SEO Blog

Do You Suspect Click Fraud? Here’s a Simple Solution…

Posted by Neil
September 26, 2008 4:18 pm

We recently had reason to suspect that one of our client’s PPC campaigns was being targeted by one of their competitors. We suspected that they were clicking the ads to try and use up the daily budget early in the day. The trouble was how to identify who was clicking the Ads.

There are many expensive Click Fraud solutions available but we found a simple and free way of checking who was clicking the ads by using Statcounter.

By putting the Statcounter code on the website pages we were able to easily see the IP addresses of the clickers. This clearly showed that two Competitors were in fact clicking the ads. We then forwarded our findings to Google and hope this will result in a refund for our AdWords client.

Posted in Click Fraud, Google AdWords, Pay Per Click (PPC)  | The post has tags: , , ,
  • By way of an update to Neil's original post, click fraud was confirmed by Google and they responded positively and promptly with a refund for our client in addition to those clicks that their own systems had detected.
  • Hi folks,

    I just wanted to stop by and thank you for letting us know how StatCounter has helped you to help your client! We were delighted to hear that you were able to use StatCounter to detect Click Fraud and secure a refund for your customer.

    At StatCounter, we work hard to provide the best service we can and stories like this serve to motivate the entire StatCounter Team to keep improving the service for the benefit of all our members.

    All the best!
  • I think one must be cautious when dealing PPC the business will be ruined. I have been using statcounter and it has been really useful
  • Thanks for this valuable info, and always statcounter is a valuable service for anyone.
  • When I looked into PPC advertising, the minimum cost for me was $0.10 per click. The cost could add up very quickly from click fraud. It was nice that Google agreed to refund the cost incurred as a result of the click fraud. I don't think they are under any legal responsibility to do so, though, are they?
  • Chris
    @DFAL --

    Yes, Google is under legal responsibility to refund click fraud charges. It is part of the agreement they make with their AdWords Advertisers. They even give tools to request credit for questionable clicks.
  • Tom
    Statcounter is the best free tool available! Thank you so much for Statcounter.

    We are using it now for one year.

    Identify IP from unwanted visitors is easy and useful to add them to our IP deny manager
    Also one of many reasons we keep statcounter in our site is it does not make it slow to load the page :)

    Only one thing we couldn't figure out: What is this about the 0 Second visitors?
  • Its I good thing I am instaliling statcounter!
  • Dear Statcounter,

    What a fantastic free tool you have given us. We just love the World Map solution. Thank you so much!
  • I love the tool, keep up the good work.
  • i never thought that such a tool exists for free. even if i had to pay it, i would pay. it' a fantastic realtime service. i just love it. and it beats up google analitics, which is not realtime. shame ... :)
  • StatCounter is definitely my favorite to use along side Google Analytics. Google Analytics seems to break down massive amounts of visitors better than the free Stat Counter. BUT, when used together, you get the mass breakdown of data from GA, and a PER VISIT BREAKDOWN from StatCounter. That way you get the macro and the micro. StatCounter has a pay version too, which I'm sure is also really awesome.
  • No doubt statcounter is one of the best and free tool to counter clickfraud. I have been using their service since 2002. Havent tested google analytics yet, but will do so.
  • Muchas gracias.
    espondilitis.eu
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