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Over a year ago, I wrote about click fraud. This was at the time when, according to the media, click fraud was running rampant. I felt click fraud existed, but did not agree with the numbers that were getting posted. Below is one of the articles I wrote and you can see from the comments and others articles, most did not agree with me.

Here is a summary:

1.I do believe click fraud exists
2.I do NOT believe the sky is falling and you should shut off or reduce your paid search accounts because of it
3.I do believe the engines should do more to protect their customers
4.and lastly, I DO believe if you are in the content network and/or try to bid for the top one or 2 positions (which isn’t always the best to do) click fraud will effect you more than others.

Article I wrote with comments from others
http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2006/07/click-fraud-and-emperors-new-clothes.html

Another article in response to mine
http://www.bruceclay.com/blog/archives/2006/07/are_we_imaginin.html

Now that I have stated all of this, where are all the “Sky is Falling” article writers now? Last year I read articles that included reducing or stopping your paid search efforts because click fraud is costing you too much money. Click fraud was all over the place and was supposed to all but take down the paid search industry.

Well, here it is a year later and paid search is still going strong. I still believe in the 4 items mentioned above. The only thing that has changed is that I think Google is at least trying to find and compensate its customers for click fraud. I have seen my Adwords accounts automatically credited. You may be getting credits and do not even know it. Go to your adwords account, click on My Account tab. You may see billing “Service Adjustments” in your account. These are sometimes due to fraud Google has found and automatically deducted the charges from your account.

I welcome any further feedback regarding click fraud (agree, disagree, ways to reduce fraud, etc…)