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Google Issuing Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic, Plans New Safeguard

wsj.com

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Re: Google Issuing Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic, Plans New Safeguard

#21

Post by birken »

madars wrote: post #8

In related news, certain subreddits have been promoting the use of https://adnauseam.io/ , a fork of uBlock origin that automatically clicks all the ads encountered. The same redditors also encourage searching for high-CPC terms (e.g. insurance or rare medical conditions) to maximize the impact.

You think Google can't detect this? Enough advertisers have conversion tracking that Google can detect if a person is clicking a zillion ads and never actually converting, in addition to the other multitude of ways they detect fraud. I'm sure in the battle between fake traffic producers and Google there are probably tricky ways you can fool Google, but a person clicking every ad is not one of them.

Also... this doesn't actually hurt Google. If the percentage of fake traffic goes up, the cost per click will just go down over the long term. And what, advertisers are going to lose faith? Give me a break. It doesn't matter if the traffic is 0% fake or 90% fake, all that matters is if the traffic is making you a profit or not.

Re: Google Issuing Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic, Plans New Safeguard

#25

Post by bitJericho »

birken wrote: post #21
madars wrote: post #8

In related news, certain subreddits have been promoting the use of https://adnauseam.io/ , a fork of uBlock origin that automatically clicks all the ads encountered. The same redditors also encourage searching for high-CPC terms (e.g. insurance or rare medical conditions) to maximize the impact.

You think Google can't detect this? Enough advertisers have conversion tracking that Google can detect if a person is clicking a zillion ads and never actually converting, in addition to the other multitude of ways they detect fraud. I'm sure in the battle between fake traffic producers and Google there are probably tricky ways you can fool Google, but a person clicking every ad is not one of them. Also... this doesn…

looks like they just need to start clicking a lower random percentage.

Re: Google Issuing Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic, Plans New Safeguard

#26

Post by hi3980 »

fakeads wrote: post #19
hi3980 wrote: post #17

Some of us tried to sound the alarm on fake traffic before Google IPO'd and WSJ or some other major news source wrote about it at the time days before their IPO, but no one cared at all. Everyone wanted Google to become the greatest in history based on a business model that acknowledges fraud but regards it as mere noise as opposed to mortal threat. Well, the whole point of warning the public before their IPO was to…

You got the business part wrong. Google is like 88% ads. The rest is barely profitable or run at a loss.

I wonder if this is in response to firing of that dude that said women are biologically disadvantaged at coding LOL. It probably is. What a pity that it took sympathizers/supporters of a sexist asshole to standup to Google.

Re: Google Issuing Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic, Plans New Safeguard

#27

Post by peter_mcrae »

adventured wrote: post #4
Operyl wrote: post #2

Off topic, ish, but this is the first WSJ article I’ve looked at in a loooong time that didn’t paywall me. Did they change their practices on that recently?

No, not all of their content gets paywalled. They treat different sections of the site very differently. For example, if you check the section the article belongs to (CMO Today): https://www.wsj.com/news/cmo-today you'll notice this particular article doesn't have a key next to it indicating a paywall. CMO Today seems to be heavy on the non-paywalling, for whatever reason.

The people regularly reading CMO today has to be a very valuable audience -- they probably make a ton of money selling that data as anyone selling into Marketing departments would pay a lot to be able to target those folks.

Re: Google Issuing Refunds to Advertisers Over Fake Traffic, Plans New Safeguard

#30

Post by runeks »

birken wrote: post #21
madars wrote: post #8

In related news, certain subreddits have been promoting the use of https://adnauseam.io/ , a fork of uBlock origin that automatically clicks all the ads encountered. The same redditors also encourage searching for high-CPC terms (e.g. insurance or rare medical conditions) to maximize the impact.

You think Google can't detect this? Enough advertisers have conversion tracking that Google can detect if a person is clicking a zillion ads and never actually converting, in addition to the other multitude of ways they detect fraud. I'm sure in the battle between fake traffic producers and Google there are probably tricky ways you can fool Google, but a person clicking every ad is not one of them. Also... this doesn…

> It doesn't matter if the traffic is 0% fake or 90% fake, all that matters is if the traffic is making you a profit or not.

Only under the assumption that no competing, superior technologies exists. The worse the efficiency of the ad-model, the more attractive the alternatives will be.

Criticizing Microsoft over delivering an inferior user experience twenty years ago is in the same category as the critique against Google: as long as they have complete control over the market, it doesn’t matter at all. But when competing, superior technologies start appearing, it becomes their downfall. And the worse the user (advertisers, in case of Google) experience, the greater the incentive for competing technologies to appear.

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