Search results for "click fraud"
Click Forensics Unveils Online Audience Verification Platform for Shopping Engines
At ad:tech New York this week, Click Forensics unveiled a new online audience verification platform for comparison shopping search engines. The technology evaluates traffic to determine its value to merchant partners. "Comparison shopping engines and other content aggregators need a simple way to optimize the money they spend on search engine marketing, while improving the quality of leads they send on to merchant partners," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "The solution we're delivering does just that. To our knowledge, it's the only system available that provides the ability for content aggregators to manage traffic acquisition and traffic monetization...
Go to SES Berlin or SES Chicago for Eight Days A-Learning
During the past seven weeks, I've shared seven compelling reasons for going to either Search Engine Strategies Berlin or SES Chicago 2009. For those of you who want to join in the chorus, they are "seven tracks amazing, six booths astounding, five brand new things, four keynote themes, three key trends, two early birds, and a ranking in the top three." This week, I'll share an eighth great reason -- and it isn't "eight maids a-milking." You should attend these events for "eight days a-learning." SES Berlin starts on 23 November with one day of "workshop" and continues 24 and...
Anchor Intelligence Reports Decline in Click Fraud, Identifies New Hotspots
Anchor Intelligence has released its click fraud report for the third quarter of 2009. It paints a different picture than the Click Forensics report that was recently released. Where Click Forensics saw an increase, Anchor Intelligence saw a decline. Overall, click fraud was 23.2% in Q3, down 14.3% from 27.1% in the second quarter. Anchor Intelligence breaks its click fraud rates into two categories: attempted click fraud, the kind with evil intentions, and innocuous click fraud, like an accidental click. Attempted click fraud was 18.6% in Q3 down from 22.9% in Q2. Innocuous rates increased from 4.2% in Q2 to...
Botnets Drive Up Click Fraud Rate in Third Quarter 2009
Click Forensics has released its click fraud report for the third quarter of 2009. Botnet activity caused the rate to rise and accounted for more click fraud activity. The click fraud rate rose to 14.1% in the third quarter, up from 12.7% in the second quarter, but down from 16% in the third quarter of 2008. Botnets accounted for 42.6% of click fraud in Q3 2009, more than double the 27.5% rate in Q3 2008. "The significant rise in botnet-generated click fraud lines up with recent findings of several well-known malware and online fraud tracking experts," said Paul Pellman, CEO...
New Consumer Protection PSAs Appear in Bing Search Ads
Microsoft has teamed up with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) and Western Union to serve consumer protection PSAs in Bing's search ads. The new ads address scams involving mortgages, foreclosure, credit repair and money transfers. Some of the keywords included in the PSA effort are: foreclosure rescue mortgage foreclosure fix my credit credit repair money transfer When a searcher clicks on one of the PSA search ads, they will see a landing page with warnings about scams related to the keyword. The FTC hosts the landing pages for credit repair and mortgage foreclosure while...
Click Forensics Adds Real-Time Capabilities to Audience Quality Measurement Platform
Click Forensics is enhancing their audience quality measurement platform with real-time capabilities. Now, online publishers and ad networks can identify good and bad advertising traffic in real-time. "In its simplest form, our real-time audience quality tracking capabilities make it possible for publishers and ad networks to immediately block bad site visitors from seeing ads, and show the right ads to the real buyers," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "This instantaneous audience quality determination is an important step in transforming the results that search, display and social ad providers deliver to their clients." The new capabilities were built with...
Click Forensics Warns About New Botnet
Click Forensics has noticed a new spike in click fraud traffic coming from they've dubbed the "Bahama botnet." The codename came about because the botnet was first detected redirecting traffic through 200,000 parked domains located in the Bahamas. Click Forensics has tracked instances where the Bahama botnet has affected up to 30% of an advertiser's monthly search marketing budget. "During the past four years we've monitored billions of clicks for top search engines, ad networks, publishers and advertisers. This scheme is one of the most sophisticated we've seen," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "The botnet is effectively disguising...
PPC Click Fraud Rate Drops to 12.7% in Q2 2009
Click Forensics has released data regarding pay-per-click (PPC) fraud for the second quarter of 2009. The news is good. Not only is click fraud down from the first quarter of 2009, it's down year-over-year as well. This year's second quarter click fraud rate came in at 12.7%, which is an almost 8% decrease from the first quarter, which was 13.8% The second quarter of 2008 came in at 16.2.%, which means Q2 2009 came in 22% lower than the year prior. Click fraud did increase from certain programs and sources. "The increased diligence of online ad networks to detect and...
Microsoft Files Click Fraud Suit in Washington State
Microsoft has filed a click fraud suit against brothers Eric and Gordon Lam and their mother Melanie Suen. The suit was filed in the Western District Court of Washington and involves click fraud pertaining to a scheme involving auto insurance and the video game World of Warcraft. The adCenter blog offered up a visual representation of what click fraud looks like. The image below maps IP sources and the clusters indicate automated traffic. Normal traffic would be more evenly spread with a variety of IP sources hailing from throughout the Internet....
IAB Releases Click Measurement Guidelines
The International Advertising Bureau has released new guidelines for Cost-Per-Click (CPC) advertising. The Click Measurement Guidelines were agreed upon by key industry members and offer a strong framework for identifying click fraud. The Guidelines: Define the technical life-cycle of a "click" and outline standard methodologies by which clicks should be measured and counted, including provisions for identifying invalid and/or fraudulent clicks. Establish standard terms that will help streamline the buying and selling of click-based media. Increase transparency and consistency in click measurements for media companies, ad-serving organizations, advertisers, and third-party click auditors. You can download the 28 page document here....
Click Forensics Launches New Traffic Quality Management Platform
Click Forensics today unveiled a newly-architected version of its traffic quality management platform. Here's what to expect: Click Forensics Site Score - Sources of traffic are tagged with individual Click Forensics Site Scores that rank visitors based on their propensity to convert. This allows ad networks to more effectively filter and route traffic for highest monetization and provide the best ROI for online advertisers. Adaptive Intelligence - Accommodates varying traffic profiles among different ad networks, advertisers, and publishers. The new engine provides the capability to adjust rules and thresholds to produce traffic quality scores that better reflect propensity to convert...
Judge Dismisses Anti-Spam Lawsuit Against ValueClick
A California judge has dismissed a $45 million lawsuit against online advertising network, ValueClick. The suit was brought forth by an internet service provider in a state with one of the greatest potential for damages. The ISP, Hypertouch, claimed that ValueClick sent out 45,000 email messages containing false advertising. The judge threw out the case because he said the federal CAN-SPAM Act took precedent over a state law barring false commercial emails. The judge also said that Hypertouch failed to demonstrate fraudulent action on behalf of ValueClick and its co-defendant PrimaryAds. This isn't the first time ValueClick has run into...
Ask.com Taps Anchor Intelligence for Click Fraud Reduction
Ask.com has selected Anchor Intelligence to assist in reducing click fraud. Anchor Intelligence says it uses network security intelligence to identify fraud. Such methods include spam traps, honeypots, and stealth servers. "Superior quality, optimal performance, and enhanced security are fundamental to the Ask.com brand and search experience," said Mark Stockford, CIO, Ask.com. "Through our partnership with Anchor Intelligence, Ask.com can further apply these fundamental priorities to the experience of our advertising customers. This move demonstrates Ask.com's commitment to providing advertisers across the marketplace with the most valuable, impactful, and reliable advertising traffic available online." Anchor Intelligence's real-time traffic scoring system,...
AdMob Tests Automatic Pricing Adjustments
Mobile advertising network AdMob is testing automatic pricing adjustments which they will make their customers' jobs easier. The idea is that automatic pricing will help lower maximum Cost-Per-Click (CPC) bids and reward publishers that deliver higher value clicks. AdMob says take into account the following during the test: Advertiser bid Competition across the network The type of site on which the ad was served Value of an ad impression to advertisers If their attempt at weeding out inefficiencies is productive, it will be a good thing. While ">AdMob is great at getting ads out and clicked on, the value of...
SES New York is a Search Expo as well as an SEM Conference
Most of the attention at SES New York is focused on the SEM conference. But the must-attend industry event is a search expo, as well. If you look over the list of participating sponsors and exhibitors, you'll see Premier Plus Sponsors like iProspect and Google as well as Premier Sponsors like Ask Sponsored Listings, iContact, Microsoft and WebTrends. But as you scroll down the list of close to 100 sponsors and exhibitors, you'll see lots of other names, too. As I mentioned yesterday, I plan to visit the booths of the SES sponsors and exhibitors. I always find useful products...
Did-It Does It Again - Uninformed Controversy As Publicity
It seems that being controversial is a major way to get new business in the Web 3.0 world over at Did-It, if the company's editor-in-chief Steve Baldwin's article about this week's SES conference is any indication. Remember, one of the company's founders, Dave Pasternak's statements about SEO "not being rocket science" and a company that can't get you into the top 5 on Google as worthless. His statements met strong criticism and obviously got the company a lot of attention and links which they most probably redirected to improve their ranking. Hey "not rocket science" but crafty manipulation works. So...
SEW Experts: Battling Click Fraud is Important for All Involved
Every pay-per-click advertiser sees the presence of click fraud, as does every search engine. We're just disagreeing about the numbers. In today's SEM Crossfire column, "Battling Click Fraud is Important for All Involved," Frank Watson and Chris Boggs remind us that both sides need to acknowledge that a certain level of click fraud exists, and work together to diminish its impact. » Full story...
Click Fraud Increased Slightly in Q4 2008
Click Forensics has released click fraud data for the fourth quarter of 2008. The click fraud rate grew slightly year-over-year. Here are the primary findings: The overall industry average click fraud rate grew to 17.1 percent for Q4 2008. That’s up from 16.0 percent in Q3 2008 and from the 16.6 percent rate reported for Q4 2007.The average click fraud rate of PPC advertisements appearing on search engine content networks, including Google AdSense and the Yahoo Publisher Network, was 28.2 percent. That’s up from the 27.1 percent rate reported for Q3 2008 and down slightly from the 28.3 percent rate...
Rounding Up the Usual Click Fraud Suspects
In a new report by entitled "Anatomy of a Fraudster," Anchor Intelligence has identified the top four types of click fraud perpetrators. Their research is based on a year of studying traffic patterns and gathering intelligence across their client base. The four types are: Click fraud farmers – members of click farms, which are outsourced by an organization and paid to generate clicks on behalf of a third party.Pyramid schemers – individuals who are caught up in illegal schemes, in which they are “paid” to click on ads, visit Web sites and recruit other users.Money launderers – fraudsters who recruit...
Meet the Conference Speakers at SES London 2009 - Part 2
Yesterday, we took a look at video interviews with half a dozen of the conference speakers who will be at SES London 2009. Today, we'll look at another six of the people who will be making presentations at one or more of the sessions which will be held at the Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, Islington, Feb. 17-20, 2009. Now, what is it worth hearing these top search engine experts speak? Some of them currently have a contract minimum of $10,000 per month. Some of them charge up to $1,000 an hour for consulting. Some of them charge $10,000...
