Google now offering more click fraud protection

Beginning this month, Google plans to give advertisers the ability to prevent their pay-per-click ads from being shown to competitors suspected of repeatedly clicking on the ads to drive up their cost.

The move, to be announced in Google's AdWords blog on Thursday (today), is an effort to curb click fraud, which involves generating clicks solely for the purpose of increasing the cost of an advertiser's pay-per-click ad.

Google, king of pay-per-click advertising, will allow advertisers to specify which Internet Protocol addresses--numerical addresses assigned to individual computers--will be blocked from receiving the ads. The move is designed to stop rivals from using click fraud to eat through a competitor's advertising budget and to prevent them from bidding on the ad's keyword for the purpose of using it in their own ads. Fraudulent clicks can be generated by people paid to click ads over and over, and also through automated software programs.

Also beginning in March, Google plans to give advertisers more information on how much money they are saving by filtering out fraudulent clicks, a Google spokesman said. Before July, Google will provide a standardized interface for advertisers to report click fraud and request investigations. Continue Reading >>>

I had noticed quite a decline in my Google Adsense over the last couple of months. It seemed I was getting just as much traffic, but the rates had dropped quite a bit.

Hopefully this will help increase those bottom lines in the coming months.

Anyone else noticed a decline in their Google Adsense lately?