Behind every Bot there is a person writing the program. Sending in an Appeal to Google would be futile, I've read that no-one ever gets their revenue or account reinstated. I've also read that the person who organised this has done me a favour in the longer term, though I really doubt that my attacker had my best interests at heart.
I've been reading up on the antics on "Click Bombers" and "Click Bots" in an effort to understand how the attack was carried out whilst looking like it came from me. I was oblivious to the damage as I never saw the Ads, or paid attention to the income, as I never received any.
I'd made a Blog entry on the 21st June 2011, received no Blog visits on the 21st, and on the 22nd June my Blog received 52 visits from an address in Horsham, Pennyslvania.
All the Charts and analysis are by Google Analytics and belong to them.
As I use Google Analytics it's possible to view the emerging patterns. It's not possible to get the exact location pinned down as far as I can tell.
Much as I'd like to think my Blog is an interesting read, it's a little OTT for someone using Level 3 Communications services, to then click on my Adsense Ad boxes 69 times on the 22nd June. Not only that, they were superfast at arriving, clicking the Ads and departing too.
Out of 80 Direct Traffic visits for June 2011, 44 occurred on the 22nd.
Another blip in Switzerland, the data shows that from Fribourg and Montreux areas, there were 27 visits, resulting in a Bounce Rate of 75%. The pattern for the rest of Switzerland is in single figures, as expected.
Of course I have no idea how the attack was carried out. Perhaps my Google account was hacked to gain access. Naturally I've changed passwords everywhere, just in case. I'll see what the next batch of Google Analytics data shows before taking any further action.
No comments:
Post a Comment