Uncovering Internet traffic cheating: long-term existence into industry unspoken rules

A recent data forgery has been exposed. Alibaba has handled 4 managers, including the president of the cat, and admitted that the reservation data for a mobile phone had been artificially altered, according to the new report, released October 18.

It is not uncommon for business to sell data traffic. In many data bubbles behind, mixed with the interests of impulse, face role.

A number of Internet researchers and practitioners interviewed by the Chinese Youth Daily reported that the phenomenon of traffic cheating does exist. "This is a long-standing common unspoken rule. Fondonchen, founder of the blog Network, told reporters.

"Rules that everyone knows."

"Buy traffic?" I have, I bought 100MB. "Wang (a pseudonym) is not clear what is the site traffic. What he says about 100MB is nothing more than virtual space.

In the 2013, Wang, who used his spare time to run a Web site, even though he counted on it to be profitable, still only promoted it in his circle of acquaintances. The dismal news is that the site does not have an ad today.

Website traffic usually refers to the amount of visitors to the site, including independent visitor number (UV), Page view number (PV) and other indicators. These indicators affect advertisers ' determination to advertise.

"The main site is the dynamics of home business leaders. "Wang's plan is, first the content of the site to do a good job to attract enough people to browse, have a popular then talk about advertising, or even ask business leaders to sponsor," Anyway, the spare time to do, you can slowly.

He remains a staunch believer in content as King today. Every day, the website updates more than 10 information, news reprint respective big media. In the background editing system, in order to adjust a font, he sometimes repeatedly refresh browsing several times.

The website has been running for two years, and Wang's first advertisement has not come. In the world site Alexa rankings, his site ranked millions of. With far more than 100,000, the site is not qualified to be shown access for each period of time.

"The other is advertisers, you say your site good, how to prove that only see the number of visits ranked." Wang slowly also understood this truth.

Liu Fei (alias) service website, once also did not pay attention to this visit quantity rank. This is a news website, with the official background, adhere to the "clean do content", as to how to improve the volume of visits, at one point is not the site's concern.

Relative to these "silent" sites, commercial websites are in a battlefield with a hidden fight. In this battlefield, because it is associated with "transformation", the amount of access becomes an invisible resource.

Attention to the Internet field for many years before the media Yang told the Chinese youth newspaper reporter, whether from economic income or financing, the flow of many are good, "more traffic, advertising, or diversion ability will be stronger." The numbers are beautiful and the financing will be higher. ”

In Yang view, general comprehensive or public-oriented sites will value Alexa rankings, the status of the portal site has not been through the Alexa rankings to determine.

Wang found that some sites in the preparation for The advertiser's sponsorship, will be used to brush the flow of the way to improve their site rankings.

"Brush flow of the general mainly is called ' Grassroots Station '." "Yang said that the grassroots station mainly refers to personal sites, shop and so on," some grassroots stations need to be realized, a short period of relatively large movement will do. "Some news and information websites may have taken this approach when they were just launched," he said.

An entrepreneur for many years, the internet people said: "Any site to do a good job to buy traffic, this is the internet everyone knows the rules." ”

Can be customized to the brush flow Alexa rankings

Website traffic, not expensive, nor hidden. In the internet search "traffic" and other keywords, can pop up a lot of related trading sites or software.

China Youth Daily Reporter noted that a traffic union to provide the main IP, price list, the lowest standard is 200 IP per day, the price is only 1.19 yuan, the maximum of 500,000 IP per day, the price of 2931.5 yuan, the average of about 0.005 cents per flow.

Another website's price is some cheaper, the price is 24 yuan 10,000 IP.

These are not one-off, but 24-hour allocations. "The previous customer service staff suggested that in order to make the data more realistic, you can choose the number of hits according to the usual actual traffic."

There are also brush flow Web site using a monthly subscription, the average of two cents per flow. Customer service staff said that if you choose the average of 8000 traffic per day, one-month price is 4800 yuan, can also be discounted to 3600 yuan, "today to determine cooperation, tomorrow will be able to see 8000 traffic." ”

Because it's a manual click, he says, the price is slightly higher than some of the peers. In addition, in addition to the monthly package, there are package quarter, Baonin and other packages.

When asked whether the flow of cheating will be reported, customer service said, if only thousands of of the input per day, will not be reported, is often reported a day to be injected hundreds of thousands of or even millions of people.

In fact, in this market, not only is the purchase of traffic, even Alexa's designated ranking position is also claimed to be tailor-made.

A person in the industry told reporters that when customers come to the consultation, they will be based on customer expectations to achieve the ranking, to estimate a corresponding flow value, and then gradually upgrade, "generally 20 days or so will have a more ideal effect."

Of course, if paid after the end, still want to continue through the brush flow to obtain this rank ranking, the need for a regular renewal.

"All types of Web site to buy a lot of traffic, small to personal station, big to well-known portal." "A claim to be able to brush Alexa ranked customer service, not only have institutions, there are commercial sites, and some sites have been in the Alexa ranking of hundreds of."

"News sites, portal sites. He said, "Rest assured, we are confidential to customer information." ”

In his opinion, the reason is at least from the beginning of the month, until the Ti Yu, Half-year pay, annual pay, because the big customers want to be able to obtain a stable source of traffic, so as to get better financing and other development, small customers have a lot of instability factors, which is its durability is not as big customer reasons.

Fondonchen told reporters, some big portal site also engage in traffic cheating, as long as there is income, no size, "This behavior is certainly unreasonable, but the site in order to survive, in order to gain, we must do." Website traffic cheating is very complex, a variety of reasons, various forms have. ”

Yi, secretary general of China Mobile Internet Industry Alliance, said that in the early desktop internet age, cheating has a very important role, the number of visits, traffic rankings for the valuation of investors is a very important reference, so some professional company dedicated brush flow, brush ranking to help finance.

"There are some more sophisticated means, such as hacker-level, through a number of ways to invade the ordinary user's computer, in the background of the computer quietly visit the client's website, resulting in a seemingly high number of visits, in fact, these customers are not visited." "Yi said.

According to public information and media disclosure, the service providers of these brush flow mostly take the technical means of robot cheating, some use malicious plug-ins, and some use trojans, viruses and other means to implant other users of the computer, so that the other has to visit, and some use different computers between the IP Exchange functions.

Why did you cheat?

How is the current situation of traffic cheating? Many of the Internet veterans interviewed said there was no specific data, but the "water is deep".

China Youth Daily reporter learned that, in 2007, the domestic question of traffic cheating once caused a storm. At that time, industry websites reported that the Alexa company adjusted the algorithm of the global rankings, a large number of Chinese web sites declined.

"Previously ranked in the top 1000 Chinese websites, One-third were completely emptied or drastically lowered rankings." "The report revealed that the site, which was emptied, was almost a popular 2007 site, including video, entertainment and other fields."

In the Web site at the same time the Netizen survey, "You think the site traffic cheating is serious" problem, 81% of users choose "very serious, many of the emerging sites are cheating."

Yang that the flow of cheating in the industry appears more than 78, it is likely to have the internet when it appeared.

Fondonchen told reporters that the use of traffic cheating reasons are not the same, and some are related to interests, advertising revenue, and some are due to the need for bright-eyed rankings, industry rankings, and some need large data to attract investors.

Another factor is competition. "You do not cheat, opponents cheat, will be very bad for you." Ranking below the opponent, will be in a weak position, not conducive to competition. "There are a lot of complicated factors behind this," Fang Dongxing said.

In addition to external competition, the site of different departments, different channels will have competition, depending on the ranking of traffic to compete fiercely.

"The company that specializes in cheating is actually a paid service," he said. Fondonchen said, another situation is that the site itself, such as Taobao station, some businesses to make false orders to attract customers, this is an immoral behavior.

"Objectively, the industry creates some bubbles, but on the whole, this is a demand." We all know the specific situation, there are many ways to detect, you can not hide. There is to watch the lively point, in fact, the specific impact is not much. Yang told reporters.

Many internet advertisers told reporters that they are not unfamiliar with the flow of cheating, but also figure out some rules to prevent cheating. For example, in the absence of a sudden event, the PV value fluctuations in each day, or 24 hours per hour, the average amount of IP traffic.

Yang said, if in the industry, we are very aware of this phenomenon, is not much of a problem, and sometimes the problem is "people outside the industry." "For example, the government web site to find someone to run the site, the person can be a short time to brush it very good-looking." ”

Unfair industry ecology

Fondonchen that, in law, traffic cheating is almost "unregulated". Because the traffic is the site's own secrets, it is difficult to know, unlike financial audit, the equivalent of a commercial confidential components, "the site itself is difficult to accurately statistics, the outside is more confused." ”

In Yi's view, the unfairness brought by traffic cheating comes from a further moment.

He analyzed that the desktop internet era has passed, the portal is not hot, 1.0-era sites are slowly marginalized, less competitive, "now more energy is placed on the app." Grab the charts, grab the flow, and focus more on mobile internet apps. ”

He said that the method is the same, in the pre-installed fake, in the activation of false, in the active amount of fraud, "investors see is these things, such as the number of downloads, weekly activity, monthly activity, and so on, fake business chain is accompanied by the trend of the times evolve." ”

Yi For example, in the app era, some users will see the phone there are some inexplicable things, this is pre-installed when the back door, when needed, may instantly manipulate tens of millions of of smartphones to complete something, and then uninstall it off.

"Honestly do the site, instead of the competitive ranking advantage." "Liu Fei has not adapted to this change for the time being.

In fact, the flow of cheating on how to defend the rights, this is a long time the media asked the question.

"The rules are hard to rise to the legal level, and there is no prosecution channel, and most of them are not." "Yi said that the white list system is also very difficult to work," because I gave you the test when I this app is very clean, after certification, I add things, how can you verify? ”

"In China this blooming era, relying on industry self-discipline is impossible, such as in the industry VCs, he fake I can not fake it?" You invade me not invade, you melt money, I can't melt, then I die? Rigid demand, life and death demand, industry self-discipline is not feasible. "he said.

"This kind of commercial competition, China is very difficult to avoid, it is only a commercial fraud, the ecology is so, morally not too good for the entrepreneur may not be fair, not fair and just open entrepreneurial environment." Yi said, this environment is not the government can be left and right, itself is the industry inside the ecology, "over time, with the promotion of the investor realm, will slowly be better." ”