Need a very sneaky and resourceful person to help tracking........

Want to verify that visitor is competitor that is abusing PPC

[kstprod]

Hello guys,

In a previous post, here [webmasterworld.com], I mentioned that I was being harrassed by a competitor. Well the emails stopped finally, but now I have a few "people" in my logs that are clicking on my Overture Ads about 5 times a day. I emailed Overture about this, and of course, they didn't see any fraudulent clicks. Well, when you have the same person click the same ad from the same kw, from the same SE, 5 (sometimes more) times a day for the last 4 days, then obviously there is a problem. Now, my problem is that my account is almost DRY thanks to these people. (sorry venting....)

What I need to know is if someone can help me track down who these people are exactly, or help me find out how to do it. In terms of telling me about the user, my server spits out my raw logs like this;

ip<bleeeep>..cox.net

and...

<bleeeep>.rr.com

Is there a way to find out who they are by that info? I know "rr" is Road Runner ISP, and "cox" is Cox Internet ISP, but any way to get further info? These are just two of my suspicious repeated clickers, I have more. They might even be coming from multiple competitors, I have no idea. But it will be the death of me, if I can't catch em... :)

Any help would be appreciated,

Karen

[edited by: rcjordan at 8:59 pm (utc) on Nov. 20, 2002]
[edit reason] no specifics, please [/edit]

[NeedScripts]

I am not sure how easy it will be for you to identiry the person, as if I am not mistken, several people on Cable internet uses the same IP. Your best bet would be to email abuse@cox and see what could be done.

Also, write Overture the same note that you wrote here - it might actually work.

P.S. can you send me the copy of the email you got from them?

[jeremy goodrich]

Give them a cookie, then read the cookie when they get to your site the 2nd time, and the 3rd time, etc.

If it's the same person, they'll have the cookie, and if it's not, log the ip / user agent information in a seperate table...

Then track that over time, either the cookie, ip, useragent, or just the ip/useragent if cookies won't work.

Over time, you can see very clearly whether or not it's 'fraud' and if it really is the *same person* then the cookie will give them away.

Another thing worth noting is that some versions of IE will have special code in the useragent variable that is 'relatively' unique. If it's an agent like that, then it'll be *much easier* in telling if it's fraud or not.

Aside from this, my advice would be to use a higher end tracking service...that way you can measure your ROI more effectively, as well as catch 'fraud' as it happens.

With good reports, you'll get overture to work for you much quicker, I'm sure.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.