According to information in a recent article on Business Week, click fraud could account for up to 20% of all PPC traffic and be costing advertisers up to $1 billion per year.

What the real figures are is anyone’s guess, but if you’re investing in Pay Per Click, it’s wise to be aware of what can happen. In the Business Week article, I noticed some quotes from Dimitry Eroshenko, the CEO of ClickLab. Back in 2004, Dimitry and I teamed up to publish a white paper on click fraud. The information in that white paper is still relevant today.

Click fraud white paper contents:

PPC ADVERTISING IN A NUTSHELL

- Calculating the cost
- Be cautious of PPC bidding wars
- Keyword targeting
- Choosing a PPC search engine
- Things to look for in a PPC company

CLICK FRAUD

- What is click fraud?
- Who engages in click fraud?
- Why do people steal?
- How widespread is the problem?

HOW TO COMBAT CLICK FRAUD

- Anti-click fraud strategies
- Avoid PPC networks that allow incentive sites
- Frequency caps on clicks
- Limit daily spend
- Country filtering
- Server log analysis
- Display Warning Message
- Use Specialized Click Fraud Tools

USING SCORING SYSTEM

- Define them. Score them. Own them.
- Test 1. Visit depth.
- Test 2. Visitors per IP.
- Test 2a. Paid clicks per IP.
- Test 3. No cookie - no play?
- Test 3. Pageview frequency.
- Test 4. Anonymous proxy servers
- Test 5. Geographic origin
- Test 6 and beyond

Download a copy of the free click fraud white paper