any fresh evidence of Findwhat or ADVERTISING.COM tricks?

Find what and ADVERTISING.COM?

[Art]

Hello everybody,
Is there any new evidence of Findwhat tricks with proxy servers? Recently I wrote the atricle at
( [siliconalleydaily.com...] and now I'd like to know how is it going now? I don't spend much already keeping in mind this article, but anyway any new information would be great.
Thanks in advance.
Artyom.

[Mike_Mackin]

Welcome Art

>Recently I wrote the atricle
Do you mean - Recently I read the atricle?

Lisa wrote the article after a study of this thread
[webmasterworld.com...]
plus interviews with some folks involved.

[Art]

Sure I meant I read that article:-))
Just pretty got tired at work.
thanks for your help, Mike.

[Mike_Mackin]

:)

OK
So does anyone have current information?

[Spearmaster]

Very interesting. I didn't know this.

In April, I got totally swamped with traffic - and I traced it back to thesearchster.com - and surprise surprise - it's owned by Advertising.com.

Findwhat eventually credited my account - and in the meantime they blocked paying for clicks - and all the while traffic was still coming from thesearchster.

They must have wasted 10,000 clicks on my low-traffic site.

[Mike_Mackin]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Spearmaster

Looks like we might be wise to start a watch list:
thesearchster.com
ADVERTISING.COM
ADS4AIM.ORG
ADS4AIM.NET
ADPACIFICRIM.COM
NEWSLETTERADVANTAGE.COM
PAYINGSCREENSAVER.COM
INFOBAM.COM
ADVELOCITYNETWORK.COM
ALEXANDER4PRES.COM
EMEDIAMESSENGER.COM

any others?

[Art: I have modified the title of the thread you started to refect the bigger picture]

[Spearmaster]

Thanks, Mike.

I think I'm going to turn Findwhat off for a while. Spent 3x my usual amount in the past week and don't see any results, I suspect something is not quite right.

[Mike_Mackin]

Spearmaster

There are certain industry groups that seem to be the target of clicksters.

[Spearmaster]

I know, I'm in the one which gets done the worst - gambling.

That's why I think I'm going to take a break and see what happens. Focus on optimizing for the free engines instead.

[Art]

Hello everybody,
I'd like to know is there anybody who advertises at the web design field? I spent about 30$ for a "web design" search term at last month and I'm willing to find out how is it going at other advertisers?

Art.

[dalaz]

Wow,
Lots to say. First off to Art, welcome, and we also did some web design se promo through goto.com and we realized right off about 20-30% proxy bot hits, but only in position 1.
Words like web designer, web page design, etc weren't hit, but they could have been easily.

We, (my company and I) have known about this problem (proxy botters or cheaters) for a while and did a lot of research. Basically it affects all industries (adult/gambling to doubleclick to goto to findwhat, etc). But its not really findwhats problem, its the affilates who sign up with findwhat who are scamming, and remember findwhat makes more money because they can charge you, so they and goto, etc have kept it hush hush.

Case in point: We contacted www.goto.com to see if we could speak to them about their problems, but they said that they would handle things internally (obviously it hasn't worked, because we are having this conversation). Basically, it would lower their bottom line profits, and when you tell a large company (especially public) that 20% of your total revenue is coming from fraudulant hits, then they get nervous, because it is a HUGE hit to their investors, stockholders, etc. it would force layouts at the highest levels, reorganization, etc.

You see, my company, after listening to your honest complaints and our collective misfourtunes (sde_promo community) and seeing how goto operates, has decided to engage in lots of R + D and we are in late stages of a proxy botting guard of sorts. Hopefully these companies will listen to the communities needs.

Anyway, Mike, i think that creating lists is great, but a more scientific method should be developed. Remember, these people, who you have blacklisted, may just sign on for another account in the affiliates program.
Best regards,
~DaLaz

[Art]

Thanks a lot for your long and detailed letter, Dalaz. I appreciate you had shared by your experience with me. Couple months ago I really thought that PPC SE will solved the problem with the quality serch results and I believed to bid the first three places is the key to succeed, but now...no way:)) I spent only 20-25$ per Goto.com (british division as well), Findwaht.com, Kanoodle. com and Espotting.com and I got 300 clicks from them. My expirience tells me it's the best we can get from PPC SE. Remember someone wrote in a article that now you won't see people, which bid on web design search term, for instance, but meanwhile they trade by toilet paper, since it doesn't pay for them to spent the money this way,
but now I can see something like this:)

[Spearmaster]

Epilot is also being targeted.

I just got a slew of hits from mygrep.com - which has the following WHOIS information:

Registrant:
Not Available
Not Available
Not Available, NA 99999
United States Of America

Registrar: Go Daddy Software (http://registrar.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: mygrep.com
Created on: 22-Apr-01
Expires on: 22-Apr-02
Last Updated on: 25-Apr-01

Administrative Contact:
Available, Not [e-mail]
myGrep.com
Not Available
Not Available, NA 99999
United States Of America
999-999-9999 Fax -- 999-999-9999
Technical Contact:
Available, Not [e-mail]
myGrep.com
Not Available
Not Available, NA 99999
United States Of America
999-999-9999 Fax -- 999-999-9999

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.JUMPLINE2000.NET
NS2.JUMPLINE2000.NET

Interesting, eh?

If you are not convinced that epilot is being targeted, check the IPs.

Nearly all the hits match IPs from the last time I was attacked through Findwhat.

I am getting really tired of this.

[JeremyL]

So is this happening on all the listings or just the top ones?

[Spearmaster]

My listings were top 10 - so I would have to say that top 10 listings were being targeted. Epilot have acknowledged the problem and credited my account - and are looking into the situation.