I’ve always been aware of click fraud with Facebook or Adwords, but I’ve never been able to explain in a simple manner until I watched this video. Click fraud is basically the process of individuals and/or automated programs that attempt to generate money by clicking on your ads.

In the attached video, Veritasium provides a clear example complete with data about how the Facebook ad system allows this, and in some instances actually promotes this happening. The video also goes in specific details about how the issue of fake “likes” has grown into a major problem and why Facebook can’t necessarily stop it.

The video follows an example of a fan page for “Virtual Cat” that paid to increase their likes, only to find out that most of those likes were from oversea countries or from accounts that appeared to be fake.

While the attached video mostly focuses on Facebook, I see this same type of occurrence often happening with Google ads. The bottom line, click fraud is a known evil and while the major companies are fighting to reduce this when possible, there is actually little you can do on your end to prevent it. My advice, know it exists and watch out for it, but understand that it will probably never be completely solved.