April 19, 2006
While there has been some problems with click fraud, and I'm sure that there is a small percentage happening at this time, there are those who are looking to profit from the story about click fraud, and I want to talk about that a little.
First, as Mike Langberg of the Mercury news reports:
"There's no reliable evidence suggesting click fraud is anywhere close to epidemic proportions, and Internet companies have already figured out how to block unsophisticated forms of click fraud.
"Google notes, with some justification, that many so-called experts who claim as much as 30 to 40 percent of all pay-per-click traffic is fraudulent are trying to sell consulting services or software to stop click fraud -- giving them an obvious incentive for overstatement."
This is one of those things where dishonest people are adding so much false information to the mix that people start to develop fear about these things. In my estimation, if Google and Yahoo release their figures or are independently audited, which both companies are considering, they will be able to shut up the "fear mongers" that are all over the place trying to find a story where there isn't one.
Next post we'll talk about why we are told to fear so much.
