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Going to be threading some thoughts on this today, but let's just say it is a drop in the ocean: buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/these-publishers-bought-millions-of-website-visits-they?utm_term=.pwoAz2raXz#.gwYYOGwBdO
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I have worked on sites doing arbitrage in the past and one thing becomes obvious quickly: if it sounds too good to be true -- it is. A good measure: If you are buying traffic for less than 10c a click you are buying bot traffic.
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JanRavensbergen These traffic arbitrage systems are designed as black boxes. The systems are purposefully designed to make it difficult to source traffic and the name by which it is created. It allows the owners of the systems to honestly claim ignorance when they send bot traffic.
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JanRavensbergen There are, of course, expressly fraudulent networks that run traffic using browser bars and pop unders. They're the ones selling traffic for a fraction of a cent.
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JanRavensbergen Also, you want to really dig in to bot traffic, there are much larger sources used by larger publishers.
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Final note: I don't consider Double Verify to be a reliable, technically capable, or honest source of information on anything.
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I mean, I'm sure there was bot traffic, I just wouldn't trust Double Verify to confirm anything.
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Additional notes on culpability at: Chronotope/946437690379075586