February 3, 2005

Click fraud gains momentum

by brian_turner

While Google calmly reported massive earning yesterday, mainly due to its AdWords program, a potential storm is growing with high-profile warnings of click fraud.

Click fraud is already a growing problem, and search industry analyst, Mike Grehan, writes up in Net Imperitive’s The click, the fraud and the ugly side of search a general overview of an issue that just keeps on growing more high profile.

Particularly worrying is the report Botnets strangle Google Adwords campaigns by the Register that large scale sabotage of advertiser campaigns is now possible:

Security researchers have discovered a way to shut down or seriously impair a Google Adwords advertising campaign by artificially inflating the number of times an ad is displayed. By running searches against particular keywords from compromised hosts, attackers can cause click-through percentage rates to fall through the floor.

This, in turn, causes Google Adwords to automatically disable the affected campaign keywords and prevent ads from being displayed. By disabling campaign keywords using the technique, cybercrimals could give their preferred parties higher ad positions at reduced costs, according to click fraud prevention specialists Clickrisk.

Questions? Discuss this in our Internet Business forums for help and advice

Story link: Click fraud gains momentum

Add to Bookmarks: