fake traffic a

1. How to Generate Fake
Traffic/Ad Impressions
Dr. Augustine Fou
http://linkd.in/augustinefou
October 2013
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Augustine Fou

2. Crawlers and Status
Checkers
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3. Montastic.com
Main Objective
• Calling web pages to
ensure they are “up”
Other Dangers
• Logging in with these
accounts provide them
with access to those
accounts
• Users specify sites they
want to monitor
(ensuring real URLs)
• Users provide email
addresses for alerts
(ensuring they are real)
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Augustine Fou

4. Large Changes in Traffic
Source: Alexa
Source: Quantcast
Legit human traffic does not change rapidly; but bot traffic
(firehose) can be rapidly turned on or off and directed to other sites.
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Augustine Fou

5. LadyShopSpot.com
Nearly 4M
uniques and 45M
pageviews per
month at its peak.
Exposed by Mike Shields
March 2013
Meet the Most Suspect
Publishers on the Web
http://www.adweek.com/news/technolo
gy/meet-most-suspect-publishers-web148032
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Augustine Fou

6. LadyShopSpot.com
Site claims traffic is from good SEO
“This involves finding a good trending story on the Web. Writing an original
title and an interesting paragraph about why people should care to read
more. Use good SEO techniques.”
Alexa shows virtually no traffic
from search, 3% at its peak
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Augustine Fou

7. Large Ad Inventory but
Little Traffic Detected by Toolbars
“Modernbaby.com and Interiorcomplex.com
Each of these sites peddles enormous traffic on the
exchanges. For example, on a recent day Modern Baby was
offering 19 million impressions via one exchange (quite the
baby boom) and Interior Complex 30 million [ad
impressions PER DAY] (the roaring housing market must be
back).”
Source:
Adweek – Suspicious Web Domains Cost Online Ad
Business $400m per Year
By Mike Shields
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Augustine Fou

8. InteriorComplex.com
Source: Compete
Source: Quantcast
Source: Alexa
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Quantcast: 29k /mo uniques
Compete: 42k /mo uniques
Augustine Fou

9. ModernBaby.com
Source: Quantcast
Source: Compete
[ NO DATA ]
Source: Alexa
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Quantcast: no data
Compete: 20k /mo uniques
Augustine Fou

10. Duplicate Loading of
Tracking Tags
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Augustine Fou

11. Complex Media Network
Calling the same tracking tag can
cause traffic to be overcounted
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Quantcast acknowledges 104 sites in
network; code is detected on 382 sites
Augustine Fou

12. Break Media Network
Calling the same tracking tag can
cause traffic to be overcounted
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Quantcast acknowledges 26 sites in
network; code is detected on 278 sites
Augustine Fou

13. Collegehumor Network
Calling the same tracking tag can
cause traffic to be overcounted
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Quantcast acknowledges 8 sites in
network; code is detected on 21 sites
Augustine Fou

14. Interlinking Site Networks
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Augustine Fou

15. Refresh / Reload Ads
and Pages
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Augustine Fou

16. Auto Refresh Ads
Same page, but ads are auto-refreshed every 2 mins; 7 more ad impressions
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Augustine Fou

17. Auto Refresh Pages
Refresh entire pages automatically; rotate ads on programmed interval
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Augustine Fou

18. Loading Entire Pages
in Hidden iFrames
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Augustine Fou

19. Entire Pages in Hidden iFrames
Source: Spider.io May 2, 2013
Ads are hidden in up to 72
layers
Entire web pages are loaded
into ad iframes to boost
impressions
Multiple redirects and auto
page refreshes
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Augustine Fou

20. Full Page Previews
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Augustine Fou

21. Related Articles
Bad Guys Happily Rob Display Advertisers
By: Augustine Fou, July 23, 2012
Everything Fake (Display Ad Fraud, Search Click Fraud)
By: Augustine Fou, April 2013
Blacklisting vs Whitelisting
By: Augustine Fou, October 2013
Fake Profiles on Facebook
By: Augustine Fou, July 2013
How Display Ad Fraud Works
By: Augustine Fou, May 2013
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Augustine Fou

22. Dr. Augustine Fou – Digital Consigliere
“I advise clients on optimizing
advertising across all channels. One
aspect of this is detecting waste and
fraud; and then taking steps to mitigate
it.”
FORMER CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, HCG (OMNICOM)
MCKINSEY CONSULTANT
CLIENT SIDE / AGENCY SIDE EXPERIENCE
PROFESSOR AND COLUMNIST
ENTREPRENEUR / SMALL BUSINESS OWNER
PHD MATERIALS SCIENCE (MIT '95) AT AGE 23
ClickZ Articles: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-clickz
Slideshares: http://bit.ly/augustine-fou-slideshares
LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/augustinefou
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@acfou
Augustine Fou