Free clicks from Adwords?

[superclown2]

Every day I get a few clicks on one of my more popular pages with a query string beginning with "gclid=" which I understand means that they've come from adwords. Problem is that although I do have an adwords account I haven't used it for months, nothing is being charged to it and I've never featured this particular page anyhow. The clicks come from different IP addresses and seem to be genuine human visitors so can anyone shed light on what's happening? I do have adsense ads of the page but I don't have Google Analytics.

[smallcompany]

I believe that some sites scrape AdWords ads and serve them as static.

Why? Not sure. I did come across some sites that seemed to build content by having bunch of copied ads on the page.

[superclown2]

I've never had an adwords ad for this page or search term, this is the bit that baffles me. It can't be a scraper because there's never been an ad to scrape and there's a very comprehensive firewall on the server that keeps most bad bots out anyhow. The page does have the top place in the SERPs for the search term though, this could be relevant.

[Green_Grass]

Could be some one using your site ( as a landing page) to TEST or maybe build up some history. It is generally frowned upon by adWords, but people still seem to do it.

[RhinoFish]

paid traffic fairy? probaly not.

do you have an affiliate program, could be an affiliate of yours doing some ppc.

you said nothing was being billed, billing has some delay built into it, are you sure no clicks are showing within the adwords account as well as no billing happening?

evil thought... MFA (made for adsense) sites were cleaned out a while back... but, is it possible today that instead of someone bidding some cheap keywords to go to their own site to solely make money off of their adsense ads, that they'd bid cheap for traffic on a site where their own adsense ad are known to be?

[RhinoFish]

i wish G made it easy to prove you own a domain (they do it with analytics) and mark your domain with exclusive adwords account numbers that you will accept paid adwords traffic from.

policing abusive affiliates, and other weird circumstances that do occur, makes me wonder why G would allow any party anywhere to run ads for and deliver paid traffic to a site they don't own. a permissioning system is sorely needed.

[chman0024]

superclown2,
Put Google analytics on your site and you'll have your answer. It takes a few minutes to install.

Remember someone people book mark your landing page from a long time ago and it still will have the "gclid" on it.

Last thing, smile b/c your getting free traffic.

[superclown2]

Thanks for the suggestions but there are no affiliates, my adwords account is completely dormant and there never has been an ad for this page anyhow so no-one could have scraped a URL from it which included "glid". Interesting idea Green_Grass and knowing the Web I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if you were right, particularly since this page has the number one spot for the search term. But if the intention is to build up some credibility, does that credibility apply to the individuals's adwords account or the website that is being advertised? And any idea how I could attract a few more benefactors like this?

[edited by: superclown2 at 10:44 am (utc) on Mar. 25, 2009]

[superclown2]

"evil thought... MFA (made for adsense) sites were cleaned out a while back... but, is it possible today that instead of someone bidding some cheap keywords to go to their own site to solely make money off of their adsense ads, that they'd bid cheap for traffic on a site where their own adsense ad are known to be?"

Interesting idea, but would it work? If they bid a low price their ad probably wouldn't appear, and even if it was high, out of nine ads on the page a visitor would probably click on someone else's ad anyway. I wouldn't have thought that it was economically viable but then some folks make money in Byzantine ways.

[Seb7]

Think you will find these are 'invalid clicks', mostly bots.

[Receptional Andy]

Is it a unique value for gclid each time, or does it remain the same?

[superclown2]

Different gclid values, the clicks come from different IP addresses, all seem to be real human visitors.

[Receptional Andy]

It sounds like someone may have an adwords campaign running for your page. The easiest way to confirm this is to check your logs for referring keywords on those IPs, and try a search for those words in [google.co.uk...] (the referrers in your logs may be of interest too).

Of course, adwords listings often don't show all the time so it's possible not to show there but for there to be a campaign running.

[superclown2]

The plot thickens: I'm now seeing [googleads.g.doubleclick.net...] as a referer. I've checked the adwords listings for the relevant search term and I can't find any trace of my site mentioned there.

[RhinoFish]

i recently suggested a permissioning system to G (in the feedback thread) where, like Google Analytics, you've got to prive you own the site (or are permitted by the site owner) to point ads at any domain you own. weird things like this case are one of my reasons why i suggested this.

the doubleclick referrers is more google traffic.

search for the referral url using the Google "link:" operator, may have to use "-site:" operator to clear out some things, to try and find where these links are... just a minor thought...

search operator help:
[google.com...]

[RhinoFish]

if you have a google account, even though it's dormant, you might try to call support and ask them what's going on.

[superclown2]

I've got to the bottom of it. You seem to be right RhinoFish, someone else is showing ads, the displayed URL is their own site but in fact it directs to mine. There are adwords on my site and this guy's ad is the top one. So, presumably, he/she is paying for the click to my site and then paying again for a click from my site! I happen to know that this site has a very good conversion rate so perhap's it's still a profitable exercise.

So, do I just let sleeping dogs lie, and continue getting the benefit of someone else paying for my clicks? Or is there a possible downside to this? I'd be grateful for any comments.

[Seb7]

quite weird. Sounds like some interesting new trick.

[superclown2]

Could this be a way of discrediting a website in the eyes of Google by making it appear to be an MFA site, I wonder?

[RhinoFish]

reason number 617 why google needs a permissioning system so we can prove we own a site, or have given explicit permission to another party, before we can aim an adwords account at it.

[superclown2]

Can anyone from Google give an opinion on whether or not this can harm my site? I believe that some of them do read these hallowed pages occasionally.

[Seb7]

Just had a thought. If you are running adsense, it would probably damage your income.

[superclown2]

"Just had a thought. If you are running adsense, it would probably damage your income"

You have my full attention. How can it do that?

[Seb7]

If you use adsense on your website and then decide you want to drive traffic to your site using Adwords. Earnings from your Adsense will drop.

Some websites try to make a profit from Adsense by purely doing just this, known as MFA sites (Made for adsense).