1. Advertising
    y u no do it?

    Advertising (learn more)

    Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

    Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

How do detect fake traffic???

Discussion in 'Pay Per Click Advertising' started by webitalia2005, Nov 10, 2005.

  1. #1
    Hello,

    Does anyone knows how to detect fake traffic?You know when you buy those packages of "unique visitors" from traffic selling websites,how can you be sure it's real people coming to your website??? I recently came across a lot of "fake traffic generator" scripts on hotsrcipt.com,and im starting to believe that none of those unique visitors are real!!!!!!And some people even use them to increase there page impressions for the ads to pay more.....

    Thanks,
     
    webitalia2005, Nov 10, 2005 IP
  2. norfstar

    norfstar Peon

    Messages:
    1,154
    Likes Received:
    62
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #2
    If the fake traffic is from robots, put an image on your website that runs a script counting the number of times it is loaded, then compare the numbers of purchased visitors to times the image is loaded.

    It won't be 100% accurate as some browsers may cache the image and some may not even load images at all, but if you've bought 5000 visitors and the image has been loaded 100 times or less, you can be pretty certain something is wrong.
     
    norfstar, Nov 10, 2005 IP
  3. maro

    maro Peon

    Messages:
    356
    Likes Received:
    16
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #3
    I would say that 95% of traffic that you get from companies that sell you traffic are fake!
    The first criteria you use to detect the fake traffic is the IP address!
    Second look at the user agents used!
    Good luck
     
    maro, Nov 10, 2005 IP
  4. webitalia2005

    webitalia2005 Peon

    Messages:
    50
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #4
    Thank you for you help.The user agent idea is a good one I think.I will be checking if those visitors are coming with browsers or if they are robots...
     
    webitalia2005, Nov 10, 2005 IP
  5. monRa

    monRa Peon

    Messages:
    462
    Likes Received:
    23
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #5
    Not 95% is fake but 100% in my opinion! Don't use!
     
    monRa, Nov 10, 2005 IP
  6. itsme

    itsme Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,232
    Likes Received:
    96
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    180
    #6
    Try to load a cookie onto the visitor's computer... if the cookie is refused, it's probably a robot.
     
    itsme, Nov 18, 2005 IP
  7. mdvaldosta

    mdvaldosta Peon

    Messages:
    4,079
    Likes Received:
    362
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #7
    Most of the traffic sites will come from the same referrer, people browsing your automatically via software from the company. You know the ones that pay people pennies an hour to site there and let their program run on the person's computer while it automatically refreshes and loads new websites to generate hits.

    The only traffic worth paying for is PPC.
     
    mdvaldosta, Nov 18, 2005 IP
  8. shtirlitzz

    shtirlitzz Guest

    Messages:
    37
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #8
    Some people use to run spywhere networks and generate
    traffic for you.
     
    shtirlitzz, Nov 18, 2005 IP
  9. liquidboy

    liquidboy Peon

    Messages:
    281
    Likes Received:
    12
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #9
    Dont use the cookies approach... the best approach is the IP based tests and a special function that tests for how repetitive requests come in from the same IP..

    I have dotnet code that detects such intrusions and directs the logged in user to a special spammers page :)
     
    liquidboy, Nov 22, 2005 IP
  10. panizon

    panizon Peon

    Messages:
    89
    Likes Received:
    2
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #10
    Thanks for the tips :)
     
    panizon, Mar 20, 2009 IP
  11. john3003

    john3003 Peon

    Messages:
    1,875
    Likes Received:
    8
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #11
    I agree, those paid to click sites are most often sending fake traffic to your site and they take your money and all you get is fake visitors to your site.
     
    john3003, Mar 20, 2009 IP
  12. onlywin

    onlywin Greenhorn

    Messages:
    97
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    18
    #12
    I agree with most of you... paid click sites are 99% fake traffic
     
    onlywin, Mar 21, 2009 IP
  13. hbl

    hbl Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,074
    Likes Received:
    11
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    138
    #13
    Are you seeing a lot of traffic from one specific IP or range of IPs?
    Google detect invalid clicks utilizing a three-part system: Filters, Offline analysis and through investigation
    And you may check it at this link
    Google Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center
    http://www.google.com/adwords/adtrafficquality/overview.html
     
    hbl, Mar 21, 2009 IP
  14. john3003

    john3003 Peon

    Messages:
    1,875
    Likes Received:
    8
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #14
    Look at your site statistics using AwStats it will show you the sources and number of visits from the ip address. And look at the time spent on site, if it's fake traffic the bot almost always leaves the site within > 5 sec.
     
    john3003, Mar 21, 2009 IP
  15. ijin

    ijin Peon

    Messages:
    41
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #15
    Yea, just check your stats. The most important things to spot fake traffic is: 1) referrers (direct traffic that doesn't convert at all = fake) and 2) lots of traffic from the same IP = fake too 3) Even if it's different IPs, there's a pattern to how they do it (ie only one page accessed, etc).

    Never buy "unique traffic" whose source you can't verify.
     
    ijin, Mar 22, 2009 IP
  16. bpasc95

    bpasc95 Active Member

    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    3
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    70
    #16
    You can use something as simple as AXS (http://www.xav.com/scripts/axs/) to track footprints for each IP that visits. You can also use this to track clicks from specific networks. I think you will be shocked to see the crap traffic you get.
     
    bpasc95, Mar 23, 2009 IP
  17. kamal@contactoffice.net

    kamal@contactoffice.net Guest

    Messages:
    1
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #17
    It is getting very hard to detect fake traffics these days. but i think the best way to make sure you are not getting fake traffic is to buy it from a respected provider.
     
    kamal@contactoffice.net, Mar 24, 2009 IP
  18. RGguy

    RGguy Peon

    Messages:
    59
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    0
    #18
    But, what if the "respected provider" gets bot traffic from its publishers???
     
    RGguy, Mar 24, 2009 IP
  19. bpasc95

    bpasc95 Active Member

    Messages:
    196
    Likes Received:
    3
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    70
    #19
    Many reputable providers tend to have some form of detection and filtering for this kind of activity. For example, our clients (our ad server users) have a number of built-in filters to clean-out the obvious fakes: duplicates, repeats, etc. While these filters work well for general traffic, it doesn't stop the persistent fraudster. For that, we have an anti-virus like service that performs a click analysis on every click against a database of +90k definitions (patterns, behaviors, methods, bots). Other reputable networks will use services like Click Forensics to audit traffic.

    While there is no way of detecting fraud 100% of the time, you'll find that many of these "nobody, ho-hum, thrown together in a day, typo's from hell" sites that run inexpensive buggy scripts are more interested in getting your money that giving you results. Especially the Pay-to-Click sites, a complete waste of time. Look at your logs to see where the traffic came from and visit those sites. You'll see what partner sites are generating the most clicks and if most or all of the the sites are crappy, you can bet that traffic is of the same quality.

    If you suspect the traffic is fake, it likely is. If you have a lot of clicks, yet no conversions on those clicks, get a refund.

    Bottom line, review your logs, audit traffic, ask questions. The information exists, or can be easily obtained, for you to determine if traffic is real or not, you just need to know what to look for.

    -Bing
     
    bpasc95, Mar 24, 2009 IP
    inet likes this.
  20. A.G

    A.G Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    2,510
    Likes Received:
    45
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    150
    #20
    just add histats.com code and then see the traffic details like country and cookies

    I think many bulk traffic provider also use hidden iframe too , which is real traffic but the visitor don't see your site
     
    A.G, Mar 24, 2009 IP