Data suggests a significant number of click fraud websites may be operating from China

“Golden Week” is a week-long vacation in China, celebrated at the start of October each year. During this year’s holiday, the amount of click fraud in the US dropped by 12%, according to click fraud detection firm Polygraph.

Click fraud is an online scam which steals tens of billions of dollars from advertisers every year. Criminals create legitimate looking websites, and monetize the content using advertisements. Bots are then sent to the ads, where they generate fake clicks, causing massive losses for the advertisers, and huge profits for the scammers.

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“Polygraph helps advertisers detect and prevent click fraud,” said Trey Vanes, chief marketing officer at Polygraph. “As part of our click fraud detection service, we’re able to see how many fake clicks are generated each day, and which websites are responsible for the fraud.

“Looking at the past month’s data, we were surprised to see a 12% decrease in the amount of click fraud targeted at US advertisers during China’s ‘Golden Week’. This suggests many of the scam websites and shady traffic providers responsible for click fraud may be operating from China.”

According to Vanes, the rate of click fraud returned to normal levels the week following the holiday.

“We can see from our data that the amount of click fraud bounced back as workers returned to the office. This is bad news for advertisers, as every fake click steals money from their advertising budgets,” said Vanes.

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Polygraph provides advanced click fraud detection services for advertisers, including detecting fake clicks, blocking click fraud websites, showing which ad keywords are at risk of fraud, and providing the data required to apply for click fraud refunds from the advertising networks.

“You don’t need to waste money on click fraud,” said Vanes, “nor do you need to be in the dark about how much money you’re wasting on fake clicks. Polygraph helps you take back control of your ad budget, and stop sharing it with scammers.”