AdSense Click Fraud and How It Affects AdSense Publishers

Click fraud is the generation of clicks for no other reason than to raise your click-through rate, or CTR. With AdSense, Google has done a lot to prevent this, but it still happens. The trouble is that when click fraud occurs, it blows up the CTR for that site, and Smart Pricing then drops the value, and thus the price paid, for each click. Everyone who uses AdSense is hurt because advertisers will feel that they are not getting their money's worth, and they will leave. Those who decide to advertise through AdSense will be less likely to pay a premium price, and so your earnings are driven down through simple economics. The reputation of the AdSense program can be harmed by click fraud.

Click fraud is a problem unlike most others. No one can even begin to measure the amount of click fraud that is happening every second of every day. As I mentioned earlier, AdSense is constantly working to prevent click fraud. They do not allow some of the most common methods, such as click banks. Smart Pricing does help to diminish the problem as well. However, what it really boils down to is this: AdSense, and all other affiliate marketing programs, are jeopardized by click fraud. This means your income is jeopardized too. These otherwise unlimited resources