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Since you built Improvely, I'm curious, what motivation is there for click fraud? Who benefits from fraudulent clicks? By that, I mean, who's paying for bots t

Since you built Improvely, I'm curious, what motivation is there for click fraud? Who benefits from fraudulent clicks? By that, I mean, who's paying for bots to generate this activity, and what do they gain by it? edited :)

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
dangrossman 11y ago
The motivation is a monthly paycheck from an ad network without having to build a real audience for your website. If you can generate fake views and clicks at a lower cost than the network pays you, and convince the network the bot-generated activity is genuine, you're printing money.
- codezero 11y ago
  Edited, sorry for misnaming, and thanks for the insight. Doesn't this model only work if you are driving traffic/clicks to _your_ site? What is the benefit for bots that are hitting other people's sites?
  - dangrossman 11y ago
    > What is the benefit for bots that are hitting other people's sites? That's the "convince the network the bot-generated activity is genuine" part. A site where all the "people" clicking ads are never seen on other sites stands out like a sore thumb. Having a bunch of background benign-looking activity lets you hide other kinds of fraud, too: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/07/service-drains-competitors-online-ad-budget/ http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/07/service-drains-competitor...
    - codezero 11y ago
      Gotcha. Bummer.