Does Invalid Traffic and Ad Fraud Affect SEO?

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Foreign and domestic marketers have long assumed that traffic fraud, i.e. artificially inflating invalid clicks, has a negative impact on SEO. The evidence is the recent leak of Yandex ranking factors, which clearly shows that traffic fraud has a direct impact on a site's position in search results.

The following information was found in the leaked code:

Paid traffic (advertisements, etc.) has a positive effect on the rating. Many SEO specialists have already noticed that clicks on ads improve the ranking of the site. Now this has been confirmed. At the same time, the organic traffic factor remains a priority.

Thus, the higher the quality and more natural the transitions, the better for SEO. Invalid clicks on advertising - click fraud - can negatively affect the efforts to promote the resource.

Despite the differences in the factors that different search engines use to evaluate resources, the concept is roughly the same. So, no matter which search engine you're targeting, you need to know how traffic fraud affects your rankings and whether you can do anything about it.

Given this issue, it is necessary to understand how click fraud affects the SEO positions of a site, who may be behind the “sinking” of your resource and whether it is possible to protect yourself from it.

Contents
1. What is SEO
2. The multi-billion dollar problem of contextual advertising
3. What is invalid traffic. Are they bots?
4. Types of Ad Fraud That Affect SEO
5. Invalid traffic also affects social networks
6. Who is responsible for invalid web traffic?
6.1 Competitors
6.2. Fraudsters
6.3. Publishers and webmasters
6.4 Bot operators
7. Does SEO fight click fraud?
8. The consequences of invalid traffic for SEO
8.1. Resetting the applied forces
8.2. Drains the overall marketing budget
8.3. Invalid statistics
9. How to prevent invalid traffic

What is SEO​

SEO (Search Engine Optimization), or search engine optimization, is a set of actions applied to a resource to increase its visibility and positions in search engines for a certain range of key queries. For example, such actions include filling in Title and meta tags, optimizing content on the site, creating a high-quality design, well-thought-out structure and UI, placing backlinks on third-party trusted resources, affiliate marketing, etc.

If a site is mentioned on major news sources and is frequently discussed on social media, it will likely rank higher in search engines than less cited sites.

SEO differs from online advertising in a number of ways:

• Firstly, you can get to the first page of Yandex or Google by simply buying an advertising space, while getting to the first page of organic search results with the help of SEO requires many months (and even years) of effort.
• Secondly, high SEO promotion rates can be achieved with virtually no costs, while digital contextual and media advertising can cost fabulous sums.
• Third, SEO is of little interest to attackers, as they typically have no financial incentive to click on non-advertising links.

SEO can be impacted by many factors, including invalid bot traffic. This is a problem that can hinder the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and search engine rankings. It is important to understand the impact of such traffic in order to effectively combat this problem and defend your position.

The Multi-Billion Dollar Problem of Contextual Advertising​

There are many problems associated with online advertising, but one stands out above all else: click fraud. Click and impression fraud costs advertisers tens of billions of dollars each year (and has already exceeded hundreds of billions in 2024).

Large advertising platforms have filters to block invalid traffic (Direct and Ads, for example), as well as built-in or third-party protection systems (in social networks and media hosting, for example), but they have limited functionality and data to detect bots and cases of click fraud. Advertising networks can hardly resist attackers.

This means that a fraudster can create a website, launch monetization on it through advertising placement and send it to be bypassed by some simple bot for clicking on advertisements. This will lead to a loss of advertising budget and a decrease in the number of achieved goals (sales, orders, requests) for the advertiser whose advertisement will be placed on the fraudster's resource.

Major brands and multinational companies that have fallen victim to such manipulations are already sounding the alarm, filing lawsuits, putting forward various initiatives to combat click fraud, and using services to block invalid traffic. For example, advertisers who use the Botfaqtor cyber protection service receive weekly reports that contain detailed information on each fake click.

What is invalid traffic. Are they bots?​

Invalid traffic refers to any clicks, impressions, or other interactions with an ad that were fraudulently obtained. It can be artificially generated by bots, click farms, and other forms of fake engagement designed to artificially inflate ad performance.

Bots are used to perform predetermined fraudulent actions with advertising or organic search results. However, people (competitors, fans, and performers from special exchanges) can also participate in click fraud.

Invalid traffic and types of fraud that can harm SEO:

• Clickfrode
• Keyword spamming
• Stealing content from a website
• Link explosion
• Hidden content

Types of Ad Fraud That Affect SEO​

• Click fraud is when a bot or real user repeatedly clicks on an ad or search result line, increasing the number of clicks in order to earn more revenue (if the fraudster is the owner of a resource monetized through advertising) or spend the advertising budget (if the fraudster is a competitor).
• Content scraping is when an attacker copies content from another ranking site and publishes it on their own resource to generate traffic and improve ranking in search engines.
• Keyword stuffing is when a user adds irrelevant or redundant keywords to a website's pages in order to manipulate search engine rankings and generate more traffic.
• Hidden content is when dishonest marketers add invisible text to website pages that only search engine robots can see. This is done to manipulate rankings.
• Link fraud is when someone places too many backlinks to a site in order to artificially inflate the resource's credibility and improve its ranking in search engines.

Invalid traffic also affects social networks​

Fake traffic also affects social media channels:

• By using automated bots or click farms, users can buy fake followers or likes/reposts/likes, which can lead to inflated and misleading metrics.
• Attackers engage in attribution fraud by using malware to steal information about real leads obtained from other media sources.
• Additionally, in attribution fraud, cybercriminals use malware to steal information about genuine leads obtained from another media source.

Who is responsible for invalid web traffic?​

The following user groups may be behind invalid traffic that affects a site's ranking in search engines and its advertising:

Competitors​

Competitors use click fraud and artificial clicks on search ads in an attempt to lower their competitors' rankings in search engines, spend their daily advertising budget, and gain an unfair advantage (take a competitor's position).

Scammers​

Fraudsters often use traffic fraud techniques as part of other malicious activities to deceive advertisers and generate revenue from such manipulations. As we mentioned above, the higher the effectiveness of an ad, the higher its ranking in the eyes of the search engine.

Publishers and webmasters​

Resource owners can "pour" bot traffic to their monetized site in order to try to improve their ranking in search engines and increase advertising revenue.

Bot operators​

Generate fake organic traffic using their botnets. They may rent out the bots to website owners or use them to deceive advertisers, i.e. click fraud and other forms of ad fraud.

Does SEO fight click fraud?​

Yes, but only in the long term. Getting a website to the first page of Google or Yandex (or any other search engine) takes time and effort.

Getting your site to the first page of search results will take six months to a year of SEO work before your site can reach the top 10. However, if you can get your site to the first page of search results, you can significantly reduce your advertising costs, which will mean lower marketing costs and less exposure to click fraud.

In addition, there is no need to worry about clicking organic positions on search, since fraudsters have no financial incentive to do this. They do not receive a reward for such actions - only from clicking ads. Although, of course, there are various techniques used to pessimize a resource by competitors, including bots.

Tip: It makes sense to allocate only a portion of your marketing budget to advertising and the rest to SEO and other marketing tools and channels, as this can save money in the long run and reduce the risk of click fraud.

The Effects of Invalid Traffic on SEO​

Bot traffic significantly affects not only the running of an advertising campaign, but also the efforts made in SEO promotion. Here are the consequences you may encounter:

Zeroing out the applied efforts​

Invalid traffic can affect all work performed to optimize the resource and completely nullify it:

• First, if a large number of fake clicks are generated, the click-through rate will be damaged. This can lead to a decrease in the volume of natural organic traffic. This happens when search engines evaluate the traffic as low quality, which can dramatically lower the ranking of the site in search engines.
• Secondly, when attackers or competitors engage in click fraud on other sites and artificially inflate traffic figures, the search engine may impose a filter on the resource.

Drains the overall marketing budget​

Despite the fact that organic traffic is relatively free, SEO and social media work is still expensive in terms of human resources. Imagine that all paid SEO work was crossed out because of bot traffic. Now you will have to contact the optimizer again to analyze the resource condition, find solutions and restore the site's positions.

The worst part is that bots can generate fake leads, allowing salespeople to chase “potential clients” who never filled out an application or order form.

Invalid statistics​

Large volumes of bot traffic significantly distort the statistics on transitions. This leads to strategically incorrect decisions.

How to Prevent Invalid Traffic​

There are various protection strategies to prevent bot and other fraudulent traffic. For example, you can place a "bait" on your site, a so-called honey pot, by adding a hidden form for an order or application that only bots will see. With its help, you can cut off such "potential clients" and not waste time processing them.

However, more sophisticated and intelligent bots, malware or click farms will not fall for such a simple bait. Only a reliable anti-click fraud solution can prevent bot traffic and damage to SEO.