Pay-Per-Click Fraud Increasingly Visible

I've been concerned for a long time about the problem of click fraud in the pay-per-click search engine advertising game.

I've been advertising on a PPC basis in search engines for a few years now and have tried several media. So far, the search engines that seem to bring in real qualified traffic are Google and Overture. Even so, I have never felt that a Web visitor brought in from a PPC ad was as valuable as one who comes in through a normal Web search.

I can imagined that many people in the developing world would love to have a job clicking on ads all day at a penny a shot, and you know this must be a burgeoning underground industry.

This news item from today brings it to mind:

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2004/Nov/1097151.htm

Google has launched a lawsuit against a company for click fraud, which is bringing this issue more into the public eye. The company that issued this press release is offering a free white paper on preventing click fraud.

AB - 11/29/04