Chronotope’s Twitter Archive—№ 75,001

So I've talked about my quest to increase performance on one of my experiment sites.
Permalink On twitter.com ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +1 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
I had been doing my own caching and playing around with various techniques (as is the point of such a site) when I decided to try CloudFlare
Permalink On twitter.com 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
(CloudFlare is a very popular external caching service that my host for that site DreamHost has tools to hook in easily & freely)
Permalink On twitter.com 2017 Jan 11 Mood +3 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
Google Analytics automatically filters bots out of its reporting. You never see them. CloudFlare does not. So, opportunity to count my bots!
Permalink On twitter.com 2017 Jan 11 Mood +2 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
Keep in mind, this site has almost no canonical content (I use it to archive news stories) and explicitly tells Google not to index it...
Permalink On twitter.com 2017 Jan 11 Mood -1 🙁

…in reply to @Chronotope
Google Analytics reads yesterday's unique users as 35. CloudFlare: 1,156. So that means about 3% of users hitting my server are humans.
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
And keep in mind *it isn't an indexed site*
Permalink On twitter.com 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
Now, CloudFlare isn't catching most of the bots that Google Analytics is catching and dismissing. So Google has some good bot fingerprinting
Permalink On twitter.com ❤️ 1 Favorite 2017 Jan 11 Mood +3 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
Why don't we collaborate on making the web a safer place where servers cost lest and ads are served more accurately?
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +2 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
If Google cared about veracity of its ad serving stats or health of the open web it would release its methodology for fingerprinting bots.
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 2 Retweets ❤️ 1 Favorite 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
Anyway. because 90% of my traffic comes from Facebook and most of the links are shared to Facebook I'm going to posit a theory:
Permalink On twitter.com ❤️ 1 Favorite 2017 Jan 11 Mood +1 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
The decline in referrals from search and rise in Facebook referrals to top slot is accompanied with bots moving crawling operations to FB.
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +3 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
I'm not saying that it is the causation of the switch, more likely the bots are merely following trends because they want to look human.
Permalink On twitter.com 2017 Jan 11 Mood +1 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
But here's the difference: Facebook operates a closed garden system. They have total control & could eliminate bots on their platform.
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 1 Favorite 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
This isn't the only evidence that they have not. Which leads to the obvious question: how much of Facebook's ad inventory is shown to bots?
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 2 Retweets ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
Facebook doesn't allow third party tools to verify ad impressions so we will likely never know.
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 2 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood -1 🙁

…in reply to @Chronotope
A fundamental assumption by advertisers that causes Facebook to be seen as trustworthy is the assumption that their traffic is 100% human.
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 1 Favorite 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
If it isn't, does Facebook deserve that trust? Or a slice of the ad marketplace that large? I have an obvious bias, but Qs worth considering
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +2 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
Fun additional reading on this topic: In 2012 a startup claimed that 80% of its Facebook ad clicks came from bots: techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/startup-claims-80-of-its-facebook-ad-clicks-are-coming-from-bots/
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 11 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +4 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
Distil (runs a product to block bots, so grain of salt) reported in 2015 that 22.8% of all web traffic was bad bots. emarketer.com/Article/China-Bad-Bots-Plague-Mobile-Web-Traffic/1012553
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 4 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood -4 🙁

…in reply to @Chronotope
In Q2 2013 Solve Media reported that only 30% of desktop, 57% of mobile was proven as human traffic forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2013/09/10/as-websites-see-more-zombie-traffic-the-bots-now-come-from-southeast-asia/#1b5e8e873f4f
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 1 Retweets ❤️ 4 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +1 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
And, as noted here, a WSJ article found 46% of display ads were shown to bots: adcontrarian.blogspot.co.il/2013/06/the-75-billion-ad-swindle.html
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 2 Retweets ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
Worth noting that one of the common ad fraud tactics (pixel-size-compression) is even better supported by new IAB standards for ratio ads.
Permalink On twitter.com ❤️ 3 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood +2 🙂

…in reply to @Chronotope
Bot fraud ad arbitrage may drive up to a 100% profit, so there is plenty of incentive. digiday.com/publishers/confessions-bot-traffic-buyer/
On twitter.com ♻️ 2 Retweets ❤️ 2 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood -2 🙁

…in reply to @Chronotope
A Moz author crunchs numbers: while more ads could have been seen by humans we can only be absolutely sure of 8%. moz.com/blog/online-advertising-fraud
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 2 Retweets ❤️ 15 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood 0

…in reply to @Chronotope
W/this context it is no wonder AdContrarian says ad fraud could be the largest criminal activity in under a decade adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2016/10/agencies-profiting-from-online-ad-fraud.html
Permalink On twitter.com ♻️ 2 Retweets ❤️ 4 Favorites 2017 Jan 11 Mood -8 🙁

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