fake traffic ? anyone seen/sees this ?
Hey guys, got a quick question here. I seem to be getting a lot of "fake" traffic and I am wondering if this is a standard browser behaviour, bug or a bot posing as a visitor. I get in my logs, people that repeatedely ask for the "/" document but then don't download anything: no images, no css, nothing else. Example logs are shown below:
209.28.22.13 - - [26/Jan/2005:13:43:44 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0"
209.28.22.13 - - [26/Jan/2005:13:43:50 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0"
209.28.22.13 - - [26/Jan/2005:13:43:56 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0"
209.28.22.13 - - [26/Jan/2005:13:44:06 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0"
209.28.22.13 - - [26/Jan/2005:13:44:34 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0"
209.28.22.13 - - [26/Jan/2005:13:44:39 -0500] "GET / HTTP/1.1" 200 9883 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0"
Notice the seconds apart in requesting the / document but nothing else! I am asking because I have been arguing with business.com for over 1 month about this. My CPC with them is around 2.5$ and they charge me for hundreds of clicks that I don't even consider real clicks, just like above!! I tried reasoning with them but they claim those are still real visitors. Anyone knows what causes the pattern above to happen ?
Thanks!
mairving posted this at 21:22 — 26th January 2005.
They have: 2,256 posts
Joined: Feb 2001
Not much info about who owns that IP Address. The block is owned by Infonet but there isn't a reverse DNS entry so it is hard to tell. I doubt if it is a bot as Bob mentioned since most bots are glad to advertise as such. It also lists the OS, which would tend to indicate that it is an actual user. If it is costing you some money and not providing any value, then I would block it as Bob mentioned.
Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states
gtech posted this at 21:28 — 26th January 2005.
They have: 3 posts
Joined: Jan 2005
I'm not sure how I can block this!
one of my traffic providers is business.com and they send me lots of clicks like this for which they charge me. I have no way of finding out which IP will be coming next so I can ban it..
furthermore, I tried talking to them and try and reason. It's obvious that these 'visitors' aren't real. If it were a real visitor it would ask next for all the images/css files referenced in my index.php as others do, but it does not. It simply requests '/' and that's it, costing me $$$.
40 or so clicks like this cost me 100$ so I definetely want to put an end to this.
JeevesBond posted this at 21:48 — 26th January 2005.
He has: 3,956 posts
Joined: Jun 2002
Even if you did block the ip, wouldn't business.com still charge? They're still forwarding the request successfully, and they don't sound like people who're willing to listen to the voice of reason!
Perhaps the best thing to do is ditch business.com, if they refuse to help or concede!
a Padded Cell our articles site!
gtech posted this at 21:56 — 26th January 2005.
They have: 3 posts
Joined: Jan 2005
now that's what I want to do..
but can you recommend anyone else that can provide specific traffic ?
I'm not saying the s*ck..well,ok, they do. They do deliver..out of 600 clicks last month, 5 became real customers and 150 clicks were 'fake' like the ones I posted in the original thread. Now I can only wonder what would happen if I had 600 REAL clicks.
*dreaming*
Patrick A Baer posted this at 02:25 — 31st January 2005.
He has: 32 posts
Joined: Mar 1999
Hello gtech,
almost any provider I know uses some kind of monitoring tool to watch their machines. Maybe your provider does too frequently scan your site for a running http-service? I know it sounds a little bit odd since the hits are there every six seconds or so, but it might be worth a try!
Patrick
PS: I just traced the IP in the log, it belongs to some subnet in Costa Rica, does that ring a bell maybe?
http://www.patrickbaer.com
Professional Photo Retouching Services
eBlush_Hector posted this at 20:29 — 3rd February 2005.
He has: 51 posts
Joined: Jan 2004
Wow, I just came across this and must add:
His conversion is 5:600 or 1:120, which is GREAT! Even if some ore fake... I'd take that in an instant!
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