Scam adverts on this forum.

Scimmy

Scimmy

Striker
Contributor
Right now at the bottom of my page is an advert picturing Harry and his gaffer. If you click on it you are taken to a page peddling lies about the dynamic duo cashing in on a Bitcoin investment scheme.

Is the forum incapable of filtering out "maladvertising"?
 


I can't see the advert but is it actually a scam? Like most 'investment' type adverts it will be along the lines of investments can go down as well as up.
 
These are targeted Google ads, based on your search history. For example mine is some kind of enlargement scam. The forum has no control over what Google decides to display.
 
gardni said:
These are targeted Google ads, based on your search history. For example mine is some kind of enlargement scam. The forum has no control over what Google decides to display.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this I am afraid.

If I am honest, I thought it might be even worse by now as all spammers/malvertisers normally take their opportunity when the advertising rates fall and they are at an all time low at the moment so they can buy ad space for next to nothing (and quite often for nothing if they are bidding on clicks - so they may be offering 1p per click [which rarely happens] - ie. free advertising!).

Normally there are enough ads around to fill every ad-slot on this and most other websites, and the advertisers then bid against each other for those slots, so someone offering ridiculously low amounts doesn't get a chance - at it's worst a couple of weeks ago we were only selling 1 in 10 of the ad slots with no bids for the other 90%, so any bid no matter how low will get the advert shown.

Google aggregate their ad-sales out to a further 4000 or so ad networks (1000 of which I have already blocked on RTG for poor ads) and each of those ad-networks will have hundreds or thousands of customers they are selling ads to. So we have next to no control over what appears on the site.

We can block individual adverts when we are aware of them (as stated I have blocked 1000 networks, I have also blocked a lot of individual ads this month - I can't say how many cos its so many that the Google console now just says "Many"). Even when we block them it can take Google up to 24 hours to stop sending them.

**Edit just found out, I have blocked over 1300 individual adverts in the last 9 days

The whole system is a mess and the number of rubbish adverts and sites that get through Google's system is appalling, but ultimately without them this site would close as I couldn't afford to run it.

Quite often there is box in the corner to "report" the advert - I would suggest that people use this whenever they see an inappropriate ad. and hope this manages to get rid of some of them.
 
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