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Are there seriously ad companies that aren't filtering out common bots by UA in 2015? That seems unlikely but would be very disturbing if true. Second, I thin

by nkozyra 11y ago

Are there seriously ad companies that aren't filtering out common bots by UA in 2015? That seems unlikely but would be very disturbing if true. Second, I think simple tests like "time spent on ads" as a trigger is an extremely simplisitc, inefficient and likely inaccurate way of determining "potentially not human." The systems here are very complex, designed to mimic randomness within humanesque constraints.

papercruncher 11y ago
Yes, sadly there are. It's not necessarily out of malice, a lot of folks just don't grasp how big spider traffic is. Even Google Analytics doesn't filter out crawlers by default, that setting is buried somewhere in the admin panel. You're right, "time spent on ad unit" is simplistic but it's not inefficient. It shouldn't be the only thing in your arsenal but it's a good signal. I reckon you are also overestimating the amount of sophistication that goes into these systems. The ones that are out for purchase in a black market become well-understood within a few weeks and are easy to fingerprint. Since the network is paying on net-30 days, there is some time to retroactively run some analysis and filter out provably non-human traffic.