Odd Search Engine Referrer

Who is this showing up in my referrals?

[LorSor]

For the past few months while running my stats, I noticed a rather large number of referrals from Diva.com, which appears to be a search engine geared for women seeking to live like a diva. Since we are a heavy machinery manufacturer, I can't possibly imagine why we'd be getting so much traffic from this SE - even moreso than MSN where we consistently place above the fold for a series of pertinent, specific keywords.

Then, this last month, the referrals mysteriously disappeared.

What do you know about divas.com and from which other SE's or directories are they being fed? Because the referrals stopped when I deleted a particular keyword (casting) from my Y! PPC campaign, I have a feeling their results are tied to Y!. Can anyone verify this for me?

[hunderdown]

I don't know about the possible!Y connection, but "casting," of course, has a double meaning, with the OTHER meaning being highly relevant to an aspiring diva.....

[LorSor]

Yes, that did cross my mind.

So what does this say about PPC marketing, though? Do people regularily just randomly click on sponsored ads without reading the description? It is highly IMpossible that anyone looking for an acting position would mistake our website for their interests.

Or, could this be the work of automated programming, click fraud or some other non-human function?

[Receptional]

Or, could this be the work of automated programming, click fraud or some other non-human function?

It could, yes. but don't assume that Y! was charging you for the non-human clicks unless the CTR was unreasonably high in the stats.

[Skylo]

i can only speculate as to how important teh traffic is that the term "casting" attracts to your site but i would say that one way to stop drawing those Diva's looking for a casting is to use a more specific term such as "Die Casting".
You may receive less clicks than "casting" but you may also find that concversion and click throughs fly through the roof...

Skye

[LorSor]

Thanks for the tips.

We did indeed bid on incredibly specific keywords, but also included generic terms to cast a wider net and hopefully catch those who were just beginning the buying process.

However, recently I decided we were spending a bit too much money on "casting" and stopped bidding on it altogether. Wouldn't ya know, Divas stopped listing me.

Yee Haw - Problem Solved!

Thanks again