It has been revealed through credible sources that the clickfraud rate of Google AdWords is under 2%. This may be a surprise to the cynics, but many feel that this is alright going by the standards of cybercrime.

This is a news that is actually a big news for the Search marketing industry. Never ever has such a piece of news come up in the SEO circles. Shuman Ghose Majumder, the business product manager of trust and safety at Google has revealed that tad under 2% of fake clicks ever are charged for advertising on the world’s most popular search engine. He however did not completely reveal how Google classifies clicks. This is some news for the industry, as many search engine experts believed that clickfrauds would be more than 15%!

Andy Beal had posted a message on the post giving details from his conversation with Shuman Ghose Majumder. Here is an excerpt from the post:

Google utilizes four layers of click fraud detection. The first layer is purely automatic and is used to filter clicks from both "search" and AdSense partners (contextual ads). This filter is able to detect invalid clicks in real-time, with the goal of removing them before they ever show up in the AdWords console.

The second and third layers are aimed at filtering only AdSense clicks. The second layer is what Google calls its "flagging system" and is an automatic process to remove invalid clicks from the AdWords system. The third layer of filtering is a "manual review" process with more than two dozen Google employees manually reviewing and removing any suspicious clicks.

Google's goal is to have the first three layers of filtering identify 100% of all invalid and fraudulent clicks. Those clicks that manage to escape Google's filters are what causes many advertisers to raise concerns and has spawned the growth of many so-called click fraud detection companies. The fourth layer of click fraud detection falls to these advertisers and detection companies and is what Google calls "requested investigations".

However, there is still a lot to be debated about. Firstly, how do you explain the huge difference in the gap between the two sources: Google and external? Many would say that Google is trying to come up with false numbers so that they do not lose their credibility. On the other hand, Google would argue that external sources are trying to defame them.