Click Fraud Article on Forbes.com

Forbes.com released an interview today with Shuman Ghosemajumder, the business product manager for Trust & Safety at Google.com. Shuman discusses click fraud in depth including discussing how third-party auditors overestimate the amount of click fraud that actually occurs, how it is in Google’s best interests to stop click fraud, and then what Google does about click fraud. That last issue is what most people are concerned with, what is Google doing about click fraud, Shuman does not get into specifics because then more people can get away with click fraud. The one top level statistic they monitor closely is click through rate, a dramatic increase in CTR is often a clear sign of click fraud but they also monitor IP addresses and the proportion of visitors from IE to Firefox. Shuman says that Google “analyzes hundreds of different factors, the majority of which are secret.”
The interview is interesting in that it is surprisingly proGoogle, not your typical Click Fraud will ruin CPC advertising forever article. The bottom line according to Shuman is the better the ROI that advertisers get, the more they are willing to spend on Google, and therefore increase Googles profits.