Useful Revenue Data Method?

[Clinton]

That's true. From the Adsense TOS point of view if a site with your code and click fraud attempts in the last few weeks suddenly shows signals that you're the owner, the big G may not be too impressed.

[Andy]

Goodness there are some sneaky people out there!

Thanks for the insight guys. And here I thought I was on to something. All these shenanigans just never occurred to me.

Andy

[benitez17]

I'd not thought of asking to display my own ads on a site. Have you tried this yourself benitez?

I have, without any issues. There are some risks though, as Clinton pointed out.

[benitez17]

What I do agree with him on is that having the stats doesn't prove very much as the traffic could have been bought, sent from other sites he owns etc. One way of doing DD on the Adsense is to plug the figures into a spreadsheet together with traffic log figures. Where Adsense metrics (particularly page views) suddenly diverge from traffic figures I'd do some digging.

That's good advice.

[Clinton]

Goodness there are some sneaky people out there!

Thanks for the insight guys. And here I thought I was on to something. All these shenanigans just never occurred to me.

Andy

I didn't become super cynical by accident, it took years of having to work out where the scams were

I'm kidding. It's much better at higher price points. There's still the possiblity of a scam but in all the $50,000+ DD cases I've done, there has never been one single case of a major fraud attempt - just the usual, obvious mistakes like not accounting for webmaster time.

In the sub $500 market it's so slippery that I could, even with all my experience, find myself scammed. People keep talking about template sites in Flippa as a good way for beginners to get started. But most of the sites made by template sellers exclusively for the purpose of sale are the worst sites to start with, IMO. It's better to buy one of those sites that someone started several years ago, found he can't make a profit with it and is selling because "it has potential". We groan at the ubiquitous "potential" but if I were starting today I'd go for one of those with a bad design and proven inability to make profit...over and above a slick template. It's easier to make a profit with those than a template in a "carefully researched niche", with slick design, a few inlinks and even unique content!

I should expand on the whys and wherefores in a blog post when I get a chance.

[3stacks]

One way of doing DD on the Adsense is to plug the figures into a spreadsheet together with traffic log figures. Where Adsense metrics (particularly page views) suddenly diverge from traffic figures I'd do some digging.

Hi Clinton

What's a good gauge of telling whether there's something dodgy with adsense metrics and traffic figures?
Are there some good benchmark ratios or is this something which requires some experience?

[Clinton]

I know this doesn't help but I look at the figures and trust gut instinct to flag risks.

I suppose sharp peaks or drops in views, CTRs, eCPM or EPC (you have to add a column for this in the spreadsheet) are worth examining. Steady drops and rises are also worth looking at and trying to identify the causes of. Once I found something suspect by comparing the rise and flow of pageviews with the site's Alexa ranking. Bear in mind though that the lower the Alexa rank the more unreliable it is as a measure of anything.

You could also chart page views against ad views.

There aren't benchmarks and I don't think experience makes much of a difference on ratios. It does help a bit to compare with metrics of another site - if you have that on file - but even if it's in the same niche and very similar in other respects, the CTRs etc could differ quite a lot.

[Andy]

I didn't become super cynical by accident, it took years of having to work out where the scams were

I'm kidding. It's much better at higher price points. There's still the possiblity of a scam but in all the $50,000+ DD cases I've done, there has never been one single case of a major fraud attempt - just the usual, obvious mistakes like not accounting for webmaster time.

In the sub $500 market it's so slippery that I could, even with all my experience, find myself scammed. People keep talking about template sites in Flippa as a good way for beginners to get started. But most of the sites made by template sellers exclusively for the purpose of sale are the worst sites to start with, IMO. It's better to buy one of those sites that someone started several years ago, found he can't make a profit with it and is selling because "it has potential". We groan at the ubiquitous "potential" but if I were starting today I'd go for one of those with a bad design and proven inability to make profit...over and above a slick template. It's easier to make a profit with those than a template in a "carefully researched niche", with slick design, a few inlinks and even unique content!

I should expand on the whys and wherefores in a blog post when I get a chance.

Burp! I don't know what I'll do if I get much more food for thought! I've got this natural tendency to work from a shoestring and now I'm beginning to wonder...