Sun Jan 06 18:02:43 PST 2019

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If you have a good log file analyzer and understand how to use it, then you have no
need for an external fraud prevention tool, but these tools make it quick and easy
to spot potential fraud.
If you believe your competitors are clicking your ads or you are investing heavily in
a competitive market, you will want to take a look at additional fraud protection.
Two of the current leaders in the PPC fraud prevention software market are
Who?sClickingWho and Keyword Max Click Auditor. VeriClix is a similar, but
free, product. Other analytics companies, such as ClickTracks, have also been
getting into the click fraud monitoring market.
Even if a competitor only clicks on your ads every few days, it still adds up over
time. This software allows you to accumulate the evidence you need to reverse
charges and potentially file a lawsuit, but you need to have a large enough spend to
justify its cost, unless you are just suing for publicity.
Google AdWords allows IP exclusion, which can be used to prevent advertisers
from seeing your ads.
Earning (and Buying
Trust
Hidden Bids
Google has never offered an entirely open ad service. Yahoo! used to be more
open, but as time passed they have obfuscated data. If the advertisers do not know
exactly how much they need to pay or who they are bidding against, and publishers
do not know exactly what they are getting paid for, it is easier for search engines to
adjust how much they are charging advertisers or paying publishers for matching
them and removing market friction.
Noise is Relative
When Google AdWords was new, they heavily relied upon affiliates to match
merchants with market opportunities. As more merchants have become
accustomed to using AdWords, Google has got better at filtering duplicate offers
and other affiliate noise out of their ads.
In an ideal market, Google would prefer to deliver leads directly to the merchants.
Affiliates who largely built Google into its current market position may be
considered little more than noise by Google in many markets today.
Google even went on record stating that some business models, like people selling
ebooks, might be likely to garner a low quality score and higher minimum bid
prices. Google would rather sell ads to trusted brands like Amazon than sell to a
person running a one page ebook site.