ONLINE RUSSIAN FRAUDSTER OFFERS FAKE CLICKS SERVICE ON YOUR COMPETITORS GOOGLE ADS

• April 07, 2017

• How to tackle the issue?

The already shaken online advertising market due to the prevalent click frauds got a serious jolt when Russian hackers stated offering fraud clicks services called GoodGoogle targeting the competitors Google ads.

What is even more bizarre is that these Russian fraudsters are not only running the fake clicks service but also promoting it in videos on Google’s YouTube and openly using Gmail accounts to correspond with the prospective customers.

• What are Russian fraudsters doing?

The GoodGoogle is luring the customers by giving fake clicks service options in the form of-

Advertisers can use GoodGoogle to block three to ten ad units for 24 hours for a small fee

Similarly, advertisers can run down the daily budgets of a handful of competitors’ ads indefinitely paying a small amount

Payments can be made up-front with virtual currencies

This fake clicks service scam is generally committed with the following intentions-

Sabotaging the competitors by exhausting their ad budget revenues and stealing their clients

Spoiling the advertising campaigns of the competitors

The fake click service also enables advertisers to quickly run down competitors’ daily budgets on Google AdWords

• How can you avoid the trap?

Since the fraud click service successfully escaped Google’s anti-fraud detection systems by using Botnets or a dedicated network of hacked computers to automate the ad clicking process and automated software that makes those clicks appear natural, it got hard to identify the fraud.

Furthermore, Click fraud detection isn’t easy on your own especially when your focus is on expanding the business and not catching the fraudsters trying to hurt your campaign and reputation.

Although the best way to save yourself from the Adwords click fraud is to hire a click fraud detection expert such as AdTector, it is always beneficial to look for the warning signs that may indicate that you’re the victim of click fraud. Some of these click fraud detection methods are-

Check for any unusual peaks in impressions or the number of times your ad is reflecting in search engine results

If there is a sudden drop in the number of page views during peaks in impressions or clicks, there is a chance that you are a click fraud victim

If you notice no increase in the number of conversions during peaks in impressions or clicks

If you notice higher bounce rate i.e. number of people clicking the ad and then quickly going back to the search results page during peaks in impressions or clicks