Strange Log Referrer - Advice Please? Options

[Kal]

I'd appreciate any light people can shed on this. Today I was looking at my log files for October via ClickTracks and it seems that over 7% of my traffic for the month was referred by this URL: landing.domainsponsor.com. This is my 2nd top site referrer for the month!

Prob is I don't know what that site is or why it is linking to me. When I view the URL it takes me to Information.com but the existence of so many referrals from domainsponsor.com is freaking me out. Digging deeper, the referrals from this site are only to my best performing PPC landing page and they make up 56% of all referrals to that page. What do you think is going on? Is someone inflating my AdWords click traffic? (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/panic.gif)

{edited to remove live link}

[qwerty]

Have a look at http://www.arbforum.com/domains/decisions/161468.htm

Respondent registered the <xxx> domain name November 27, 2002.  As of at least March 12, 2003, when Internet users typed in the disputed domain name, it directed them to a search portal at the <landing.domainsponsor.com> domain name where users were subjected to a series of random pop-up advertisements.  The website located at the <landing.domainsponsor.com> domain name states that it pays 50% of all revenues generated from searches, pop-unders, pop-ups and exit pop-ups.

[Kal]

I don't get it. What has that got to do with my landing page?

[projectphp]

Ads. Whose Ads do you use? Overture? Google? AdSense? Content Match? Some banner ads? Some other programme??

[Kal]

Google AdWords (search network only) and Overture both styles. That's it. My domain has never been in dispute but we did have a 10 hour outage due to a hosting failure in October. Could visitors have been redirected during that outage perhaps?

[edit] There are no ads on my landing pages[/edits]

[Kal]

I've dug deeper using CT and it shows the large bulk of referrals from that domain under the heading "query" with 98% of them having a tracking parameter of:
landing.domainsponsor.com/?query=seo

The tracking parameter is consistent with my own for that particular landing page. Could this just be the tracking referrer belonging to one of Yahoo's search partners where my ad is shown?

[Kal]

Still can't fathom this. Anyone else noticing similar references in their logs?

[Randy]

I've not seen it in any of my logs Kalena. In fact, I can't even get the landing subdomain to resolve at the moment. There appear to be some pretty significant DNS problems with the sub at the moment.

Can you tell from your logs/stats if those were real visitors or not? Did they move around your site or just hit and leave? I'm wondering if it might have been one of those referral spam things or something along those lines.

Are you still getting referrals from them now? Something sure sounds shady. Have you tried correlating the supposed referral traffic back to any of your PPC traffic to see if there are matches? If so, you may be due some credits.

[Alan Perkins]

I've taken a look at the site and followed the HTTP responses of their ads until I end up with Google URLs. So it looks like your referrers are clicks (real or fraudulent) on Google ads, Kal. They are not labelled as Google ads so I'd be very suspicious.

Check your Adwords accounts and your logs for unusual click activity on Google's content network.

[Kal]

Thanks Alan and Randy. It sure does seem suspicious and it's still happening. I'm not using Google's content network either, so it should be easy to pinpoint. Might give all the data to AdWords staff to work out.

Thanks again!

[Kal]

Just got this email back from AdWords Support:

"Hello Kalena,

Thank you for your request for an invalid click investigation. My team and I have completed our review of your report. We appreciate your patience as we looked into this matter.

Please be aware that the landing.domainsponsor.com sites that you mentioned are members of our Google AdSense for domains ( http://www.google.com/domainpark/). Using Google's contextual targeting technology, AdSense for domains shows AdWords ads on parked domain name pages.

We've found that AdWords ads showing on parked domain name pages often receive clicks from well-qualified leads within the advertisers' markets. As a result, the return on investment for these pages can be comparable to that of search pages. To determine the value of traffic you've received from parked domain name pages, we recommend you monitor your conversion rate.

We have reviewed the traffic you received from these sites. The clicks you received appear to be typical of normal user behavior. We were unable to find any evidence of invalid clicks.

Please be assured that we take invalid click activity very seriously Kalena. We will continue to monitor the traffic on your AdWords ads to ensure that you are receiving the most effective advertising available.

Thank you again for your patience. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
The Google Click Quality Team"

Hmmm. So this Google Domain Park site appears to be included as part of their Search Network for advertisers.

[qwerty]

But how many people find themselves on parked domains by accident? Either someone linked to one of them, sending traffic to it that then clicked your ads, or someone went there in order to click ads...

Did any of these clickthroughs convert for you, or even spend more than a couple of seconds on your site?

[Kal]

Did any of these clickthroughs convert for you, or even spend more than a couple of seconds on your site?

Nope (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/mad.gif)

I challenged it because I don't even use the content network and I thought my ads were restricted to search sites. Here's the response I got from Google:

Hi Kalena,

I understand that your campaigns are only opted in to our search network. Some parked domain partners are a part of our search network. These partners are classified as AdSense for domains. The way it works, is our system uses powerful semantic technology to dynamically analyze a domain name and match its meaning with ads and related searches that are related to the domain name subject. This provides users with highly relevant information in a user-friendly format, encouraging them to click.

Please let me know if you have any other questions. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team


Does anyone else find this alarming?

[Alan Perkins]

Does anyone else find this alarming?

Yes! I thought "AdSense for domains" was content network, not search network. I thought the clue was in the name ... Adsense.

There is no search, so why put it in the search network? (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/hmm.gif)

[Alan Perkins]

If these are in fact Adsense for domains ads, I'd be asking Google why they are not labelled as such on that landing page. It just says "Sponsored Links", not "Ads by Gooooogle".

I'm not 100% sure that they *are* Google ads - I just know that they are labelled as "Sponsored Links", they go through a Google URL (google.com, not googlesyndication.com) and they use your tracking parameter, Kal.