Now I have seen it all

a site that offers to click your ads (within TOS!)

[blairsp]

Not sure if I can post the url but there has been a lot of discussion on one of the other boards about a new site that has sprung up <snip> which claims to send you traffic (highly targetted etc) who are "likely" to click on your ads. The consensus was that it was one big scam but for some of the "testers" it appearred to actually work. Amazed that the adsense team aren't "straight onto it".

[edited by: Jenstar at 4:26 pm (utc) on Jan. 10, 2005]
[edit reason] No "hints" to lead members to the site, as per TOS [/edit]

[Sanenet]

Comments like that always make me think of the captain of the Titanic, who remain superbly confident in the waterproofness of his ship, even after hitting the iceberg... :)

[blairsp]

I know. To me it screams scam but some appear to be taking it seriously. My major surprise is that the adsense team aren't taking some sort of action (although they may be, but the site has been up for 2 months) to have it taken down.

[Sanenet]

Who knows? If it's outside their jurisdiction, maybe they prefer to let sleeping dogs lie, and just keep a eye on them - so, once they've got a handle on their operation, just cancel out all clicks. Better than having them popup again as a new outfit.

Or maybe they just don't care, or don't know about it, or don't think they can do anything about it, or they're not big enough to worry about... Either way, I'm sure at some point something nasty is going to happen to that website ;)

[loanuniverse]

They are probably using popups, which would be against TOS even if they did not tell people to click. I would stay away.

I keep thinking that the only way to use popups within the TOS is if the popup page does not contain an adsense ad. Assuming a 5% CTR on both the landing page and the adsense ad, then you get:

1,000 popups x 5% clicking to your site x 5% clicking on adsense = about 3 clicks.

Have you guys tried sponsoring a flash game?, it is one of the few things that I do to advertise my site and so far it has worked. If it were not for the fact that I know the guy that developed the game, I would have kept my advertising limited to Adwords.

[Macro]

blairsp, I'd make a note of the people who send you stickies asking for the URL. That's a potential fraudster list that must have value to someone. ;)

The big giveaway is that they'll probably say they want the link only for research

[loanuniverse]

<snip>

Did I mention, that you risk getting banned if you use this?

[edited by: Jenstar at 4:27 pm (utc) on Jan. 10, 2005]
[edit reason] No "hints" to lead members to the site, as per TOS [/edit]

[amznVibe]

What those "services" do is put your url into a popup exit window on other garbage traffic sites - usually very small dimensions so people can only see a portion of it. It's a scam in a big way - you don't get quality traffic and definitely not return traffic. Don't waste your money - it's also nothing new, just with the concept of adsense exposure added.

Personally I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole (whatever that originally meant ;) )

[buckworks]

I visited that site within the last few days, and was amused to note that they will ONLY sell you "traffic" if your page has Adsense on it. Yeah, right.

The old question arises: if they're so good at generating legit human traffic, why are they selling it so cheaply instead of using it to promote their own products and services?