Do webmasters care about Bot Traffic Fraud?
 

Hi! I have been trying to figure this out - For businesses buying traffic, isn't bot traffic a concern?

I work at a company that sells bot traffic protection solution and has a few tube sites as its customers. From what I understand, businesses lose a lot of money to fake traffic while buying traffic. This fake traffic also degrades SEO and increases the load on servers.

But we haven't got enough inbound leads - Is it because the tube site owners that buy traffic do not worry about the bot traffic? Or is it that they get sources to buy all genuine traffic?

that can have different reasons.

bots ARE a huge problem and a lot of them are caused by advertisers (funny isn´t it?).

so a very good fraud protection is a MUST HAVE on every network.

another problem CAN be if a network have too many small publishers. imagin if a big publisher with 2 million click per month make even 100 selfmade clicks it is not effecting nothing.

if a network needs 5000 advertisers for 2 million klicks and each makes 100 fakeclicks it will change the result DRAMATICLY.

i could not read in your post if you ASSUME to have bot-traffic or if you KNOW it.
if you just assume, I would try to make that sure but also look on other factors because from my own network i know, that 95% of bad conversions are caused by wrong ad strategies.

greetings
thommy

Thanks Thommy for reassuring that bot traffic IS INDEED A major pain point. What do you suggest - Do all traffic buyers buy a bot traffic protection, or is there a lack of fraud protection providers and so buyers do not discover the right products?

ojeh - if i start to speak about that i think gfy have to order some more discs for the additional needed webspace. but i try to concentrate just on a few points.

1st of all there is no really a 100% working bot-protection and one reason for that are trafficbuyers themself.
there are a huge numbers of "services" out there where mediabuyers and advertisers can investigate where are what banners leading to what landingpage on what websites are they shown and how long. to get this information they have to pay a membership (not a cheap one) and after that they are able to copy the banners and landers and even find the link to the affiliate programm. then they are setting up copies of this campaigns.

but HOW can such a service get on that informations? that is what these kind of advertisers should ask them self.

this services are sending thousands of bots (and try to make the look as human as possible) these bots are "clicking" on every banner they find - going to the landingpage and collecting all this informations. the funna part on that is, that they will do THE SAME with the copied campiagn.

i alone have in my small network around 22.000 IPs from such bots what are not even dedected by google.

google is quite good in bot recognizing but they are far from 100%.

but even when you block them all you would not prevent the clicks from small publishers, because the are no bots they are human and that is a much bigger problem what you as an advertiser can not resolve. the only one who can manage that is the adnetwork itself.
i will and can not explain HOW this is be done but you can be sure that there are a few very effective things a network can do against it.

if your problem is only based on bots you can quite easy use google technology (even analytics have such options). and sure you should collect the informations you get with the click from the network you buy and complain it. believe me it is not that the networks do not give a shit on that - most of them are VERY interessted to block the cheaters.

so i doubt that you can find a lot of interessting people on the publishers end because they are happy for every bot-view or click they can make money with.
they do not look longterm enough to see that at the end a price is a question of delivered quality. they will double up the adspots every year to keep going with the falling prices.

the ad networks are another thing and also big media buyers might be interessted where they get fucked because it is their money they lose.
i can not say that it is a huge problem for me because i am doing all i can since years against it and i think that 95% of the traffic is clean from that shit.
but i know that there are many other networks around who have that problem in a much bigger dimension and I personally think they and the mediabuyers are the people you should focus on with your product.

greetings
thommy

of course they don't care, that's why they buy bot traffic all the time :)

Thanks Thommy for yet another interesting and informative reply! This helps.

What I have encountered with the tube sites that InfiSecure is integrated with is that InfiSecure detects 10-40% of all traffic as bot / non-genuine traffic. I guess that should be a good chunk of non-genuine clicks getting detected and blocked. I will share more updates after InfiSecure signs-up more tube sites.

:laughing-

you are right - that is the question how these tubes are generating their traffic.
in the international market you find the usual trafficbringer in linkexchange and toplists what are feedet with bots because they do not much natural traffic.

but again - you will not get open ears from the tuibe site owners as long as they can mix that shit with a few good users and sell it they will go on.

the once what might be interessted in that are the networks because they are fighting a ugly war with trafficquality.
i.e. my fraud and bot dedection will not even SHOW an ad to a bot and thats why nobody will make money with it and when they are not making money they have to find REAL users.

if you have more informations about your dedection and can prove that you can find more as i can yet, please hit me up - i am very open to everything what can make traffic-quality better - even when it iwould be only 1 or 2 % what i can´t dedect yet it would be a reason for me to be interessted in your solution.

greetings
thommy

Absolutely, I believe we can test the traffic with InfiSecure's Solution. Could you drop a note at [email protected] and we can take it forward from there. I would love to share the dashboard and rest of the details with you.

Bot traffic doesn't convert, which should affect overall CPM. So it works out the same in the end; if half the traffic is bot traffic, you only end up paying half the price.

In theory anyway. But I have to imagine this is why your company is having trouble getting clients.

well you are right but it is not ONLY the bot traffic what causes that. also CPM ads what are placed in footers and other unseen places or even techniques to hide banners for the user are reasons to not only half the value.
i am in this biz since 1997 and since that time CPMs dropped around 99%

@daryl: sure i will contact you this days after i finished some things from my priority list

greetings
thommy