Online Advertising Survival: Combating Click Fraud - University of ...

likely constitute click fraud. The search engines would likely not consider this fraud.The correct answer would likely be somewhere between the two extremes.As mentioned earlier, every party defines click fraud differently. In determining clickfraud, each party is essentially setting their own internal standards. There is noconsistency or comparability. From this, it is abundantly clear that one’s measurement ofclick fraud is not likely to correspond to the other. That is a major dilemma facing theindustry.The common characteristics of click fraud are frequency and location. How many clicksmust there be before it is considered fraud and where (geographically and IP addressspecific) are the clicks originating from. There are many reasons why someone mightclick on an advertisement more than once. What then is the appropriate measurement ofclick fraud? In a study performed by Authenticlick, data reveals that in many cases,conversion happens after multiple clicks 40 . Multiple clicks in this case do not implyfraud. Similarly as Authenticlick has noted, that a traveler in a foreign country may havelegitimate interest in advertisements in another country halfway around the world. Theseclicks are legitimate and do not constitute click fraud.Organizations have already proposed standards. Search Engine Marketing ProfessionalOrganization (SEMPO) is a global non-profit organization serving the search enginemarketing industry and marketing professionals engaged in it. Their purpose is to40 Authenticlick, “Traffic Research: Beyond Click Fraud”, http://www.authenticlick.net/traffic_fraud.php,Retrieved June 13, 200832