So Called Neural Marketing

What are the ethical implications?

[volatilegx]

I was reviewing my server's access logs and came across a referring URL I hadn't seen before. I checked it out and the page was about something I hadn't heard of before: "Neural Marketing". On the page was a table showing the benefits of neural marketing compared to PPC, banner ads, etc.

Apparently, you can sign up for a subscription to a service that puts your URL in the referring URL portion of access logs. The company has a web spider that visits various websites and leaves a referring URL (meaning one of their clients URLs). You benefit when the webmaster checks his logs and curiously checks out the referring URL (as I did).

I have to admit that the services/products I offer are aimed at webmasters and this technique sounds like it might actually work if priced cheap enough.

I have qualms about the ethics, though. Obviously, the spider is spoofing the referring URL. The spider is also leeching bandwidth. If this technique isn't spam... it's damn close to it.

I have purposely left the company that does this anonymous.

Any comments?

[martinibuster]

I get these from time to time. Not often enough like spam. But in time... Who knows. It seems there must be better/more legitimate ways to connect with webmasters.

Just my little ole opinion.

[mivox]

If I saw that in my logs, and it had a consistent IP or U/A, I'd ban it. Ideally the only things I would ever see in my logs are legitimate SE spiders and legitimate customers... I certainly wouldn't even think of buying anything from a company that used up my bandwidth for no reason other than to leave their URL in my logs.

Not that I have a firm opinion on the issue or anything. ;)

[msr986]

If that catches on, it could make our logs fairly useless.

We'll all have to invest in a "log washer" program.

[john316]

I doubt the ROI on something like this, I've checked out a few of those guys and always feel a bit tricked, I wouldn't consider doing business with anyone promoting this way. I consider server log analysis to be "work" and I don't appreciate the gamers.

A bit too invasive for my taste.

That being said, I do run an industry specific spider which references a url in the UA, but if you click through, you will find a nice search box and 99% of the time your site will be in the index.

[akogo]

I got such a free script. Used it once on my own logs. You'll never trust your stats again. Who knows what other tricky and sneaky script is next...

[mivox]

You'll never trust your stats again.

Sure I will... I click on the referring link, and if no link to my site appears on the page, I assume it's a scam-bot and figure out a way to ban it. However, most of the time, I do find a link to us on the referring page, so I call it good. :)

[Marcia]

That's also called log spamming, and it's a trick that's older than dirt. ;)

I can see where it could be useful with certain target markets, but only if it's hitting the right target and will give some kind of decent return. If it becomes prevalent, word will get out eventually.

Slightly off topic, but I think certain sites that run link programs are running bots to show phony traffic so that people will continue to link to them and raise their Page Rank. The recips may be there, but I don't believe the traffic is - not when there are pro marketers involved and the pages on their sites haven't even got decent rankings. But they still have their good Page Rank to benefit their own projects. They link to their own from high PR pages and to their normal recips from low PR pages with loads of links. I don't see that as win-win.

[akogo]

I do find a link to us on the referring page

...hoping your link partners are honest and are not using this script on you...

link programs are running bots to show phony traffic so that people will continue to link to them

That's what I mean!

[volatilegx]

I have to agree that I would hate to see this technique come into common use. I'll definitely not use it.

[mivox]

hoping your link partners are honest

Most of out incoming links are not from "partners," actually. I've only got 5 reciprocal links posted on our site currently (except for links to our product manufacturers' sites... but those are on a separate page by themselves).

[Nick_W]

I got one from something calling itself (something like) Internet-conference.com

It wasn't till I'd gone through their home page and not foound a link to my site that I realized what I was actually looking at - A big add for a (yep ;)) internet conference!

Nick

[JamesR]

Been seeing those "spider ads" more often. I also would ban it, just another form of spam to me.

[akogo]

The script I have allows you to "masquerade" as someone else's site or url and you can run it as much as you want (perhaps automate it) to inflate the unique visitor count -- so it doesn't matter if it was a "link partner" or an "unknown site" you didn't agree to trade links with and you'll never know who is doing it(unless you're really good at detection or some techie network whiz).

[mivox]

However, nobody has any motivation to artifically inflate the visitor count on my site. Even if our traffic quadrupled next month, we wouldn't have to pay any anyone any extra money for it... so I doubt anyone would bother.

That would be a concern if you were dealing with a dishonest site promoter, or a dishonest small-time CPC network or something... maybe... but we handle everything like that in-house.

[akogo]

we wouldn't have to pay any anyone any extra money for it...

Seems like no one can outsmart you -- or dare to :)

[mivox]

No... my boss is just too cheap to pay for traffic. ;)