There are ways to make clicks worth more. Be from a US IP address. Stuff your browser with retargeting cookies by visiting high-value brand sites (e.g. car manufacturers, insurance websites, loan products, ecommerce stores).
I've worked on the network side of ad ops and seen fraud. Amateur, easily detected and squelched fraud. It amounted to several thousand dollars a day. If you were the right combination of talented and not-overly-greedy, you could make a comfortable living by doing this fraudulently.
> The primary beneficiary of the fraudulent clicks that are good enough to evade Google's detection is....Google.
The primary beneficiary is the person getting the lion's share of the ad dollar, which often isn't Google. Don't get me wrong, Google has some perverse incentives here, too, but I suspect they'd be way more happy with a 0% fraud world than with the status quo.
If you don't provide value to your customers (Advertisers) due to fraudulent clicks, ultimately your product is less valuable, and you make less money. I think Google's incentives are alright here.
There are ways to make clicks worth more. Be from a US IP address. Stuff your browser with retargeting cookies by visiting high-value brand sites (e.g. car manufacturers, insurance websites, loan products, ecommerce stores).
I've worked on the network side of ad ops and seen fraud. Amateur, easily detected and squelched fraud. It amounted to several thousand dollars a day. If you were the right combination of talented and not-overly-greedy, you could make a comfortable living by doing this fraudulently.
> The primary beneficiary of the fraudulent clicks that are good enough to evade Google's detection is....Google.
The primary beneficiary is the person getting the lion's share of the ad dollar, which often isn't Google. Don't get me wrong, Google has some perverse incentives here, too, but I suspect they'd be way more happy with a 0% fraud world than with the status quo.