Recently I started a new AdWords campaign, and because the bids where hight on certain keywords / phrase, i made a tracking code for the campaign. Just wanted to know what the hack is going on, especially when 1 click could cost you as much as 1.00 for a decent position (6-9).

Not even 12 hours later, looked at the log file and here is what I found:
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ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 22:30:35
ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 22:32:48
ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 22:33:30
ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 22:35:19
ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 22:50:28
ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 23:15:12
ad id ad name no_kw_name referer Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Media Center PC 4.0) ip-78.16.2.197 2007-05-30 23:15:26
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I have taken few things out like referer, etc. but look at the time

Some people really take competition to heart. Makes you laugh how low some could go.
Google detected click fraud on 4 of them and only charge me for 3 clicks, but still, how fair is that?

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Nice tracking louie,

that is simply amazing and makes me think about creating something like this to better protect myself... or are you gonna share it with us

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Geansai Gorm | Web Design Ireland | Free CSS Menus

is done in php so yes i could put something togheter for download.
You need to make few changes to the landing page, adwords url, etc.

Its totally uncalled for especially when you have tracked to prove the invalids. Is it normal for Google to still charge for some of the clicks, even if they are invalid?

Something like this could cost a business a lot of money and be worse for those who don't track their clicks or simply don't know how to.

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Google has an automated fraud click system, and indeed will catch the first ones as valid and the rest as fraud without cancelling the charge for the previous which is a good job.

There is no point in going too far about it as calling Google for few euro, but if this happens every day, it could run your bill very high (hundreds) taking in consideration some keywords are quite expensive for the right position and having all this at hand is worth a call and show what you have.
My solution for the moment was to drop the price bidding for the 2nd or 3rd page until I get the right solution to the problem.
I will work on the tracking system to records the bounce percentage as well, following the user on every page he actually goes to, making your accusations stronger.

Google will argue that the clicks could be from a genuine user returning to the site or perhaps multiple users sharing the same ip from the same isp. We know it's fraud (call it sixth sense or call it common sense, it's something missing from Google's algorithms), but they deal with hard facts and will give valid arguments to charge for at least some of the clicks. It sucks and it takes time out of your day to prepare the data to even present a case to them. The upside is the competitor is improving your quality rating and lowering your costs, however if it's done enough over a long period it can takes it's toll.

I tried advertising for web design for a while but I was getting too many fraud clicks. They were all from the same ip so it was just one person who continued to do it, clicking just a few times every day to avoid detection, nearly every day of the month. It was most likely the person competing for the same ad position but is of course impossible to know for sure.

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MGS Web Design - Web Design Kildare, Web Design Ireland

I wouldn't say it's impossible, based on the high bounce rate from that particular visitor. Somebody that clicks on your ad few time in less than 5 minutes without spending more than few sec. on your page or website is more than likely a competitor = wa***.

As I said if is worth while, you can take it with Google and if you have enough prove, they will do something about it and you can write a nice blog with positive result or they can be stubborn and you write the opposite, but as I said you need prove.

Oh yeah, it's definitely worth tracking and reporting, especially if it's a lot of money but it's just a pain that it has to be done at all and the advertiser has to spend the time doing it.

If you're spending a lot of money on PPC there are solutions on the market that can help track fraudulent clicks.

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Nothing on the market could work the way you want, some very complicated, could slow down your website or is just to hard to understand and gives you a lot of info that you don't need, the reason I hate ready made packages.

I just finished the follow up track which i have control over and only runs if it comes from Google by clicking on one of my ads.