Real vs Fake Traffic and do Traffic bots work?

Beverly Level X³

June 12, 2016, 8:30 pm

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Real vs Fake Traffic and do Traffic bots work?

I'm interested in knowing more about how to get real traffic to a site or blog. Also, traffic bot software, whether or not it's providing real traffic and when someone would actually want to use it. I'm assuming there's a good reason to use a traffic bot. Who uses this type of software? Anything you can tell me would be good.

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hitmeasap

hitmeasap

Hey Beverly,
I would say that most traffic softwares or bots are generating fake traffic. You can usually enter the referrer yourself, so if you want traffic from Facebook for instance, you'll just need to enter "Facebook.com" as the referrer. That way, it will look like all the visitors are coming from FB, but in reality they are all fake visitors.

As I'm not an expert in this field nowadays it's quite hard to tell exactly what the benefits are, but I know that you at least could, a few years back, use this traffic to get paid if you were doing PPM. (PPM stands for "Pay Per thousand impressions" . The M originates from the roman numeral M, which means 1000. This means that every time an advert has been displayed a thousand times you will get paid. Notice that this is impressions and not clicks, which means that your visitors do not have to click before any payments will be coming your way. More information about this here.)

You could also (at least in the past) improve your Alexa rank using fake traffic. Can't tell if this works today though.

Best Regard,
hitmeasap

9 years ago

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Beverly

Beverly

And, are there any traffic bots that are undetectable? And, would using a traffic bot hurt a site's search engine ranking?

Also, you said they can set a referrer. So what if I bought a traffic service that said they guaranteed real traffic from Facebook. Would it be real as in from Facebook ads or group posts or would it be software generated or bot traffic? And, how could I tell the difference?

9 years ago

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hitmeasap

hitmeasap

About traffic bots being undetectable I'd say no, as you can easily spot fake traffic. The bot itself might be undetectable but not the traffic it generates. Yes, you can usually set a referrer and anyone claiming to sell real human traffic from a specific source and just sets the referrer to whatever they want.. Well, that's simply fake, unprofessional and un-ethical as it's done with the use of private proxies.

If they instead are driving traffic manually from Facebook with the use of large groups or fan pages for instance, then it's another scenario as this would be manual and real. Even though the visitors might not be interested in the content at all. There's several ways this can be done. Having some sort of contests on your fan page for instance. It's an often common trick.

As for identifying fake traffic.

In order to identify fake traffic, you should start by reviewing a site’s analytics. Of course, Google Analytics is the industry standard, and as part of a comprehensive due diligence effort you should ask the seller of a website for Read Only access to their site’s Google Analytics.

Once you have been grated access to analytics, check the following factors in the AudienceOverview.

Bounce Rate: An extremely high Bounce Rate may be cause for concern.

Pages/Session: An extremely low Pages/Session may be cause for concern.

Avg. Session Duration: An extremely short Avg. Session Duration may be cause for concern.

New Sessions: An extremely high percentage of New Sessions may be cause for concern. Likewise, an extremely low percentage of New Sessions may also be cause for concern.

Three other Google Analytics’ Audience Overview metrics which can be helpful in identifying fake traffic are Language, Country, and City. You should be looking to see if the sessions are consistent with the content of the website. For example, if the website content is aimed primarily at an english language audience, but it is receiving significant amount of it’s traffic from primarily non-english speaking countries, this may be cause for concern.

Finally, in addition to analytics you can also check onsite factors for signs of user interaction. For example, if a site is claiming a high number of unique visitors but none of the articles on the site are being commented on, and/or the social networking accounts have little to no interaction, this may be cause for concern.

It is important to remember that no single metric will tell the entire story, especially if the website is receiving both real and fake traffic. Instead, identifying fake traffic depends on your ability to synthesis multiple factors and identify and investigate any suspicious data or irregularities. The more red flags which are raised the more skeptical you should be.

The quote above is from this page. About traffic bots being undetectable I'd say no, as you can easily spot fake traffic. The bot itself might be undetectable but not the traffic it generates. Yes, you can usually set a referrer and anyone claiming to sell real human traffic from a specific source and just sets the referrer to whatever they want.. Well, that's simply fake, unprofessional and un-ethical as it's done with the use of private proxies. If they instead are driving traffic manually from Facebook with the use of large groups or fan pages for instance, then it's another scenario as this would be manual and real. Even though the visitors might not be interested in the content at all. There's several ways this can be done. Having some sort of contests on your fan page for instance. It's an often common trick. [b]As for identifying fake traffic.[/b] [quote]In order to identify fake traffic, you should start by reviewing a site’s analytics. Of course, Google Analytics is the industry standard, and as part of a comprehensive due diligence effort you should ask the seller of a website for Read Only access to their site’s Google Analytics. Once you have been grated access to analytics, check the following factors in the AudienceOverview. [list][*]Bounce Rate: An extremely high Bounce Rate may be cause for concern.[/*][*]Pages/Session: An extremely low Pages/Session may be cause for concern.[/*][*]Avg. Session Duration: An extremely short Avg. Session Duration may be cause for concern.[/*][*]New Sessions: An extremely high percentage of New Sessions may be cause for concern. Likewise, an extremely low percentage of New Sessions may also be cause for concern.[/*][/list] Three other Google Analytics’ Audience Overview metrics which can be helpful in identifying fake traffic are Language, Country, and City. You should be looking to see if the sessions are consistent with the content of the website. For example, if the website content is aimed primarily at an english language audience, but it is receiving significant amount of it’s traffic from primarily non-english speaking countries, this may be cause for concern. Finally, in addition to analytics you can also check onsite factors for signs of user interaction. For example, if a site is claiming a high number of unique visitors but none of the articles on the site are being commented on, and/or the social networking accounts have little to no interaction, this may be cause for concern. It is important to remember that no single metric will tell the entire story, especially if the website is receiving both real and fake traffic. Instead, identifying fake traffic depends on your ability to synthesis multiple factors and identify and investigate any suspicious data or irregularities. The more red flags which are raised the more skeptical you should be. [/quote] The quote above is from this [url=https://support.flippa.com/hc/en-us/articles/202891420-What-is-fake-traffic-How-can-I-identify-it-]page[/url].

9 years ago

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robertman11

robertman11

Most traffic bot software is fake traffic provide by bots! Seriously, the software goes out and finds or uses provided proxies then automatically visit a site to increase the hit counter. The software typically loads the webpage in the background so a real person never actually sees it.

There is a Chinese software called Jingling that actually turns your computer into a node and thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people visit your site via real user computers, but it is in the background and still fake traffic. It is similar to Tor in the way it turns your computer into a remote host for others.

There are traffic exchanges which are sort of like software but usually web based. Most of these will force a user to view the page so you do get real people looking at your website but most of the time they are not really interested in your site and just visiting the exchange to get credits/points for their own site to be visited.

9 years ago

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Beverly

Beverly

Traffic exchanges like AddMeFast? I haven't used them, but I know a lot of people who do. And, even if these people are not interested in what you offer, doesn't it serve the same purpose of a 'real' visitor? For whatever reason a person might want views. Are there any other traffic exchange sites like AddMeFast?

9 years ago

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hitmeasap

hitmeasap

There's literally hundreds of traffic exchange sites. Simply put, you visit websites and in exchange they'll visit yours. Just to name a few:

easyhits4u
hit2hit
internettraffic247
autosurftrafficexchange

For anyone who's interested to know what it's all about and for anyone who wants more information, you can read this article: http://growtraffic.com/blog/2015/08/5-traffic-exchange-programs-that-actually-work

Best Regards,
hitmeasap

9 years ago

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anwebservices

anwebservices

Traffic bots provide fake traffic, but also some people need fake analytics or fake proof of traffic on their websites, specially when it comes to flipping website on the market. Not much use of it. Organic traffic can be hard to achieve but it's only thing worth investing your time to get real conversion, specially if you selling something on your site.

9 years ago

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Riley

Riley

For that matter, what is fake traffic? When you entice someone to come to your site for some freebie, download, software or script or other sticky content, you're getting fake traffic. Assuming you define fake traffic as people who would not have visited your site for any other reason than your incentive offer. And yet daily, big business uses this type of tactic for traffic to blogs, websites and Facebook. Some of it is bound to convert. If you're trying to get traffic, use this traffic tactic. Maybe it won't convert as well as paid ads (Facebook Ads/Adwords) but you'll get some reaction at least.

I can't tell you much about traffic bots, but I'm sure some would give you the results you're looking for if you want visits. It wouldn't be real people, at least that much I know.

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

Simple way to understand the fake traffic is that. You have some bot visit on your website. Does bot buying from your website? Does bot clicking on ad? Does that activity legit? It's not. Because here your money and time is wasted. Bots are not real people. And people have to really understand that bots are hurting their business. So the PTC, auto surf type of the traffic is not real and it is fake. Bots means fake and they add no value to the website.

7 years ago

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ajlancer

ajlancer

Hi traffic always very importance a website owner always looking visitors for his website. Traffic really blood of any website. And the decent purpose, website owner try to get traffic any ways and on the internet many of traffic provider available. And question is what is fake traffic? Fake traffic means they looking traffic but will not do anything for your site, they just visit here and there but they will not make conversation or will not click on you ad etc. It is meaning they are valueless and these type of traffic mostly made by software like jingling, trafficsprit etc. And another way fake traffic generate and that source is traffic exchanger like hitleap etc. And this traffic also not much valuable but for advertising your site or getting some site impression or page view exchanger traffic may work. And fake traffic can work for Alexa ranking too.

On the other hand, real traffic means who really a person and who visit to your site by any interest and he may make conversation or he may generate your site revenue etc. So in this cases real traffic no comparable with fake traffic any way. So, as a site owner, if you want to get any benefit real traffic must be there.

Thanks by Ajlancer

9 years ago

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Lynne

Lynne

I would be very hesitant to buy any sort of traffic. I think most of bought traffic is really just bots, so you won't make any sales or get any leads which is a complete waste of time and money. In addition I think bots can hurt your SERP. I am no expert but that is the conclusion that I have come to.

In the early days of working online I bought traffic a few times and each and every time it was a complete waste of time.

9 years ago

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overcast

overcast

PTC is one of the fake traffic system. And PTC has the most worst forms of the result. You can pay a lot and you get bot traffic and the people who dont have money to buy type of visitors. So they are not going to earn you any sales. So why would you spend the money into such type of the traffic? What you're going to earn out of it. I don't think there is much that can be earned from it. I have realized that fake traffic from PTC is only going to waste the resources and the money as well. So it's better to avoid that traffic.

7 years ago

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augusta

augusta

Fake traffic which are mostly bots to me makes no sense especially if what you need is conversion or signups, then it becomes totally useless.There can't be conversion with such traffic,even if fake traffic are humans it still wouldn't make sense because they're not targeted audience and might not make much impact.

7 years ago

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vinaya

vinaya

I have used bot traffic. Based on my experience, I can say bot traffic is just a number, it does not convert. You need traffic so that the traffic converts and generate revenue. However, bot traffic does not convert, thus it generates zero revenue.
I have also used traffic exchange site and I learned a lesson. You can get traffic from traffic exchange, it is a human traffic, however, those who visit your site do not care about your contents, thus, there will not be any conversion.
You need real traffic. The real traffic is the traffic that lands on your page voluntarily.

7 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

Do you mean to say that bot traffic is not real traffic but just a method of faking the traffic counter? That’s my idea too because I have come across so many issues about fake traffic that they bought and later on the numbers would dwindle and vanish which means the bought traffic was just a number.

6 years ago

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