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Came across a good thread over at Cre8asite forums about Google refunding some money to an advertiser using AdWords that received some fraudulant clicks from their content network. It was encouraging to see a user report this refund. Google states they are "very serious about catching invalid clicks", and use specific tools and techniques to catch on to fraudelent behavior. They do not however disclose the details of the filtering technology that help catch robots or users who click for inappropriate reasons.
The member stated he saw an increase in CTR from 3-4% to about 12% in a short amount of time. He suspected something but didn't contact Google about it. Google quickly responded to the situation, and he received a refund in his bank account for the fradulent click throughs. Ammon Johns, suggested one site to help monitor click fraud, at Click Detective. Seems to be pretty useful for catching this, they are not the only service however, so if interested its probably wise to investigate a couple other ones.
Read up on Google Click Quality Standards
Comments:
George
11/07/2008 05:19 pm
1) how come I can not contact google about a problem??? 2) I received this letter on a yahoo email address I feel it is fraud! Please respond George Mail:: Our system was unable to process a payment for your outstanding Google AdWords account balance using your primary credit card. For the time being, your account is still open, and your ads are still running. However, we require you to update the payment information in your AdWords account very soon in order to ensure continued ad serving. Please update your credit card information in order to trigger our billing system to try processing your payment again. If you plan to use the same credit card(s), please use the 'Retry Card' button on the Billing Preferences page of your account. Otherwise, please follow the steps below to update the information in your AdWords account. 1. Log in to your AdWords account at: http://adwords.google.com 2. Click the 'My Account' tab. 3. Click 'Billing Preferences' link. 4. Click Edit next to the appropriate 'Payment Details' section. 5. Enter your new or updated payment information. 6. Click 'Save Changes' when you have finished. In the future, you may wish to use a back up credit card in order to help ensure continuous delivery of your ads. You can add a back up credit card by visiting your Billing Preferences page or visit the AdWords Help Centre for more. Tip: You can review the status of your billing on the Billing Summary page, under the 'My Account' tab. If a payment has been declined, click 'Payment Declined' beside the line item to review information for that particular payment. Once your payment has been processed successfully, you can view and print an invoice from your Billing Summary page. ------------------------------------------------------------------ This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message. If you have any questions, please visit the Google AdWords Help Centre at https://adwords.google.com/support/?hl=en_GB to find answers to frequently asked questions and a 'contact us' link near the bottom of the page. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you for advertising with Google AdWords. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available. Sincerely, The Google AdWords Team