Tuesday, December 26, 2006

What You Don’t Know About PPC Fraud
Could Put You Out Of Business

Pay Per Click seems like the answer to many a new, small business owner’s dreams: A competitive web presence via top-of-category advertising on the first page of the browser of your choice, and a record of pertinent site visitors.  After all, who would be accessing your site but visitors specifically interested in your services, yes?  Surely that would be worth the sometimes high price? Well, yes and oftimes, no.  Read on.

Did you know that Pay Per Click originated in the “Adult” market about nine years ago?  Back then, adult companies built massive affiliate networks on the PPC model that paid affiliates for displaying banners and text links.  This major revenue stream eventually dried up due to click fraud.  Unscrupulous affiliates linked any and all sites to their ‘adult content’ sites….Honest and innocent business people were soon fielding irate calls asking why their search for legitimate consumer goods and services took them to X-rated websites!  Not only were these businesses being bilked for theft of services, but they were also paying huge sums (after all, it is not called ‘Pay Per Click’ for nothing!) for the privilege!

And, while this practice has diminished significantly, there are still many ways to defraud honest consumers.  Another fraudulent practice perpetrated by some affiliates is to lure unsuspecting consumers into buying their PPC services with an unreasonably low PPC charge, then have workers in a “back office boiler room” run up charges by visiting the site repeatedly- often over 1,000 times a day per worker.  The victim sees only that his site is suddenly very popular.  But over time, when the “faux” visitors do not make web purchases on the site, and the small firm’s total marketing budget is sunk into the fraudulent PPC operator, the business sinks as well.

What can you do?  Kessler International, a renowned investigative strategies, computer forensic and forensic accounting firm, has some pointers on what business owners can do to protect themselves from PPC fraud, also what to do if one suspects fraud.  See links below.

SEE ALSO:  PAY-PER-CLICK OR PORN-PER-CLICK?
CORPORATIONS’ REPUTATIONS TARNISHED BY CLICK FRAUD
http://www.investigation.com/press/press49.htm

Posted by Michael G. Kessler in
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