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Google shows transparency with click fraud

Jul 28, 2006
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Google has taken the first step in sharing with AdWords advertisers exactly how many clicks it considers as invalid. Obviously, advertisers are not charged for these clicks. This announcement was made on the Inside Adwords blog a couple of days ago.

This data will be available in the Campaign and Account Performance reports in an advertiser’s AdWords account.

I believe this is definitely one very positive step by Google. Even if click fraud doesn’t get completely eliminated, knowing the true extent of this problem is reassuring.

Another thing I really hope to see some day (and I am very doubtful if it will ever happen) is Google sharing information on which of the sites in its content network are really generating the clicks.

Filed under: Search Engine Marketing
  • http://chriskramer.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-to-reveal-click-fraud-data.html Chris

    Hey Ben – I wrote about this exact issue the other day:

    http://chriskramer.blogspot.com/2006/07/google-to…

    If you're not using 3rd party tools like Atlas, Omniture, DoubleClick, or KeywordMax to track your content clicks and conversions you are likely throwing away tons of money.

    Google really must do more to increase transparancy on the content and search distribution partnes. While there is great traffic from guys like amazon, nytimes, foxnews, etc., there is lots of garbage from parked domains and arbitrage sites.