India's secret army of online ad 'clickers'

[armstrong]

Just saw this article - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-654822,curpg-1.cms

With her baby on her lap, Maya Sharma (name changed) gets down to work every evening from her eighth-floor flat at Vasant Vihar. Maya's job is to click on online advertisements. She doesn't care about the ads, but diligently keeps count — it's $0.18 to $0.25 per click.

As an online advertiser, I am both horrified and angered by this fraudulent practice.

 

[Mr. Websites]

That's awful. So it's the advertising company that's in on the scam? You should trust well-known companies with your ad campaigns, such as FastClick. I'm sure they filter out clicks from the same IP address and thus you don't lose your money. Furthermore, I doubt it's actually $0.18 and $0.25 per click, those figures are a bit too high.

 

[armstrong]

$0.18 and $0.25 per click is what advertisers pay the PPC company. Clickers like Maya Sharma make just a fraction of that amount - the rest I guess is divided between the PPC company and the one who hire the clickers.

 

[identity_00]

This type of activity is always in the back of my mind before I start a PPC campaign.

Not much value for me in hosting though - I once was charge 15.00 a click. SEO is the way to go.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

well, if that sounds scary, try this. Someone rights a bot, it has the mouse go to x,y, then clicks. think its not true? its very true, and not hard to do. Set it up on a couple of old school pc's that no one is ever on, and you get a ton of clicks. Another easy thing is just writing a sorta autorefresh script, where it refreshes th epage every x seconds, this more towards per hits.

 

[Mr. Websites]

Originally posted by iDeviseFlash
Another easy thing is just writing a sorta autorefresh script, where it refreshes th epage every x seconds, this more towards per hits.

I disagree, actually. Most advertising agencies log the visiting IP address to prevent multiple visits from the same user. Thus, a continuous refreshing script or a bot clicking on the advertisement continuously would earn you zilch dollars.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

ahh. well, go to the library, and run it on those pcs, haha. But dude, if they logged IP's, then wouldnt the Indians get zero money? I highly doubt they have enough PC's to get out of one IP range so...

 

[Mr. Websites]

Nope. The problem in India is that the advertising agencies themselves are in on the scam. So the advertising agencies are collecting money from you for running your advertisements, and paying a fraction of this earning to the "clickers" for visiting the advertisements. Clearly, the middleman themselves care less about whether or not any of the products are sold.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

ok. but its not like you could make a spider or something, lol.

 

[Mr. Websites]

There is a way around the IP problem, as well, if you have a large list of proxies. I would rather not go into details with that one, though. Anyhow, I doubt there's any way the minority of scammers can be prevented or stopped.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

well ya, lol, just get as you said, some proxies or an IP forwarder or somtin. Thats true, its just to hard, would take to mouch money, and time, and for not that much to showif you do catch someone. not worth it basically.

 

[RajanUrs]

If anyone is going to value a site by the number of hits then he/she deserves it [read : fool and his money are soon parted....and probably a housewife in India has better use for it LOL] Actually you dont even need a human to do it...there are some tools which can acheive the same from your desktop.

First people [or ppc ad providers] are not so dumb to believe in just the hits or page views alone. They also look into the unique hits and activity and content of a website. This kind of exagerated traffic may only help to enhance a already popular site but it will in no way fool anyone into believing a real dud site is getting all those hits.

Also please note in recent trends webmasters and site owners are prefering to build a good site with good content and usability and optimise it for the search engine rather than even choose a good paid ppc program. Only those who have lots of money to spend go in for high value ppc programs. After all to be successful in the long run you have to have a online business that can deliver and the one sure way is to be sincere in your efforts.

 

[Mr. Websites]

Originally posted by iDeviseFlash
well ya, lol, just get as you said, some proxies or an IP forwarder or somtin. Thats true, its just to hard, would take to mouch money, and time, and for not that much to showif you do catch someone. not worth it basically.

I didn't understand a word. Mind rephrasing what you're trying to say?

 

[Lord]

Originally posted by iDeviseFlash
well, if that sounds scary, try this. Someone rights a bot, it has the mouse go to x,y, then clicks. think its not true? its very true, and not hard to do. Set it up on a couple of old school pc's that no one is ever on, and you get a ton of clicks. Another easy thing is just writing a sorta autorefresh script, where it refreshes th epage every x seconds, this more towards per hits.

But if you have it go exactly to X,Y

the banners aren't always placed in the same spot

 

[Mr. Websites]

Nah. I think he meant if you sign up as a "publisher," and then place the advertisement in a blank document with a bot continuously clicking on the advertisement. This, however, is unlikely to work with the better advertising agencies, such as FastClick since the IP of the visitor(s) are logged.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

sure, either way works, but on most forums, the banners have a set spot, and they are more than likely a set size so, its not hard...

 

[TWM]

maby we should all start a company, hire indians, and then make our bots and stuff and use proxy servers and IP maskers/ blockers/ fowarders, and we will all be rich!!!!!

OR

we can start a PPC company, and be the ones clicking on the peoples banners and make tons of money scamming people and then when we get caught we can all request cells next to each other in jail so we can brainstorm how to get out of jail together


or..... NOT
im just playin yall

 

[iDeviseFlash]

haha. evil schemer u... :p

 

[matrics]

Hmm... yeah, but idevisedesign's idea sounds feasable. We could get a lot of indians, get them to install proxy software (I know one that changes the proxy you're on every 5 seconds or so) and there ya go... or there is stuff like 'get paid to...' -> www.nocs.us

*note* do not take my post seriousely, it's 11:30 over here and I'm half drunk :D

 

[iDeviseFlash]

lol, still...

 

[e39m5]

if you do that youd be just as bad a the indian man hiring the indians

 

[armstrong]

Except that, while the indian can probably get off the hook with a mere slap on the wrist (or perhaps even a congrats for bringing in much-needed foreign currency), you on the other hand get to spend your senior year in a cell next to someone named 'bubba'.

Go not to the dark side, folks. Its not worth it.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

you guys do know i was JK right?

 

[armstrong]

Originally posted by iDeviseFlash
you guys do know i was JK right?

You'll have to convince the feds monitoring this board.

 

[iDeviseFlash]

yaaaa. ok, sure, lol. they got nothing man, nothing. hehe