Google Display network is Sht show, full of spam

[mainceaft]

This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve used Google Ads. I created a local campaign for a friend of mine.
I targeted one city, so the audience was narrowed with a specific interest category, etc.
And oh boy, within the first couple of minutes, my site was hammered by visits from these spammy sites coming from the campaign (spam / MFA / arbitrage / fake content farms).
I only got visits from a single real website; the rest were spam. I paused the campaign and started blacklisting every single one of them.
But that was not enough. The next day, when I resumed, I got the same percentage of spammy visits from newer domains. I banned them too, paused and resumed again—same issue. These spammy websites kept coming.
It’s very obvious to me that the traffic from these sources is all junk, mostly PRN pop-up ads, etc. If one of their domains is blocked, their traffic decreases, so they redirect their traffic sources to newer domains, etc.
Until now, I’ve banned around 100 domains from my entire account, and I’m still counting. To be honest, the traffic quality has improved a little—about 20% now comes from real websites—and I’m still trying to increase it.
And these MF sites and Google have made me lose $20 so far on these clicks.
But honestly, WTF, Google? What is their monitoring team doing, when in the past they banned many legitimate AdSense accounts for minor mistakes?

 

[APIFuel]

What you’re seeing is common with broad Display targeting, especially in local campaigns.
Without strict placement control, Google optimizes for cheap impressions, not quality traffic.

 

[Muhammad Dawood]

if you are using the google ads local compaigs most of traffic comes from the display network which is not pure that's why you are using MAF and spamming sites why you

 

[jelenaitmui9]

did you try targeting a smaller interest category or just the one you initially chose

 

[mainceaft]

Without strict placement control,

The campaign from the begging is strict not broad Display, and this is not normal for narrowed region campaign at all, how these sthtty site get that much of traffic from such small region?
This is not my first time I do google ads campaign, and I'm not new to the interned, I know how cloaking works, I'm long member of this forum, I know all the sht they're doing.
I know many of these auto generated contents that trick Google Ads bots, to put them on high paying niche

did you try targeting a smaller interest category or just the one you initially chose

What you mean? I targeted specified niche very close to my landing page, it's local business had landing page with clickable phone number.
my issue is with traffic quality not the niche i sleeted, if it legit website the traffic quality is good

 

[ThePPCJoker]

Google search traffic is better.

 

[mainceaft]

Google search traffic is better.

I know, but search volume is 1/Day for that niche on the exact area,
The client needs at least 5 customers/day to keep the campaign running.
As I said display-ads are good but only if the website running the ads are not spam-sht.

 

[mainceaft]

And this is how Google steals your money, beside their shtty contents network they force visitors to click by mistake on your ads,
Because their ads placement are blocking the contents..
in the past they were blocking AdSense account for thing way less aggressive, what hypocrite world we live in.

 

[medialounge]

This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve used Google Ads. I created a local campaign for a friend of mine.
I targeted one city, so the audience was narrowed with a specific interest category, etc.
And oh boy, within the first couple of minutes, my site was hammered by visits from these spammy sites coming from the campaign (spam / MFA / arbitrage / fake content farms).
I only got visits from a single real website; the rest were spam. I paused the campaign and started blacklisting every single one of them.
But that was not enough. The next day, when I resumed, I got the same percentage of spammy visits from newer domains. I banned them too, paused and resumed again—same issue. These spammy websites kept coming.
It’s very obvious to me that the traffic from these sources is all junk, mostly PRN pop-up ads, etc. If one of their domains is blocked, their traffic decreases, so they redirect their traffic sources to newer domains, etc.
Until now, I’ve banned around 100 domains from my entire account, and I’m still counting. To be honest, the traffic quality has improved a little—about 20% now comes from real websites—and I’m still trying to increase it.
And these MF sites and Google have made me lose $20 so far on these clicks.
But honestly, WTF, Google? What is their monitoring team doing, when in the past they banned many legitimate AdSense accounts for minor mistakes?

I would just go with other display platforms
Reduce the budget on Google until you understand them enough

 

[WPGads]

gdn is 99% garbage apps and mfa sites if u don't setup exclusions properly from the start. manual blacklisting is a waste of time cuz google just generates new junk domains daily. try to exclude all mobile app categories and use a solid placement blacklist if u have one. honestly search ads are way better for local stuff, gdn is only for retargeting or huge budgets

 

[mainceaft]

I would just go with other
Reduce the budget on Google until you understand them enough

What other display platforms.

gdn is 99% garbage apps and mfa sites if u don't setup exclusions properly from the start. manual blacklisting is a waste of time cuz google just generates new junk domains daily. try to exclude all mobile app categories and use a solid placement blacklist if u have one. honestly search ads are way better for local stuff, gdn is only for retargeting or huge budgets

This campaign is not global, I target specified Geo location how these MF's got such traffic from the exact location after I ban until now ~ 200 Junk domains?
This sht is not normal, it's like there's someone some how, spies on these Geo targeting campaigns, and use auto tools to drive traffics to new domains after others are banned, this is complete theft and scam in day light.
I'm still banning these MF's until my traffic become clean, or else I'll use whitelist only and exclude all these MFs.

 

[snkrsresell]

Try running demand gen campaigns using fully static creatives, and ask Claude to write you an advertorial (pre-sale page) for the product your friend is selling. That’s what I did, and the traffic was high quality (I was bidding 95% on Discover).

 

[baobab]

I had the same experience with gdn tons of MFA sites fake app traffic and garbage placements unless you babysit it nonstop

 

[afajansmedya]

One of the best methods I know is checking where the low-quality traffic is coming from and excluding those locations completely. I’ve seen that help a lot in some campaigns, especially on Display traffic.

 

[dakodigital]

Display network has always been pretty bad, it’s like playing whack a mole trying to remove certain sites from showing your ads. But don’t expect much from anything outside search these days

 

[Glam Goddess]

Placement exclusions matter a lot on GDN now. Leaving campaigns too broad is usually where most of the junk traffic comes from.

 

[Korovka]

Unfortunately, this is the way it works. You don't launch a display network campaign with such a small budget. You either need a big enough budget to survive until you exclude all the trash websites (or build your own whitelist), or you already have a whitelist you want to target. And even if your budget is big enough, you still need to exclude at least all mobile apps from the start.

 

[LuciferLeads]

This is the first time in a very long time that I’ve used Google Ads. I created a local campaign for a friend of mine.
I targeted one city, so the audience was narrowed with a specific interest category, etc.
And oh boy, within the first couple of minutes, my site was hammered by visits from these spammy sites coming from the campaign (spam / MFA / arbitrage / fake content farms).
I only got visits from a single real website; the rest were spam. I paused the campaign and started blacklisting every single one of them.
But that was not enough. The next day, when I resumed, I got the same percentage of spammy visits from newer domains. I banned them too, paused and resumed again—same issue. These spammy websites kept coming.
It’s very obvious to me that the traffic from these sources is all junk, mostly PRN pop-up ads, etc. If one of their domains is blocked, their traffic decreases, so they redirect their traffic sources to newer domains, etc.
Until now, I’ve banned around 100 domains from my entire account, and I’m still counting. To be honest, the traffic quality has improved a little—about 20% now comes from real websites—and I’m still trying to increase it.
And these MF sites and Google have made me lose $20 so far on these clicks.
But honestly, WTF, Google? What is their monitoring team doing, when in the past they banned many legitimate AdSense accounts for minor mistakes?

Turn off 'Display Expansion' in your search campaigns, uncheck 'Google Video Partners', and use a placement exclusion list to block all mobile apps, or you'll keep burning cash on MFA sites.