The two most common kinds of fraudulent clicks occur on

(1) Google’s search page ads and

(2) ads on other web pages (i.e., the Google Content Network).

In type (1) a competitor or ill-wisher clicks over and over on your ad and you go broke paying Google click costs.

In type (2), a website owner has a deal with a click fraudster. The fraudster says something like, “I’ll have 5,000 different people click on the Google ad(s) on your website every week. When Google pays you at the end of the month, you give me a portion of the revenue.” You again go broke paying Google click costs.

The great Google spam-meister Matt Cutts describes in his blog various click fraud symptoms and specific remedies.

Some of the remedies make you look back on yourself; for instance: “Review your account to see if you’ve made recent changes to your daily budget, maximum CPCs, or ad distribution preferences. Making changes to any of these can increase your reach and change your conversion rate as new visitors may have different buying patterns.”

Not all of them are like this. For some symptoms, he advises contacting Google’s click fraud team and even links to a complaint form.

Matt’s post is very important. If you spend a large amount on Adwords each month, please read it!!

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