Affiliate program detecting bot traffic

Hi all. Long time reader, first time poster.

I have a hypothetical question. If one were to send bot traffic to a landing page with affiliate links, would:

a. The affiliate program register the bot traffic as impressions?

b. The affiliate program know that the impressions came from bot traffic and not legitimate search/type-in traffic?

Note, the bot traffic would not be clicking links, it would simply be landing on the page.

Thanks!

WW

waddawadda said:

Hi all. Long time reader, first time poster.

I have a hypothetical question. If one were to send bot traffic to a landing page with affiliate links, would:

a. The affiliate program register the bot traffic as impressions?

b. The affiliate program know that the impressions came from bot traffic and not legitimate search/type-in traffic?

Note, the bot traffic would not be clicking links, it would simply be landing on the page.

Thanks!

WW

Click to expand...

Would this be to your website first with affiliate links on the page, unless they like google then no and it will registered as impressions in the network.

It depends on the type of landing page / affiliate. The machine serving the page will surely register your "hit" even if it's a shitty curl generated http request, even if you issue a GET / with telnet on port 80.. BUT a smart affiliate will also register at least user agent, referrer, javascript capabilities, possibly screen resolution, mouse movements and a number of other details that vary widely depending on how smart the logging technology is. IF the bot is clever enough there's NO WAY for an affiliate to detect its automated nature, no matter what every other random skid will tell ya.

I think you already have your answer and there are so many things that can be done actually about this matter.

sirgold said:

It depends on the type of landing page / affiliate. The machine serving the page will surely register your "hit" even if it's a shitty curl generated http request, even if you issue a GET / with telnet on port 80.. BUT a smart affiliate will also register at least user agent, referrer, javascript capabilities, possibly screen resolution, mouse movements and a number of other details that vary widely depending on how smart the logging technology is. IF the bot is clever enough there's NO WAY for an affiliate to detect its automated nature, no matter what every other random skid will tell ya.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

The landing page I have is purely just a blog with a few affiliate links on it from CJ, Linkshare etc. I direct link to the ads using other traffic, so I need to bump up the impressions as well to make it look more legit. I'm fully aware where I can get real traffic from, but I'd rather just automate it if it's possible/easy.

Just a couple of questions:

- You mention "a smart affiliate will also register at least user agent, referrer, javascript capabilities...." - I know this would definitely apply when a user/bot would click an affiliate link/banner, so you think this would also apply to a bot just creating an impression when it lands on my blog?

- Do you have a recommendation about getting a 'clever enough bot' to do such a job?

WW