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Traffic Fraud Inflates Video Site Popularity
Dotnaught writes "A new study by spyware researcher Ben Edelman finds that spyware-driven traffic inflation is common, particularly at video sites. The study identifies Bolt.com, GrindTV.com, Broadcaster.com, Away.com, RooTV.com, and Diet.com as the beneficiaries of spyware-driven traffic. 'Our measurement systems are inaccurate for the amount of trust we'd like to put into them,' Edelman said. 'So that's the puzzle: How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?'"
I've never heard of any of those video sites. Is this an actual problem affecting well-known sites, or just these no-names?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
How do you build an advertising economy when the number can't be trusted?
There's a sucker born every minute. Customers and advertisers both. Google proves it every day. Even the price comparison sites are becoming bogus.
Widget online: $3
Shipping & "handling": $25
Markup for the ad we had to buy to get you here: $47
On sale at the local mall: $2
Now that Google is taking over the entire ad space, it's one simple entry in the ad blocking software to eliminate most ads. Get Adblock properly configured and you'll rarely if ever see an ad.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
This problem has been around since the begining of web stats in general. There was a time not long ago when people didn't differentiate between hits and page views or visits. 100,000 hits on a given site could mean anywhere between 1,000 and 50,000 page views.
Some people intentionally inflate their stats, others end up inflating them unintentionally. Drudge reports an absurd amount of page views in their advertising page, but if you stay on the home page for any length of time you see the page auto-refreshing. Does that count? If you are selling CPM advertising, it probably does. If you are buying it, you hope it doesn't.
In the end, advertisers either are doing brand advertising or conversion advertising. If they are doing conversion advertising it's simple - identify potentially good advertising locations and figure out the comparitive ROI with a trial run. If you are doing brand advertising, you can base your dollars on alexa or nielsen or some other marketshare stat vendor, or you can simply research the site niches yourself to determine the extent of their advertising power within the community.
Advertising has been wrought with snake oil vendors since the beginning. Nothing has changed and nothing ever will. Like anything else - if a deal is too good to be true, it probably is. And just because a deal is priced in congruency with the rest of the market doesn't mean that you can accept it at face value. PR firms don't just exist to put out a public image, they exist because they are supposed to understand the advertising marketplace better than most people would ever care to.
Advertising does create value for someone. You need to know whats out there and no one has prefect knowledge. Advertising provides a base point to get more info. Suppliers too. Like it or not A great product with little advertising (Linux/stewarts soda) will always be beat by a okay product with good advertising (Windows/coke). With marketing being equal then other factors comes into play (VHS vs Beta). So while the consumer gets nothing out of it the retailer/manufacturer has to play the game.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
How do you jusdge the value of advertising anywhere? You look at how it effects sales.