Search engine and advertising network BlowSearch launches a technology today that it said will help eliminate fraudulent clicks in pay-per-click advertising.
Click fraud is an expensive problem for advertisers. Experts estimate that 5 percent to 20 percent of all clicks are false or fraudulent.
The New York-based company's new Click Defender automatically checks every click on a BlowSearch ad to ensure it is being made by a human and not a machine or “robot.”
To develop the technology, BlowSearch identified 20 points on a machine that indicate a valid user as opposed to a scripted user. Then it discovered certain combinations of those 20 points that would indicate whether it is a false click.
“Some scripts can probably bypass some of those [20] checks, but not a combination of everything,” BlowSearch CEO Rich Kahn said.
The technology is being tested on its affiliate network and launches across its entire network by the end of the month.
BlowSearch offers a guarantee that Click Defender will work. If artificial traffic clicks on an advertiser's listings, the company will refund a credit to the advertiser in the amount equal to, but not greater than, the advertiser's loss.
Christine Blank covers online marketing and advertising, including e-mail marketing and paid search, for DM News and DMNews.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
