Avoiding PPC Fraud

With the advent of pay-per-click (PPC) search engine advertising has come PPC fraud. In a white paper from online ad services provider Clicklab entitled “How to Defend Your Website Against Click Fraud,” authors Michael Bloch and Dmitri Eroshenko offer a few strategies for preventing fraud:

* Avoid PPC networks that allow “incentive sites.” Incentive sites typically offer something to visitors in exchange for clicking on links. Such sites aren’t fraudulent per se, but because “the focus of the click isn’t based on interest in your product,” say the authors, you aren’t likely to convert these visitors to customers.

* Ask your PPC company about frequency caps on clicks. A frequency cap will prevent you from paying for multiple clicks originating from the same IP.

* Consider filtering out some countries. “What is your target market—do you really need coverage, for example, in Romania?” asks the white paper. According to the authors, the majority of online fraud originates in Eastern Europe, Africa, and some parts of Asia.