So now that you've got a basic understanding of click fraud, let's continue with the discussion...

Why cheat the system?

Look, I can give you all sorts of nifty rationalizations (and some did) but the bottom line is it's about the money stupid

I mean, really, from the beginning of time itself, people have gone after the easiest targets.  It just so happens that, right now, getting paid for clicks is very, very easy.

I realize that the companies are going to filter out some of my clicks but ya know what?  That's just a cost of doing business.  Until it gets to the point where I can't get a 2x return on my money I will keep doing it.

Analysis

Like any other form of cheating the system it's really not too difficult to understand why these guys do it.  Some will, of course, do it for the challenge.  But most will do it because it makes them a very good living.

How much are they making scamming the system?  Well, for the top guys who are doing this, it's not uncommon to see them make up to $5000 a day.  There are, of course, some expenses associated with that but nowhere near what you'd expect. 

Most of them told me that if they are making anything less than a 5x return on their money then it's just not worth bothering with.

Where does the traffic come from?

This is where nobody wanted to be quoted.  In fact, many of them simply ignored my questions to determine where the traffic comes from.  It took quite a bit of investigation but I was able to figure out various sources for the traffic.

Before I point out the traffic, however, it should be noted that some of these methods are actually legitimate forms of generating traffic for your sites (not all of them but some).

Traffic Exchanges - You've heard about em and thought, "I wonder if I could get some traffic to my site with those?"  In most cases, the answer is no.  There are a few people I know of that have managed to capitalize on this type of traffic and still do to this day.  Most folks, however, find this to be a nice money sink. 

The general idea behind traffic exchanges is that people get credits for viewing pages within the network.  Those credits can then be used to get people to view your site.  Of course, if you don't want to surf for credits, you can buy credits.

The major problem for the folks who use this traffic for click fraud is that traffic exchanges generate a large number of duplicate IPs so the traffic isn't very good quality and it's also rarely targeted completely to the US.

Pop Unders - Yeah, you thouht pop unders were dead didn't you?  Not quite.  You can actually buy them for as little as $645 per 1 million.  I'm sure you can get em cheaper than that even if you looked hard enough.  Amazingly, generating a pop under really isn't all that difficult and it's rather trivial to get around most popup blockers.

Expired domain traffic - This is a very popular source to use because you can buy traffic that's targeted towards the US.  US traffic will generally get you more money - in fact, if it's not US traffic, many PPC companies will simply ignore the click!  Visitors are simply redirected from the type-in domain name and sent on to the target site.

Bot farms - I'm sure you've read the press about people getting caught for selling access to zombies.  Well, there are a few folks who use this to get traffic through spyware and what not.  Truthfully, however, many of them avoid this method because they don't want to risk imprisonment.  It's far easier to get other sources of traffic that pay just as well.  You'll certainly see a few rebels that use this method but it won't be nearly as common as other methods.
While that doesn't cover ALL of the methods they use to get traffic, it does cover the most significant ones.

Coming Soon...
  • How big is the problem?
  • How can you protect yourself?
  • and more...