Google (GOOG) finally launches fraud monitoring website

Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has been listening to its AdWords customers complain about click fraud for years now. Although the Internet search leader has downplayed those concerns in large part, it has had to recently acknowledge that click fraud does exist. Google does say that it has sophisticated, automated tools in place to prevent more than 99% of click fraud, which explains why it has not publicly been concerned. Some of Google's advertising customers, though, believe click fraud severely dampens their business, and the subject of 'click fraud' continues to come up quarter after quarter.

Maybe Google finally wants to quash those voices in part, as it has officially announced a web-based resource center for its advertising partners and customers that gives them access to Google's information about click fraud and what the company does to combat it. I'm pretty sure most of the information is sanitized to a point, or fraudsters would use such a resource to make their ill-gotten gains easier to manage.

Google's new "Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center" should at least give those who closely monitor click fraud methodologies all over the web some kind of solace on what Google is constantly doing to ensure that kind of activity is kept to a minimum on its network. Even so, is this just a pacifier? Can Google trumpet exact detail on the actual level of click fraud and the detailed methods it uses to counter this? Not exactly, much to the chagrin of its ad partners. But, in place of that, Google plans all kinds of information on the new resource center website that will give ad partners and customers reports with the amount of money Google didn't bill the advertiser by detecting and discarding invalid clicks. Originally announced for release in March, it is finally here. And just in time, as Google's largest (90%+) source of revenue is -- you guessed it -- from click-based text ads on its search pages and partner search pages.