Google today announced it’s created a new Web site to serve as the
single source for all click-fraud and ad traffic-quality-related
information.
The Ad
Traffic Quality Resource Center features an overview of what click
fraud is and what Google’s doing about it, a Help Center for detailed
FAQs and multimedia presentations and a section called “Tech Talk,”
which features in-depth articles and blog posts written by its
engineering team and other experts in the field.
Just over a year and a half ago, Google CEO Eric
Schmidt hypothesized that click fraud might not be such a big deal.
“Let’s imagine for purposes of argument that click fraud were not
policed by Google and it were rampant,” Schmidt said at the SIEPR
conference at Stanford University in March 2006.
“Eventually the price that the advertiser is willing to pay for the
conversion will decline because the advertiser will realize that
these are bad clicks.
“In other words, the value of the ad declines. So, over some amount
of time, the system is, in fact, self-correcting. In fact, there is a
perfect economic solution, which is to let it happen.”
Google eventually changed its public stance on click fraud.
Last August, the company, along with Microsoft , Yahoo, Ask.com and
LookSmart, formed the Click Measurement Working Group under the aegis of the Interactive Advertising
Bureau and in conjunction with the Media Rating Council.
Google’s enthusiasm for such a group wasn’t surprising. Advertisers sued the search giant and won a $90 million settlement that was approved a week before the formation of the group.
Since then, the company’s take on the issue has more or less echoed the
language found in the new resource center, where click fraud “refers to clicks generated with malicious or fraudulent
intent.”
Google said it and fellow members from the Click Measurement Working
Group will form a panel at this year’s Search Engine Strategies show
in San Jose. Shuman Ghosemajumder, business product manager for
Google Trust & Safety, will be speaking.