CONTEXTUAL ADVERTISING: AdSense Click Fraud in India

Contextual Advertising

Contextual Advertising is a relatively new form of advertising on the web that will consider the context of the site, a page or a search query, to display ads from advertisers that correspond to the topic. Its usual form is text-based, using regular hyperlinks, sometimes small graphics and brief descriptions to attract users that may be interested. It is usually highly targetted and is better accepted by users because it is less obstrusive, less bandwith hungry and more relevant than the classic graphical banners. For example, a web page about photography will automatically draw advertisers selling cameras and other photo related accessories. It also has the benefits of making the job of a web publisher easier to find sponsors, as the contextual advertising company acts as an automatic middle man between publishers and advertisers, who bid for specific keywords using an auction system. The same can be said for advertisers, since they now have access to thousands of possible web sites to automatically advertise on. It usually works as Pay per Click, meaning the publisher only generate revenues when a user actively click on an ad, as opposed to Pay per Impressions, an older system that generates revenue based on the number of time the ad is displayed.

Google was on the forefront of this innovation when they created Google Adsense, the first major contextual advertising program. In the beginning, these new ads appeared with their search engine, but they soon expanded it to include webmasters and their web sites, which they named their "Content Network". Using a few ligns of Javascript code, publishers could insert Adsense on their web pages and it would then automatically serve relevant ads using Google's search algorithm. Google also considers other factors such as the geographical location of visitors and their languages, so ads can actually be different for each visitor. Other companies followed with similar programs, but they lacked the sophistication of Adsense since they demanded specific keywords from webmasters instead of detecting them on their pages. Other big players on the web are now slowly embracing this terrific new marketing technology, such as the Yahoo! Publisher Network and MSN adCenter. Contextual Advertising is making it now possible for smaller webmasters and publishers who own small hobby sites to monetize their efforts without spending all their time dealing with appropriate sponsors that may not necessarly be interested with smaller sites when taken on an individual level.

Contextual advertising programs and Google Adsense Alternatives

Here we list companies that offer this marketing solution to webmasters. Google Adsense is often considered the prime choice, but they do have restrictions and some people may be refused to their program.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

AdSense Click Fraud in India - How The Whole System Works???

A recent report on Click Fraud suggests that the maximum number of invalid clicks on Pay Per Click ads originate from India. And this is not the first time - its widely believed there there exists a large “work from home” crowd in India who want to generate “quick cash” by clicking Google AdSense ads.

During a recent trip to Google Hyderabad for BarCamp, I met someone who explained me the whole modus operandi of these secret ad clickers.

Pick any issue of Deccan Chronicle newspaper (the English Daily of Hyderabad) and open the Classifieds section - you will see dozens of ads that promise you regular Google AdSense income while working from home. (see this newspaper clipping on the right).

You basically create a website and then write a few articles to get accepted into the official Google AdSense program. Once you become an AdSense publisher, you join any of these “bogus” AdSense network and are introduced to other members who are in the same boat as you.

Now Google would quickly ban your AdSense account if you click Ads on your own website so what these networks do is ask members to click on Ads appearing on websites of other members. So it like a reciprocal behavior - you click my ads and I will click yours.

adsense-reports

Do members of such local AdSense networks make money? I have doubts. They may make a few dollars before Google discovers the click fraud activity, bans the account and returns the accumulated earnings to advertisers.

But in any case, the fraudulent clicks have been generated and added to the global “Click Fraud Index”. No wonder, India tops the chart.