Click Fraud Detection, at what threshold?

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Click Fraud Detection, at what threshold?

asrep tracking.

peego

4:53 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

I bought the asrep adsense tracking script and installed it few days ago, to track all my adsense activity on my sites, and it works very well. But i'm not sure what to set the click fraud threshold at, where the server will send me an alert email after one IP clicks XX number of adsense ads in one hour.

Currently, I have it set at 10clicks. I don't know what's an appropriate amount to set it to? Any suggestions? From your experiences, how many clicks from same ip would make it seem like click fraud?

thanks.

plasma

5:37 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'd set it to 3 and increase it if there are too many mails sent.

jomaxx

5:50 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

I do click tracking and frankly I think setting it at 3 would result in way too many false positives. Clicking a few ads during a surfing session is normal and common behaviour; you just want to keep one eye on your account, not give yourself ulcers.

peego

6:34 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

so is 10clicks too many? maybe i'll set it to 8clicks?

and when this does happen, should I email google about it?

jomaxx

7:04 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

Why not set up the script so that it automatically notifies AdSense support every time this happens?

Seriously (the above was a joke), there's no point in bothering AdSense with the small stuff. You can take some relatively harmless like banning the user or not showing them any more ads, but I'd only email Google if there was something going on that was clearly a serious problem. A malicious attack or a crazed robot or something.

Vis3R

8:01 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

I'd set it to as much ads as you can show + 1 ... cause some users click every add they see if they're interested in the topic... making it all ads + 1 would mean they clicked atleast 1 add twice ...
but if they refresh the website it'll maybe generate new ads so all ads+1 wouldn't work good anymore...

gregbo

10:35 pm on Aug 21, 2006 (gmt 0)

Currently, I have it set at 10clicks. I don't know what's an appropriate amount to set it to? Any suggestions? From your experiences, how many clicks from same ip would make it seem like click fraud?

Click fraud is about intent. Even one click from a single IP could be fraudulent - for example, if it came from a ring using multiple IPs.

The question you should be asking yourself is at what point do you start to feel uncomfortable, ie. the point at which you think your site would be at risk from being banned.