Suspicion of fake traffic. Interesting. Suggestions?

[kory@dancedepot.com]

I advertise on an industry-related web-site ($100/year), and I can't help
suspecting that I'm getting fake traffic. I get about 30 hits a day from
this one ad, compared to 2-3 hits a day from similar ads on similar sites.
Of the 30 hits I get, 80-90% view only 1 page, and other hits view multiple
pages in a very short time (e.g. 15 pages in 30 seconds).

It's not expensive, and I'm sure some of the traffic is legitimate, but I've
easily found traffic generation utilities on-line, that automatically send
fake hits to websites, and can't help but wonder if this particular
advertiser is using such a program.

http://www.terrafirmadesign.net/hitgenie.php
http://w100w.com/english/php/exchanges/ ... _exchange/
And tons more via Google

Has anyone seen this before? Is there a way I can "catch" them. Other
suggestions?

Thanks,

Kory
--------------
Kory Barrett
Dance Depot ­ Performance Dancewear at Discount Prices!!!
kory@dancedepot.com
http://www.dancedepot.com

[Matthew J. Drollinger]

Kory,

I'm not sure if you're able to do this, but you could, on your landing page,
capture both (1) the referring page URL and also (2) the IP address of the
client computer that is viewing your site.

You actually could skip the referring page URL if the landing page is
specific to wherever your particular advertisement is located, or if you
attach a query string to your URL so that it is distinctive from other ads
of yours.

Anyhow, if the referring URL and IP addresses to your landing page match
from each visit, then it would appear that the same person or application is
accessing the advertisement several times. If, in combination with this,
you record the time that the visit occurred, you might be able to tell if
the visits came in within the same period of time, which might also suggest
that something malicious is happening.

Matthew J. Drollinger




<kory@dancedepot.com> wrote in message
news:BF951E73.C5A7%kory@dancedepot.com...

I advertise on an industry-related web-site ($100/year), and I can't help
suspecting that I'm getting fake traffic. I get about 30 hits a day from
this one ad, compared to 2-3 hits a day from similar ads on similar sites.
Of the 30 hits I get, 80-90% view only 1 page, and other hits view
multiple
pages in a very short time (e.g. 15 pages in 30 seconds).

It's not expensive, and I'm sure some of the traffic is legitimate, but
I've
easily found traffic generation utilities on-line, that automatically send
fake hits to websites, and can't help but wonder if this particular
advertiser is using such a program.

http://www.terrafirmadesign.net/hitgenie.php
http://w100w.com/english/php/exchanges/ ... _exchange/
And tons more via Google

Has anyone seen this before? Is there a way I can "catch" them. Other
suggestions?

Thanks,

Kory
--------------
Kory Barrett
Dance Depot ­ Performance Dancewear at Discount Prices!!!
kory@dancedepot.com
http://www.dancedepot.com

[kory@dancedepot.com]

I can see both the referring page and the IP address of the visitor (or ISP
name if DHCP). These are unique in that they are coming from different
addresses all around the country (and world). But the way I understand the
traffic generating utilities is that they are clever enough to send fake
traffic such that the traffic bounces off of servers all around, thus
generating unique referring locations.

I suspect this "practice" is fool-proof and there is no way to "catch" them.

Kory

On 11/10/05 10:01 AM, in article dkvnk1$ude$1@eval.shopsite.com, "Matthew J.
Drollinger" <ssmidimatt@hotmail.com> wrote:

Kory,

I'm not sure if you're able to do this, but you could, on your landing page,
capture both (1) the referring page URL and also (2) the IP address of the
client computer that is viewing your site.

You actually could skip the referring page URL if the landing page is
specific to wherever your particular advertisement is located, or if you
attach a query string to your URL so that it is distinctive from other ads
of yours.

Anyhow, if the referring URL and IP addresses to your landing page match
from each visit, then it would appear that the same person or application is
accessing the advertisement several times. If, in combination with this,
you record the time that the visit occurred, you might be able to tell if
the visits came in within the same period of time, which might also suggest
that something malicious is happening.

Matthew J. Drollinger




kory@dancedepot.com> wrote in message
news:BF951E73.C5A7%kory@dancedepot.com...
I advertise on an industry-related web-site ($100/year), and I can't help
suspecting that I'm getting fake traffic. I get about 30 hits a day from
this one ad, compared to 2-3 hits a day from similar ads on similar sites.
Of the 30 hits I get, 80-90% view only 1 page, and other hits view
multiple
pages in a very short time (e.g. 15 pages in 30 seconds).

It's not expensive, and I'm sure some of the traffic is legitimate, but
I've
easily found traffic generation utilities on-line, that automatically send
fake hits to websites, and can't help but wonder if this particular
advertiser is using such a program.

http://www.terrafirmadesign.net/hitgenie.php
http://w100w.com/english/php/exchanges/ ... _exchange/
And tons more via Google

Has anyone seen this before? Is there a way I can "catch" them. Other
suggestions?

Thanks,

Kory
--------------
Kory Barrett
Dance Depot ­ Performance Dancewear at Discount Prices!!!
kory@dancedepot.com
http://www.dancedepot.com

--------------
Kory Barrett
Dance Depot ­ Performance Dancewear at Discount Prices!!!
kory@dancedepot.com
http://www.dancedepot.com

[powerstream]

If your conversion rate from this site is different from other sites
you might want to dump them, it is the only thing I can think of.


kory@dancedepot.com wrote:

I can see both the referring page and the IP address of the visitor (or ISP
name if DHCP). These are unique in that they are coming from different
addresses all around the country (and world). But the way I understand the
traffic generating utilities is that they are clever enough to send fake
traffic such that the traffic bounces off of servers all around, thus
generating unique referring locations.

I suspect this "practice" is fool-proof and there is no way to "catch" them.

Kory

On 11/10/05 10:01 AM, in article dkvnk1$ude$1@eval.shopsite.com, "Matthew J.
Drollinger" <ssmidimatt@hotmail.com> wrote:


Kory,

I'm not sure if you're able to do this, but you could, on your landing page,
capture both (1) the referring page URL and also (2) the IP address of the
client computer that is viewing your site.

You actually could skip the referring page URL if the landing page is
specific to wherever your particular advertisement is located, or if you
attach a query string to your URL so that it is distinctive from other ads
of yours.

Anyhow, if the referring URL and IP addresses to your landing page match
from each visit, then it would appear that the same person or application is
accessing the advertisement several times. If, in combination with this,
you record the time that the visit occurred, you might be able to tell if
the visits came in within the same period of time, which might also suggest
that something malicious is happening.

Matthew J. Drollinger




kory@dancedepot.com> wrote in message
news:BF951E73.C5A7%kory@dancedepot.com...

I advertise on an industry-related web-site ($100/year), and I can't help
suspecting that I'm getting fake traffic. I get about 30 hits a day from
this one ad, compared to 2-3 hits a day from similar ads on similar sites.
Of the 30 hits I get, 80-90% view only 1 page, and other hits view
multiple
pages in a very short time (e.g. 15 pages in 30 seconds).

It's not expensive, and I'm sure some of the traffic is legitimate, but
I've
easily found traffic generation utilities on-line, that automatically send
fake hits to websites, and can't help but wonder if this particular
advertiser is using such a program.

http://www.terrafirmadesign.net/hitgenie.php
http://w100w.com/english/php/exchanges/ ... _exchange/
And tons more via Google

Has anyone seen this before? Is there a way I can "catch" them. Other
suggestions?

Thanks,

Kory
--------------
Kory Barrett
Dance Depot ­ Performance Dancewear at Discount Prices!!!
kory@dancedepot.com
http://www.dancedepot.com




--------------
Kory Barrett
Dance Depot ­ Performance Dancewear at Discount Prices!!!
kory@dancedepot.com
http://www.dancedepot.com