Google finally deploys weapon against click fraud -- A great move!

I'm very pleased to see that Google is installing a new feature alongside the AdWords console that hundreds of thousands of advertisers use to display relevant textual advertising next to Google search queries. What is that feature? It's "the truth", as it were. Google will be listing possibly fraudulent clicks next to all keywords in the AdWords console for each advertiser in an attempt to settle fears that click fraud is growing rampantly without being adequately policed by the search giant.

This is great news and it's about time Google did something like this. With all the programming talent it has, it's surely been able to keep up with the propensity for massive click fraud and abuse for quite some time, but it's done a horrible job of communicating those efforts and marketing to the world that click fraud is under control. Sure, you have to trust that Google is doing all it can to police and catch click fraudsters, but this is still a lot more than what it was doing before -- next to nothing in terms of public action.

Will this new feature allay fears from the hundreds of thousands of Google AdWords advertisers who have been fearing that fraudulent clicks have been chipping away at their advertising budgets? More than likely, yes. It lets Google advertising partners know that Google is keeping tabs on the problem. With Google advertisers providing almost all of Google's revenue right now, that is the customer segment Google needs to be concentrating on in a huge way. This is a great first step here.