BING Click Fraud – What is It?

It’s important nowadays, to be on our guard against Bing click fraud. Search engine watchers have noticed that Bing has become vulnerable. Yet any search engine can be vulnerable to this insidious type of fraud. If you’re not vigilant, click fraud can do great damage to your PPC campaigns It can attack from many sides. It can come through accidental clicks, VPNs, bots or competitors.

Bing Ads: The History Till Date

Ever since Bing first appeared in its present avatar in 2012, it was set up to compete directly to its opposite number on Google. That included Google Ads. Back then, of course, it was known as AdWords. If you compare Bing Ads with Google Ads in terms of the number of users as well as market share, you’ll find Bing Ads comes a clear second to Google’s first. In 2018, Bing Ads’ share of the UK market was estimated to be 20%. On first glance, these two platforms seem to be very similar and both provide a wide range of features. Yet there are some major differences. One particular difference is how Bing Ads approaches the problem of BING click fraud.

Bing Ads: Dealing with Click Fraud

To get a clear picture, let’s check out Google Ads first. This platform offers a range of information gathering features that you, the user, can use to keep an eye out for click fraud during your promotions. The user may also avail of the opportunity to merge their Google Ads campaigns with their Google Analytics account. This offers an extra opportunity to study the statistics and provides the user with an extra security blanket. What that really means is that the user gets an extra chance to recognise click fraud and send it packing.

Comparing Google Ads and Bing Ads

Bing Ads offers tools to study the various statistics. Yet there are definite contrasts between Bing Ads and its rival. An obvious contrast is how BING click fraud is tackled by the company. Another is how it handles requests for refunds. Bing has two ways of checking for invalid clicks. One way is to manually check and invalidate clicks found to be false. Another is by inspecting clicks before billing the client. At the outset, this seems fair. Yet this tends to make invalid click refund claims more complicated than necessary. Make a detailed comparison with both platforms. You’ll see that Bing Ads isn’t as well armed to protect against click fraud as it could be. It can recognise and identify fraudulent clicks, but its not as foolproof as the Google Ads system. Don’t imagine that Google isn’t vulnerable to click fraud. Yet when it comes to the detection and adjusting of click fraud, there are difference between the two platforms. Bing’s detection system is slow and disjointed. Even the most easily recognised types of click frauds can take way too long to identify.

Google Ads and Bing Ads – A Clear Difference

Google Ads lets systems communicate through their Application Programme Interface(API) using the IP exclusion list. The ability to block click fraud by IP address blocking is crucial. Bing doesn’t have this this feature. Click Guardian has been campaigning to resolve this for years. If Bing click fraud is recognised, IP exclusion must be added manually.

BING Click Fraud – Conclusion

Bing Ads is a fine PPC platform, yet it has a disadvantage when handling click fraud. Google Ads, of course, has its negative aspects too. Both companies experience click fraud in one form or another. Though Google Ads dominates, Bing Ads is still holding its own. Yet there are problems. These include Bing’s ineffective information gathering, an important weapon in the battle against click fraud. It’s important to keep this in view when running a campaign in Bing Ads. Click fraud can and does occur every so often, on all platforms. Yet if you bear in mind the advantages and disadvantages of Bing Ads, you should be forearmed to limit any negative impact from click fraud.