Millions, thousands, hundreds, tens, ones all happen to be what is spent by online businesses and entrepreneurs on web advertising. Why? Is it to increase their revenues of course right? Well maybe its about spreading awareness of their services? What about their bottom line right? See the problem nowadays is that online businesses cannot seem to find a reason good enough or an advertising tactic effective enough to justify the amount of money spent on advertising. There are literally thousands of online businesses whom have spent tons of cash on advertising in regions such as search engines only to discover after thousands of dollars later that their sales have barely increased. Why? Click Fraud!

Now click fraud compiles of fake advertiser page, image or text impressions. Now many may believe that click fraud does not concern them because their business are too small but to the contrary. Any advertiser, webmaster or small business can find a simple reason why search engine clicks should be paid for right? No! The reason being is that many internet surfers look for answers to their search requests in the page results section, not the sponsored ads. In addition many internet surfers prefer to do business with businesses or organizations they recognize despite the costs only because it creates a form of familiarity for them.

So again I present the question, are we spending too much money on advertising search engine clicks? No you may say, its effective and it aligns with the law of numbers right. If over 100 people see your ad at least 10 or 20 of them will click on it and out of that 1 to 2 of them will make a purchase possibly right? The catch is Possibly that is what we pay for as small businesses. Just think in 2004 at least 500 million or half a billion of our hard earned capital was wasted because of click fraud through advertising. By 2008 the cost of click fraud will grow to an estimated 1.6 billion and you know what that 1.6 billion will include your hard earned money as well. For most advertisers, 70% of their annual online advertising capital is thrown away because of click fraud. Is this just my opinion? Maybe not.

Recently a judge awarded a group of online advertising $90 million because of click fraud resulted from their Google adwords. Google will give advertising credits that are the equivalent of a $3.80 refund on every $1,000 spent in its advertising network during the past 4 1/2 years to these group of advertisers. Now I don't know about you but last time I checked that wasn't even half of a percent of what was originally spent by these small businesses. Hey I don't know about you but my time and my hard earned money is worth more than that isnt yours? So what are we left with?

A problem with no solution? Absolutely not. Maybe we need to track down these click fraud culprits and ban them from the internet or maybe just the search engines? Impossible, see the problem with click frauders is that their not just people who spitefully want drain advertiser pockets, they resemble you and me! A recent study found that residents in India were being paid anywhere from $100 to $200 dollars a month just to click on paid sponsored links as a source of creating income for themselves. Now this may not be you but click fraud culprits also happen to be common internet surfers just like you and me! Now you may say hey I don't divulge in fraudulent clicks but wait are you someone who commonly visits search engines and clicks on sponsored ads but never really buys?

Do you click on sponsored links for items that just don't really interest you? Wait I'm sorry maybe youre the person who only uses search engines for business information sources right? Well then have you ever searched for a company or business by name and instead of clicking in the results you clicked on the sponsored ad? Bingo! Youre guilty of click fraud and you know what so am I. Now don't get me wrong there is a potential earning from paying for clicks through search engines but again the question is not how effective is that method but how effective is its cost?

How long will we continue to spend our hard earned money for ad clicks and how much is enough, hundreds, thousands, millions perhaps. Well now it would seem that we as business people may have a serious problem on our hands. So what do we do about such a growing epidemic, sorry I just write about them your guess is as good as mine!

Critically thinking

Sam Morgan
Online business directory
http://www.bizey.com