In PPC advertising industry click fraud is defined as clicks generated by
Competitors of advertisers: These parties may wish to harm a competitor who advertises in the same market by clicking on their ads. The perpetrators don't profit directly, but force advertiser to pay for irrelevant clicks thus weakening or eliminating a source of competition.
Competitors of publishers: These persons may wish to frame a publisher. It is made to look like the publisher is clicking on its own ads. The advertising network may then terminate the relationship. Many publishers rely exclusively on revenue from advertising and can be put out of business by such an attack.
Other malicious intent: As with vandalism, there's an array of motives for wishing to cause harm to either an advertiser or a publisher, even by people who have nothing to gain financially. Motives include political and personal vendettas. These cases are often the hardest to deal with, since it is hard to track down the culprit, and if found, there is little legal action that can be taken against them.
Unwanted "friends" of the publisher: Sometimes upon learning a publisher profits from ads being clicked, a supporter of the publisher (like a fan, family member, or personal friend), will click on the ads to "help". However, this can backfire when the publisher (not the "friend") is accused of click fraud.
Clicks generated by publisher:Some publishers tries to generate clicks manually or with the help of computer programs to drive up their revenue.
Following tips will help you protect your Adsense account from click fraud if u don't fall in the last category listed above.
1.Regular monitoring of traffic log and your adsense reports:
Monitor your adsense reports and your traffic logs regularly(atleast once a day).If you do this regularly you will become familiar with your site's performance and you will be able to easily identify something strange and suspicious very easily.If you notice something strange in your reports or traffic logs you will have to report it to adsense support as soon as possible.You may include all the details yo have from your reports or your traffic analysis tool.Suspicious activities can be something like a conciderably high click throgh than you normally gets,conciderably high increase in page impressions recieved,A large number of clicks from a same IP etc.By sending an email with all the details you found you can notify google about suspected invalid activity.In order to be able to be monitor your sites performance and the behaviour of the vistors u will have to encorporate some kind of traffic analysis tools to your site.Google analytics,Stat Counter etc are well known examples used by a large number of webmasters.
If you wish to track the clicks on the ads on your website you may wish to use Ad Logger .You may also check this which uses google analytics to track adsense clicks.You may also concider doing a search on "webmaster resources" and "site traffic analysis".
2.Be polite in forums:
This tips is only important for those who are promoting their websites through their signatures in different forums.If you act rude in the forums it is never going to help you,but it can sometimes put you in trouble.Think about this case,You behaved in a rude way to some other member in the forum and you have a link to your site on your signature and the angry member decides to click on your ads regularly and deliberately.This can send the wrong message to google and sometimes they may think thats it you who is doing the clicks or you have appointed someone to click your ads regulary and they might decide to ban you.so i'd advice you to be polite and helping in all the forums in which you are participating.If you can't help,atleast don't blame or make fun of anyone.You may read this for more tips on promoting your website using forums.
3.Don't discuss your source of income(adsense)with family,friends etc:
Don't tell your friends and family anything about how you are making money online or how your website is making money for you.Even if u decides to tell them make sure to tell them why they can't click on your ads.You will have to convince them that they clicking on your ads won't be a help for you and it will be a harm.The problem with discussing this with your friends and family is that sometimes they will start clicking on your ads thinking that the are helping you earn some bucks.But you know that it can get you banned.
4.Stay away from illegal methods of traffic generation:
Invalid clicks or click fraud includes clicks from traffic generated using methods like Traffic exhange,PTC advertising,Auto surf etc.Thes type of traffic are blacklisted by adsese TOS.So you must stay away from traffic generated by illegal methods.The above mentioned are just examples and the list is not limited to them.
Accidental Clicks:
Couple of weeks ago i wrote to adsense support about the impressions generated by me while updating my site.The reply i got from them said that a publisher is allowed to view his sites as much as they want provided that he\she is not clicking any of the ads that appear on his\her site,he\she is not refreshing the pages too often.So that clears things up.
What if you clicked on your ad accidentally? The answer is,You will have to write adsense support about this as early as you can.If you are interested in viewing and checking the ads on your site without creating illegal clicks you may use Adsense preview tool.AdSense preview tool is an addition to the right-click menu for Windows Internet Explorer 6.x, allowing you to preview the ads that may show on any web page.If you want to avoid complication of accidentally clicking on your ads you may disable ads for your computer.
Don't sit back and relax while your website is earning you money using adsense.You will have to work hard to protect that Source of income from threats like clickfraud.
July 16, 2007
Reasons And Solutions For Irrelevant Ads
If you are a google adsense publisher you must have came across with the problem of getting irrelevant or off-targeted ads on your sites. What are the reasons for getting irrelevant ads? How can you stop them from appearing on your sites? Read On and you will find these questions answered.
Reasons for getting irrelevant Ads:
*Lack of content
You all Know that google adsense ads are contextual.Hence keyword rich content is a must to get well targeted ads.If your site has less content that can be one of the reasons why you are getting off-targeted ads and/or PSAs.
*Sensitive Keywords
Sometimes webmaster have to compromise on including keywords which are not related to your niche in their site's content.If these sensitive keywords happens to fall under the category of high paying ones you will see ads related to them on your site instead of getting ads related to the topic of your site.Some webmasters would think that they will benefit from these ads since they have a higher EPC but this is not the case,Since these ads are irrelevant to your site's content your visitors will not be interested in clicking on them.
*poor advertising strategies by advertisers
This is something which not under the control of the publishers.It is found that some advertisers uses generic keywords to bid upon in their advertising campaigns instead of using specific keywords.This results in serving off-targeted ads to a publisher's site.This is neither going to help the advertiser since it will reduce the sales and their ROI.
*Geo-targeting
Geo-targeting in the google adsense is another reason why we sometimes gets off-targeted ads.Some Geo-targeted ads doesn't consider about the site's topic and considers only about the geographic location from where the visitor is.
*comment spamming
This can be another reason for getting off-targeted ads.This happens mainly in blogs.sometimes adsense media bot picks up the sensitive keywords that may be there in the spam comments and serves ads which are related to them and thereby resulting in irrelevant ads for the site.
Possible solutions for Off-targeted ads:
*Keyword rich content.
Each system will have its on methods of getting ads relevant.In google adsense it is more dependent on what you write about than anything else. So having more content with keywords related to your sites niche can help you in getting more relevant ads.
Content without keywords or with sensitive keywords won't help you.
*Use of section targeting
You can use Section targeting to emphasise those part of your content to which your ads to be related.You can read about section targeting here
Make sure to have significant amount of content between your section targeting tags else you will end up with irrelevant ads again.Also note that section targeting can take up to 2 weeks to take effect.
Also be warned about using this feature to emphasise irrelevant content as it might go against the google adsense program policies.
*Section targeting with "weight ignore"
You can use this to mask the your content with sensitive keywords from adsense media bot.Locate the part of your content with sensitive keywords and enclose it between section targeting with weight ignore tags.
*make sure that your site's topic is reflected more from your page titles,headers,meta tags,Image ALT parameter and from your content instead of from graphics and images that appear on your sites.
*Use your keywords in your page titles,headers and the words near to where the ads are going to appear.
*Don't use generic names as your page file names.For example,if your page is about "Making money with adsense" you can name the file as "making-money-with-adsense.html" or something like that.
*Use Competitive ad filter
You can always use competitive ad filter to block unwanted ads from appearing on your sites.Make sure to use it in a wise manner because a deliberate filtering can affect your EPC.
Reasons for getting irrelevant Ads:
*Lack of content
You all Know that google adsense ads are contextual.Hence keyword rich content is a must to get well targeted ads.If your site has less content that can be one of the reasons why you are getting off-targeted ads and/or PSAs.
*Sensitive Keywords
Sometimes webmaster have to compromise on including keywords which are not related to your niche in their site's content.If these sensitive keywords happens to fall under the category of high paying ones you will see ads related to them on your site instead of getting ads related to the topic of your site.Some webmasters would think that they will benefit from these ads since they have a higher EPC but this is not the case,Since these ads are irrelevant to your site's content your visitors will not be interested in clicking on them.
*poor advertising strategies by advertisers
This is something which not under the control of the publishers.It is found that some advertisers uses generic keywords to bid upon in their advertising campaigns instead of using specific keywords.This results in serving off-targeted ads to a publisher's site.This is neither going to help the advertiser since it will reduce the sales and their ROI.
*Geo-targeting
Geo-targeting in the google adsense is another reason why we sometimes gets off-targeted ads.Some Geo-targeted ads doesn't consider about the site's topic and considers only about the geographic location from where the visitor is.
*comment spamming
This can be another reason for getting off-targeted ads.This happens mainly in blogs.sometimes adsense media bot picks up the sensitive keywords that may be there in the spam comments and serves ads which are related to them and thereby resulting in irrelevant ads for the site.
Possible solutions for Off-targeted ads:
*Keyword rich content.
Each system will have its on methods of getting ads relevant.In google adsense it is more dependent on what you write about than anything else. So having more content with keywords related to your sites niche can help you in getting more relevant ads.
Content without keywords or with sensitive keywords won't help you.
*Use of section targeting
You can use Section targeting to emphasise those part of your content to which your ads to be related.You can read about section targeting here
Make sure to have significant amount of content between your section targeting tags else you will end up with irrelevant ads again.Also note that section targeting can take up to 2 weeks to take effect.
Also be warned about using this feature to emphasise irrelevant content as it might go against the google adsense program policies.
*Section targeting with "weight ignore"
You can use this to mask the your content with sensitive keywords from adsense media bot.Locate the part of your content with sensitive keywords and enclose it between section targeting with weight ignore tags.
*make sure that your site's topic is reflected more from your page titles,headers,meta tags,Image ALT parameter and from your content instead of from graphics and images that appear on your sites.
*Use your keywords in your page titles,headers and the words near to where the ads are going to appear.
*Don't use generic names as your page file names.For example,if your page is about "Making money with adsense" you can name the file as "making-money-with-adsense.html" or something like that.
*Use Competitive ad filter
You can always use competitive ad filter to block unwanted ads from appearing on your sites.Make sure to use it in a wise manner because a deliberate filtering can affect your EPC.
Get alternatives for your Adsense...
Many people have started using Google's AdSense program, but there are some who find it a bit too uncertain or simply not suiting their own requirements from an ad program.
But thankfully for such people, there are many alternatives to AdSense which attempt to alleviate some of its shortcomings. Here is a list of the most noteworthy ones from the lot with a description concerning each one.
AllFeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers) AllFeeds has a great pool of online advertisers to choose from. It also features many display formats that you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while rolling over earnings for the next month if you don't. Another interesting thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your earnings with AdSense.
MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php) MarketBanker allows you the unique possiblity to set the pricing for your site. It also allows you to allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There's also a statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The ads are small just like AdSense's and they're just as easy to set up. Also, registration for MarketBanker is free.
BidClix ( http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html) BidClix is different because it has advertisers compete for clicks on your site, which in turn is meant to generate the highest possible profits for your page. It also has a very large pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started with this service, but it's also very flexible.
Chitika (http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+Engine) RealContext uses Artificial intelligence to retrieve the most relevant ads for your page. And there's an extra feature which makes RealContext unique as well. Keywords are selected based upon which previous selections payed off and which didn't. That means there's a constant feedback process that ensures you gain better revenue from your ads. It also supports blocking certain adds and child-safe filtering and many more options.
AdHearus (http://adhearus.com/webmaster.php) AdHearus is a very feature-packed contextual ad provider. As with AdSense, advertisements are targeted but it doesn't stop here at all. The ads are very flexible, you can select from text-ads, banners, rectangles, pop-ups, pop-unders or skyscrapers. You can also display your own ads, through rotation, both on your site and on other affiliate sites, which makes AdHearus a hybrid with conventional advertising technologies. There's a very comprehensive on-line real time reporting feature and, as usual with such services, starting out is free and it's a breeze.
AffiliateSensor (http://www.affiliatesensor.com/) AffiliateSensor has highly customizable ad blocks, which you can make for yourself with an easy to use on-line interface. You also get realtime reporting with clicks-by-domain, page and refferer. There's integration with Google AdSense as well, through the google_alternate_ad_url so AffiliateSensor can be used as a substitute for Google PSA's (Public Service Ads).
Kanoodle Bright Ads (http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool) Kanoodle's offering allows publishers to get ads related to topics or segments, and not the traditional keyword oriented ads. The site also groups publisher sites with advertisers by hand to ensure high-revenue generating ads. And speaking of revenue, the amount of money you receive is a clear 50% share of the amount of money Kanoodle recieves for an advertiser.
TargetPoint (http://publisher.targetpoint.com) TargetPoint is oriented more towards content publishers. It offers full control over the look the ads, statistics over your site's overall performance and better revenue. It's free to register and you earn a guaranteed 60% of the total revenue. You can get payed with Paypal of Bank checks and (most times) wire transfers as well.
Clicksor (http://www.clicksor.com) Clicksor will earn you as much as 60% from the amount of money your website produces. What you get is about the same as AdSense, there are targeted text ads, you can view the revenues from your website in real time. You can receive money via PayPal or through a check every two weeks, provided that you have earned more then $50. If you haven't made that much, your earning roll over to the next period.
Bidvertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/) Like AdSense, Bidvertiser displays text ads in your page. But the difference lies in the fact that advertisers bid over your advertising space, ensuring you earn as much revenue as you possibly can. This also means that bids will increase over time, earning you even more cash. You also get a great way to customize your ads with a very easy to use tool and detailed reports on your site's status.
Quigo AdSonar (http://www.quigo.com/adsonarpublishers.htm) Quigo AdSonar achieves relevancy by placing a filter according to your site's categories. It also offers you on-line reports of your site's status and the possibility to add your own custom ads replacing ads that don't gain you any revenue. The setup is very simple, in a similar fashion to AdSense's and quite customizable as well.
Vibrant Media IntelliTXT (http://www.intellitxt.com/site/web_01a.html) Vibrant Media IntelliTXT offers user-activated ads, highlighting certain words within the content of the page and presenting relevant ads when a user hovers his mouse over them. It uses a pay-for-performance pricing scheme and can easily be used along with other advertising methods, because it is unobtrusive. It places you in full control, allowing you to easily integrate it within your site with some simple JavaScript.
Nixie (http://www.nixxie.com/display.php?section=Partners) Nixie claims to hold a technology that can read and understand your site, enabling it to display the most relevant content to your site. Besides text ads, Nixie also features price comparison listings as well as live auction advertising. It's very easy to implement and has a good payment policy as well.
MIVA AdRevenue Xpress (http://www.miva.com/us/content/partners/arx.asp) MIVA AdRevenue Xpress is targeted towards small and mid-sized publishers. It implements Search Box functionality and also features things like a Category Directory as well as the handling of 404 error pages. It can be integrated with your page using a simple on-line wizard.
Fastclick (http://www.fastclick.com/publish.html) Fastclick offers you an impressive 65 percent of what it makes from a click on your website. Payments are done monthly, via PayPal or through checks. The ads can be formatted as you wish, and Fastclick even offers a free support serice for its members and no fees are required to register with the service.
contextWeb ContextAd (http://www.contextweb.com/Corporate/publisher/publisher.shtml) ContextAd offers the possibility of contextual ads for dynamic pages, meaning ads will change as soon as your page does. It's very easy to use and free to sing up for and offers a transparent payment policy. The ads are fully customizable and real-time reports are available 24/7.
AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/) AdBrite offers publishers the possibility of integrating text ads in their pages. These are done on your own rates, with the websites you approve by hand so it bares some similarities with a classic advertising scheme. You also have the option of adding a "Your Add Here" button that buyers can immediately click to ad space on your page. It can also be used in conjunction with Google AdSense, maximizing your CTR and offering advertisers the possibility of showing their links in your Google AdSense space. You have full control over the look and feel of your adds and finally, you get an incredible 75% of what the advertiser pays for on every click.
So, as you can see there are many offers for this kind of advertising, and many hybrids based on AdSense like advertising. Also, a lot of services can work together with AdSense to earn you an even greater amount of revenue for your ad space.
You need to have optimized niche website templates for best results. You may find the best adsense templates and blog templates at www.AdsenseTemplates.com (http://www.adsensetemplates.com). They are offering 100 fresh new templates every month.
But thankfully for such people, there are many alternatives to AdSense which attempt to alleviate some of its shortcomings. Here is a list of the most noteworthy ones from the lot with a description concerning each one.
AllFeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers) AllFeeds has a great pool of online advertisers to choose from. It also features many display formats that you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while rolling over earnings for the next month if you don't. Another interesting thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your earnings with AdSense.
MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php) MarketBanker allows you the unique possiblity to set the pricing for your site. It also allows you to allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There's also a statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The ads are small just like AdSense's and they're just as easy to set up. Also, registration for MarketBanker is free.
BidClix ( http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html) BidClix is different because it has advertisers compete for clicks on your site, which in turn is meant to generate the highest possible profits for your page. It also has a very large pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started with this service, but it's also very flexible.
Chitika (http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+Engine) RealContext uses Artificial intelligence to retrieve the most relevant ads for your page. And there's an extra feature which makes RealContext unique as well. Keywords are selected based upon which previous selections payed off and which didn't. That means there's a constant feedback process that ensures you gain better revenue from your ads. It also supports blocking certain adds and child-safe filtering and many more options.
AdHearus (http://adhearus.com/webmaster.php) AdHearus is a very feature-packed contextual ad provider. As with AdSense, advertisements are targeted but it doesn't stop here at all. The ads are very flexible, you can select from text-ads, banners, rectangles, pop-ups, pop-unders or skyscrapers. You can also display your own ads, through rotation, both on your site and on other affiliate sites, which makes AdHearus a hybrid with conventional advertising technologies. There's a very comprehensive on-line real time reporting feature and, as usual with such services, starting out is free and it's a breeze.
AffiliateSensor (http://www.affiliatesensor.com/) AffiliateSensor has highly customizable ad blocks, which you can make for yourself with an easy to use on-line interface. You also get realtime reporting with clicks-by-domain, page and refferer. There's integration with Google AdSense as well, through the google_alternate_ad_url so AffiliateSensor can be used as a substitute for Google PSA's (Public Service Ads).
Kanoodle Bright Ads (http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool) Kanoodle's offering allows publishers to get ads related to topics or segments, and not the traditional keyword oriented ads. The site also groups publisher sites with advertisers by hand to ensure high-revenue generating ads. And speaking of revenue, the amount of money you receive is a clear 50% share of the amount of money Kanoodle recieves for an advertiser.
TargetPoint (http://publisher.targetpoint.com) TargetPoint is oriented more towards content publishers. It offers full control over the look the ads, statistics over your site's overall performance and better revenue. It's free to register and you earn a guaranteed 60% of the total revenue. You can get payed with Paypal of Bank checks and (most times) wire transfers as well.
Clicksor (http://www.clicksor.com) Clicksor will earn you as much as 60% from the amount of money your website produces. What you get is about the same as AdSense, there are targeted text ads, you can view the revenues from your website in real time. You can receive money via PayPal or through a check every two weeks, provided that you have earned more then $50. If you haven't made that much, your earning roll over to the next period.
Bidvertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/) Like AdSense, Bidvertiser displays text ads in your page. But the difference lies in the fact that advertisers bid over your advertising space, ensuring you earn as much revenue as you possibly can. This also means that bids will increase over time, earning you even more cash. You also get a great way to customize your ads with a very easy to use tool and detailed reports on your site's status.
Quigo AdSonar (http://www.quigo.com/adsonarpublishers.htm) Quigo AdSonar achieves relevancy by placing a filter according to your site's categories. It also offers you on-line reports of your site's status and the possibility to add your own custom ads replacing ads that don't gain you any revenue. The setup is very simple, in a similar fashion to AdSense's and quite customizable as well.
Vibrant Media IntelliTXT (http://www.intellitxt.com/site/web_01a.html) Vibrant Media IntelliTXT offers user-activated ads, highlighting certain words within the content of the page and presenting relevant ads when a user hovers his mouse over them. It uses a pay-for-performance pricing scheme and can easily be used along with other advertising methods, because it is unobtrusive. It places you in full control, allowing you to easily integrate it within your site with some simple JavaScript.
Nixie (http://www.nixxie.com/display.php?section=Partners) Nixie claims to hold a technology that can read and understand your site, enabling it to display the most relevant content to your site. Besides text ads, Nixie also features price comparison listings as well as live auction advertising. It's very easy to implement and has a good payment policy as well.
MIVA AdRevenue Xpress (http://www.miva.com/us/content/partners/arx.asp) MIVA AdRevenue Xpress is targeted towards small and mid-sized publishers. It implements Search Box functionality and also features things like a Category Directory as well as the handling of 404 error pages. It can be integrated with your page using a simple on-line wizard.
Fastclick (http://www.fastclick.com/publish.html) Fastclick offers you an impressive 65 percent of what it makes from a click on your website. Payments are done monthly, via PayPal or through checks. The ads can be formatted as you wish, and Fastclick even offers a free support serice for its members and no fees are required to register with the service.
contextWeb ContextAd (http://www.contextweb.com/Corporate/publisher/publisher.shtml) ContextAd offers the possibility of contextual ads for dynamic pages, meaning ads will change as soon as your page does. It's very easy to use and free to sing up for and offers a transparent payment policy. The ads are fully customizable and real-time reports are available 24/7.
AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/) AdBrite offers publishers the possibility of integrating text ads in their pages. These are done on your own rates, with the websites you approve by hand so it bares some similarities with a classic advertising scheme. You also have the option of adding a "Your Add Here" button that buyers can immediately click to ad space on your page. It can also be used in conjunction with Google AdSense, maximizing your CTR and offering advertisers the possibility of showing their links in your Google AdSense space. You have full control over the look and feel of your adds and finally, you get an incredible 75% of what the advertiser pays for on every click.
So, as you can see there are many offers for this kind of advertising, and many hybrids based on AdSense like advertising. Also, a lot of services can work together with AdSense to earn you an even greater amount of revenue for your ad space.
You need to have optimized niche website templates for best results. You may find the best adsense templates and blog templates at www.AdsenseTemplates.com (http://www.adsensetemplates.com). They are offering 100 fresh new templates every month.
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