Click fraud takes place when clicks or page impressions are artificially and/or maliciously inflated using devious means and methods. A malicious click fraud can be performed by a publisher or an advertiser. In both instances, either a human being or a robot (also known as a bot) is involved in intentionally clicking on ads and causing the click through rate to skyrocket. A publisher (especially an Adsense publisher) would do this to artificially increase their earnings. Not only is this practice illegal, it is also very risky as Google comes down hard on these people and immediately bans their Adsense accounts. An advertiser on the other hand, would do this to their competitors who have purchased profitable keywords on a cost-per-click basis, in order to drain them of their budget, which in turn decreases their advertising power.

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