click fraud

There are various billing modelsinonline advertising. Many are based on the click rate of the ad clicks, such as pay per click( PPC), which triggers the banner advertising. An example of this type of billing is AdWords from Google. Since the banner provider pays according to the number of clicks in pay-per-click, there is a direct correlation between the number of clicks and the revenue generated.

A higher click-through rate results in higher website acceptance and sales. This tempts to increase the number of clicks by unfair means and manipulation. This unfair click rate increase is click fraud or ad fraud. If a provider detects click fraud, he punishes the click fraudster.

There are various ways to commit click fraud. The easiest way is to generate additional revenue by clicking on the advertising banner frequently. However, online advertising producers and agencies have developed various tools to detect click fraud. Among the various parameters that arechecked by the companies are, of course, the Internet addresses. If the same Internet address appears several times, it is no longer taken into account by the counting statistics. Also, if the viewing duration is too short, these visitors are omitted for the statistics.

Forced clicks are another unfair method of manipulating the number of clicks. In this technique, also known as Pay per Forced Click (PPFC), the visitor is forced to click on the online advertisement in order to trigger an action in the first place. Another method for click fraud is clickjacking where cybercriminals hide malware and other malicious software on websites. This malware downloads itself as soon as a visitor clicks on a link of the corresponding website.