Google Releases Click Fraud Rates

Finally, we have a click fraud rate from Google itself: less than 0.02 percent of all clicks slip past its filters and are caught after advertisers request reviews. That low figure is sure to bring out the critics who will disagree. Below, more about how Google comes up with the figure plus some click fraud fighting initiatives it plans to implement later this year.

Why release this figure now, when many have wanted it for literally years?

"We've been working to be more transparent and informative on the issues related to click fraud. Recently, this metric has been something advertisers have specifically asked for and we agree that is useful in describing the scope of the problem. Further, it is something we measure and use to monitor the performance of our click fraud detection systems," said Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for trust & safety at Google.

• Invalid Clicks: This is a Google term. It means that of ALL the clicks Google ads generate, a percentage of these are deemed "invalid." These are clicks that Google makes no money from. It either never bills for invalid clicks or eventually issues a refund. Not all invalid clicks are necessarily fraudulent (such as in cases of quick double-clicks that aren't billed).
   
• Fraudulent Clicks: These are the percentage of clicks that an advertiser is charged for when the person (or bot) clicking is doing so to purposely cost the advertiser money or make money for themselves through an ad program.
   
• Overall Click Fraud Rate: This is the number of fraudulent clicks as a percentage of ALL clicks that happen, regardless of whether Google issues a refund or doesn't bill.
   
• Detected Click Fraud Rate: This is the number of fraudulent clicks as a percentage of ALL clicks that happen where Google generates a refund after performing a requested or "reactive" investigation asked for by an advertiser. Google would call this the "reactively identified invalid click" rate.
   
• Undetected Click Fraud Rate: This is the number of fraudulent clicks as a percentage of ALL clicks that happen where no refund has happened because neither Google or the advertiser spotted the fraud.

Google could have an extremely high overall click fraud rate, yet that's not a problem if most of those clicks are detected and either never charged for or refunds issued promptly. When I talk about the Google "click fraud rate," I specifically mean the detected click fraud rate -- clicks that got past Google's own filtering systems and only were refunded after a manual investigation was requested.

As for the undetected click fraud rate -- that's impossible to know. There are clicks that might get past Google and advertisers both.

News source : searchengineland