Google Adwords -- Charges for False Clicks?

I am an Adwords advertiser and recently I have been comparing my page views (how many times a visitors sees a page) to the number of clicks Google has been charging me. On November 25th, my Web site had 308 page views, but Google charged me for 705 clicks.





In any other business, that would be called fraud. Part of me wonders if Google is doing this to other Adword advertisers and that is how they are “jacking up” their revenues, thus increasing their stock price that hasn’t been seen since the “Dot.com” bubble burst in the late 1990’s.





My question is, has any one else experienced this problem and is there any legal action against Google I can take not only to help me but also other unsuspecting Adword advertisers maybe being taken advantage of without their knowledge?

Google Adwords -- Charges for False Clicks?
Didn't you get your google LCD picture frame? Your supposed to look at your children and not at your stats.





Google just settled a class action lawsuit on click-fraud.
Reply:First of all, I would recommend comparing clicks to visits, not clicks to page views. Pageviews are naturally going to be a bit higher because each time a page is loaded, even within the same session, it will be tracked as a new pageview.





In other words, suppose User A clicks on your ad and goes to your landing page. This would be tracked as 1 click and 1 pageview. Now suppose User A clicks around your site and comes back to the same landing page. This will be tracked as 2 pageviews. User A may also refresh the same landing page, tracking even more pageviews.





Visits are a more accurate metric to compare with clicks because they are based on a single, unique session. In otherwords, User A clicks on your ad and comes to your site. This will be tracked as 1 click and 1 visit.





However, keep the following in mind:





A visitor may click your ad multiple times. When one person clicks on one advertisement multiple times in the same session, AdWords will record multiple clicks while Analytics recognizes the separate pageviews as one visit. This is a common behavior among visitors engaging in comparison shopping.





A user may click on an ad, and then later, during a different session, return directly to the site through a bookmark. The referral information from the original visit will be retained in this case, so the one click will result in multiple visits.





A visitor may click on your advertisement, but prevent the page from fully loading by navigating to another page or by pressing their browser's Stop button. In this case, the Analytics tracking code is unable to execute and send tracking data to the Google servers. However, AdWords will still register a click.





To ensure more accurate billing, Google AdWords automatically filters invalid clicks from your reports. However, Analytics reports these clicks as visits to your website in order to show the complete set of traffic data.