you sell home decor or furniture, place them on the counter of an insurance company or a real estate agency). But don’t expect a clothing store to put them on their counter if you sell jeans and shirts, they are your competitors (sacrilege!).

T-shirts:
Have a t-shirt printed up that has a small ad and web address for your business on the back of it, because it will be seen better than on the front. People are always looking at others as they walk away or if they’re standing in line behind you at a checkout counter or at the bank. You could even have some printed up for friends and family. But make it a cool color that will go with a good pair of jeans or shorts so people won’t hate to put it on.

Pens:
I have heard (and seen) that lots of businesses have their name printed on pens. Personally, I’m not real crazy about this, because I myself hardly ever actually read the pen I’m writing with. But that doesn’t mean nobody does. So I leave this one up to you.

Bumper stickers:
Have a bumper sticker with a smart quip or saying printed up and pass them around to your friends. The car behind you or them at the stoplight will no doubt read it. (Examples: STOP HONKING AND START SHOPPING AT http://www.yoursite.com - or - IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE WAY I DRIVE, THEN STAY AT HOME & SHOP! http://www.yoursite.com)

If you think about it long enough, you can come up with all sorts of other ideas like this. Just make sure that if it involves other businesses or their property, always ask! Because the last thing you want is to be professionally embarrassed or humiliated! Good luck!

R.L. Young is the owner of National Wholesalers, a wholesale website to businesses and the public and to help those who would like to have their own home business. Mr. Young began web marketing in the fall of 2002 with many experimentations and much research in web marketing, advertising and sales; including studies with affiliate web sites, and always learning more
Visit his site at http://www.natlwholesalers.com

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There are lots of different strategies that you can use to skyrocket your AdSense income. Repeatedly clicking on your ads isn’t one of them. That’s the sort of thing that Google take a pretty strong line on - and rightly so. It’s just plain dumb and Google have a strong punishment for it: they can ban you for life.

That punishment’s not unreasonable when someone’s deliberately trying to con Google’s advertisers. But it does leave a golden opportunity for anyone who wants to sabotage someone else’s income. If you’re making a lot of money using AdSense - and you’ve also made an enemy or two - there’s nothing to stop someone coming to your site, clicking your ads a couple of dozen times and wiping out your income.

Sound scary? It should. Once you get banned, that’s it. It’s very difficult to persuade Google to let you back in.

That’s why when it comes to protecting your AdSense income, it pays to be proactive. In my book, Google AdSense Secrets, I talk a great deal about the importance of checking your stats and tracking your results. I explain what you should be looking for when you want to increase your revenues.

But you should also be looking to making sure that no one is trying to deliberately land you in trouble. If you see in your logs that your site received a stream of clicks in a short time - and from the same IP address - don’t wait for Google to get in touch. (Their letter won’t be pleasant). Drop them a line right away, telling them that you’ve spotted some suspicious clicks on your site and ask them to investigate. You shouldn’t be surprised if they write back and tell you that those clicks won’t be counted towards your revenues but at least you’ll still have your account and you’ll still be earning.

It’s pretty rare for someone to go out of their way to cause problems for AdSense users. Most of the people you meet on AdSense forums and other places online are good, decent folk who only want to help. But it is worth remembering that your site is vulnerable. Just as you install anti-virus software to protect your computer so you should take action to protect your AdSense revenue. Track your stats closely and move first if you spot something suspicious.

Joel Comm is The Internet Revenue Expert. Online for over 20 years, Joel teaches people how to make money in the digital age. The recognized authority on Google AdSense, Joel teaches how to multiply your AdSense income at The AdSense Code. To ask Joel Comm a question about making money online, visit http://www.AskJoelComm.com Joel invites you to download a free copy of The Internet Money Tree at http://www.internetmoneytree.net

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