Google Adwords - No real fraud protection at all.. Use at your own risk as long as your budget will allow!

Google doesn't protect small and large advertisers from fake or fraudulent clicks!

So I've explored Google Adwords recently with a few businesses I'm promoting. I watch the clicks very closely as the bid amounts are in the $12 to $15 per click range.  My beef with Google is that it says that they will credit you for double clicks and fraudulent clicks that are not real potential customers. I've found that Google does not protect you and will not credit you even though their marketing material suggests that they will! Specifically I had two clicks totally $28 from the same source. The two clicks were one minute a part and using Google's very own Analytics system I could tell that this particular person did not spend more than 10 seconds on the site. Basically this was a meaningless click that cost $28.

So under the "double click" policy of Google I contacted them to alert them of this situation. They requested the server log of the activity. Luckly for me I have a hosting service that makes those available to me in raw form. I'm not sure if you were using a Wordpress hosted site if you could get that data. So after reviewing the raw data log I confirmed what Analytics had shown that it was the same IP address and within 1 minute with zero activity beyond the click.

Here is Google's response to the actual raw data proof of the situation.

"Greetings, Steve,

Thank you for contacting Google.  Per our conversation regarding the
clicks on March 9 in your AdWords account, I had forwarded the issue to a
specialist team.

Our team received your report regarding suspicious clicks on your AdWords
ads. Thank you for your patience while we researched this issue.

After thoroughly reviewing your account, we did not find any evidence
suggesting that invalid clicks have been charged to your account. The
clicks your ads received appear to fit a pattern of normal user behavior.

If the click activity that doesn't fit your usual patterns, please keep

the following factors in mind:

- Return visits: Individual users may legitimately click on your ad more
than one time when comparison shopping or returning to your site for more
information.

- Shared IPs: Multiple clicks from a single source may be due to an
Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigning identical IP addresses to
multiple users. Certain ISPs, such as AOL, distribute a relatively small
number of shared, rotating IP addresses to a large number of users. As a
result, multiple visitors may access your site from identical IP
addresses, giving the impression of repeated clicks from a single visitor.

The security of AdWords advertisers is a top priority for Google. Please

be assured that we will continue to monitor all clicks on your ads to

prevent abuse. For more information about the steps we take to combat
invalid click activity, please visit
http://www.google.com/ads/adtrafficquality/."

If you read that response you should be quick to realize that under almost all circumstances and even with a server log which many Google customers may not even have access to, Google calls it "normal use". 

If that's not a red flag for your marketing budget than be prepared to pay for useless clicks under the Google business model. If you're in high cost keywords than that will add up to thousands of dollars. 

I don't trust Google and that my budget isn't being eaten up by some room of "clickers" or my competition!

After all Google has to make tons of cash to support that stock price for the street!

A better model for advertisers is a pay per click with a minimum interaction time on the site and true double click protection. It's easy to do but I suspect that Google is racking in a lot of money from illegitimate clicks so why would they want to change a thing.