Help

  • UNDERSTANDING YOUR REPORT - the followng topics in the help section assist in understanding your reports
  • Why is my bot count so high? - Most bot analytics do not detect more advanced bots. Bot programmers have become experts in circumventing standard filters. That is why we advise against using them alone. More advanced detection methods are needed – like what you get with SecureAd.

  • Some IP addresses show both human and bot activity. How is that possible? - Short answer:
    IP addresses are not a reliable way to determine an exact user, device or even location. A recent study showed that 65% of all residential IP addresses have been hijacked by botnets, meaning at any time, a bot can come from any one (or more) of those addresses.
     
    Long answer:
    An IP address can be a device on the Internet, a proxy server for a company, or a router's IP address for a family. All devices linked to the internal network using WiFi communicate to the internet through the router and thus are using the IP address of the router.
     
    If in that family the son (or daughter) has a mobile phone with some software installed on it, such as a free game from the store which runs ads in the background, that device gets infected with adware. This means that the family IP address has both bots (from that compromised device) and humans (from the other devices) viewing ads.
     
    That's why it may be mixed. This also can be true for 4G networks with lots of devices sharing a (gateway) IP address, WiFi hotspots at restaurants, etc. where a mix of devices connect to the internet.
     

  • Why can’t I see a referrer for some ads? - Many websites and even some browsers intentionally strip out the referrer information from the data that reaches your site. Sometimes this is the result of well-meaning privacy filters, but often it can mean a bot or malicious site was sophisticated enough to cover its tracks.
     

  • Why is the browser language column empty? - Simulated browsers and/or other bots emulate a browser environment, but they do not
    implement all features and characteristics of a browser. To save time and computing power, they only implement the bare necessities - and browser language isn’t one of them. If it isn’t there, it returns an empty value.