All you need to know about click fraud

If you are tied up with the e-commerce, you will probably hear about such a notion as a click fraud. Nevertheless, very few people and even businessmen pay attention to it. In fact, they are not right, because this problem is becoming more and more actual. 

A person faces click fraud when another user or a bit is going to behave in a way of a real user. In fact, the aim of them is just to click the advertisement and drag money from the client. It seems to be that the real user is working, in fact, everything is a bit worse.

Some data

Click fraud is not a single problem that can take place only once. This is a repeated action that is working constantly. Some links can be clicked several times, or even a hundred or a thousand. The main aim is to produce the impression of a real click action. Scammers usually apply special scripts for it – known as click bots.

Important! According to the statistics, about half of the global traffic belongs to bots. About 20% of the visitors of every website are not real people.

Such people have different aims for doing it. First of all, it is a financial profit. Competitors can use such tools to drag all the investment budget from the client. In fact, the owner will have clicks, but he won’t get any conversion.

The second idea is connected with popular requests. Sometimes, it is necessary to promote illegal or infected pages. Using click bots is one of the best ways to do it.

What is click fraud technically?

Well, such bot is a script or a tool, that is used for constant clicking on the websites or advertisement. Such simple elements get the access to the page or the clink and start clicking unstoppable. More professional developments are designed to behave like real people. They can click with certain intervals. The client won’t even understand that the bot is working. So, the scammer who is using such tools does the effort to mask all the actions.

It works from different IP addresses. It becomes almost impossible to catch such a product. Such a network is known as a botnet. This network has innumerable bots that are used for attacking the websites. The main problem is that the users can’t even know that they use this program. They become a victim of virus attacks. The computer becomes infected and works as a click bot. Such tools can infect thousands of computers. 

At the same time, one can win the fight against such bots. It is possible to do when the program is working from one computer. It becomes much easier to detect it. In case, it works from the server, the problem is really hard to solve.

Only bots are hazardous?

Bots are not the only problem that can appear with click fraud. There is another trouble that can be faced in e-commerce. It is called as a click farm. It includes people who are constantly clicking the websites or links. The advantage of it is that this kind of job is rather low-paid. Big companies that use these features can employ workers for the smallest reward. 

They provide them the chance to visit certain websites to enhance the traffic. They don’t need to do anything special; they just regularly clock one button. The main advantage of such a method that the behavior of a person is more predictable. The user won’t even understand that he became the victim of the click fraud. At the same time, it takes much more resources with low effectivity.

So, the main approach is to use special computer instruments. Sometimes, it is much easier to write a couple of lines with the code than to find a person who will do it regularly.

Potential loss

The loss for the companies can cost millions and sometimes billions of dollars. According to the statistics, more than 20 million dollars are wasted every year with the help of such resource. It is quite a big sum that can be used for good in e-commerce. 

The problem is becoming even more dangerous when the network appears. As it has been mentioned, the networks have different IP addresses. So, the loss of the company can be rather immense. It takes much time and effort to clarify the situation. The sums that are lost every year are constantly growing. The analytics predict, that within a couple of years it will reach more than 1 billion dollars.

Is it bad for statistics?

Click fraud is dangerous for all the websites. It can be explained easily. When you open the statistics, you must understand that false clicking can be included in it. The specialists can’t evaluate the real effectivity of the website. It is hard to identify how many real users watch the ad and visited the website. As the result, the company is suffering hard. It is especially bad for the companies that are investing much in the ad development. They pay much money and get nothing. Besides, it becomes hard to explain what went wrong.

Without powerful tools, it becomes almost impossible to fight against such attacks. It produces negative effect on the company.

How to protect your business?

Now, automatic tools are worked out to protect ad companies. Some of them are provided from well-known IT companies. The idea is that they filter inappropriate clicks. When the tool sees something suspicious, it can mark it as a bot. In fact, it is not always true. There are some problems in detecting and killing such programs. More and more companies employ specialist to keep e-business in order. The expenses are becoming bigger, but there is no way out.

Conclusion

When you are leading an e-commerce, you must clearly understand that your business is subjected to various risks. One of them is click fraud. With the development of technologies, luckily, it becomes possible to protect yourself. At the same time, scammers are working hard to invent something new. It is a constant fight between people who want to earn legally and illegally. 

The companies will have to look for specialist who can protect their business. It is hard to find such analytics as it requires a complex approach to the problem. Sometimes that is not enough to have only human brains. It is necessary to combine human resources and IT solutions.