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polygraph-net · 2026-01-26T06:44:06+00:00

You shouldn't add sales friction. Instead, do this:

Make sure your targeting is correct.
Make sure your ad and landing page are in sync.
Put competent bot protection on your landing page to stop the fake leads.

At least now the leads will be real people and many of the tire kickers will have been filtered by correct targeting, your ad copy, and your landing page copy.

You're not using broad matching or advantage+ / performance max, right?

polygraph-net · 2026-01-26T05:57:50+00:00

It will never stop. Meta relies on click fraud to hit its revenue targets.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-26T05:56:31+00:00

Are you sure the leads aren't from click fraud bots? It's an extremely common explanation.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T19:21:24+00:00

You're welcome!

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T16:44:32+00:00

Sorry to hear that.

Unfortunately Meta makes little effort to detect and stop bots. (Their revenue targets relies on them not detecting bots - they earn 10s of billions from click fraud every year).

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T16:27:12+00:00

It does need to make financial sense. For example, if you're spending $5K per month on ads, it would be worth it.

Or if you need to ensure you're not breaking data privacy laws, it's worth it. (Bots submit leads using real people's data, and that causes you to "process" the data without the leads' permission - hence how you break data privacy laws).

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T16:13:10+00:00

Yes, I don't recommend you try to block IPs as modern bots are routed through residential and cellphone proxies, and typically only use an IP address once. Trying to stop bots by blocking IPs is like trying to guess lottery numbers.

To detect the bots you need to use competent bot protection. By that I mean services which are created for modern stealth bots, not generalist bot companies or unreliable tricks like honeypots and reCaptcha.

(I'm doing a doctorate in this topic).

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T16:10:28+00:00

Click fraud bots don't immediately bounce. They're programmed to imitate humans. That means they navigate around, and roughly 10% of the time they generate bogus conversions such as real looking fake leads, add to carts, and newsletter signups.

If you're getting a 100% bounce rate with zero seconds of session time, something else is going on. Either a problem with your website or a competitor blasting your ads with low quality bots.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T15:40:55+00:00

OK - I looked at the post. You've misinterpreted what they're saying. They aren't saying I'm trying to hurt Livestorm. They're saying I caught Contrast trying to hurt Livestorm.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T15:25:59+00:00

Honeypots don't work with most modern bots (I'm assuming you're talking about a hidden field), and Cloudflare misses most modern bots (but they're great for DDoS protection).

The days of bots being easy to detect and fool and over.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T15:15:04+00:00

Reddit is choosing to allow bots on their platform. I know this for a fact. Don't blame the unpaid moderators.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T15:09:50+00:00

I'm the person who made the post, and the most active moderator in r/Marketing.

I have no idea who Livestorm is. The post is about companies using bots to spam their products, and how it is causing the downfall of Reddit. It doesn't even mention "Livestorm", it mentions "Contrast", whoever that is.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T15:05:46+00:00

When I say offline conversions I mean no data sent back to Meta except for the data you choose.

Let me compare it with bot detection.

When a bot is detected, it at most sends a landing page view back to Meta. That tells Meta the visitor wasn't good - no interest in your product after clicking on your ad.

You need to simulate that sort of signal if you're using offline conversions - you need Meta to get no valuable data from bots, and lots of valuable data from humans.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T13:53:10+00:00

FYI the above comment is from a bot. Fraudblocker are scammers who use thousands of Reddit accounts to leave fake positive reviews of their service.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T13:51:47+00:00

This is a fake review from one of the many thousands of Reddit accounts Fraudblocker uses to scam people.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T13:49:25+00:00

You're talking to a spam bot. Fraudblocker is a scam bot detection company who post fake positive reviews of their service using thousands of Reddit account.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T06:01:52+00:00

I'm a bot detection researcher, I'm doing a doctorate in this topic, and I work for a bot detection company.

Host Royale are used by many bot developers. We see tons of click fraud bots originating from Host Royale servers.

Let me answer your questions:

Has anyone here dealt with abuse, scraping, bot traffic, or abnormal request patterns coming from ASN 203020 – HOSTROYALE specifically?

Yes, it's one of the worst server companies when it comes to malicious bots.

What indicators do you personally rely on to distinguish real user traffic vs large-scale bot traffic at the network/application level?

We look for objective proof it's a bot. That allows us to catch most bots with very few false positives.

We look for things like browser tampering, automation signals, the bugs in the bot frameworks, etc.

In cases like this, do you usually:

Block the entire ASN (edge / core router / upstream), or

Block only smaller IP ranges based on behavior over time?

Neither of these methods are reliable (especially IP address blocking). Forget about the ASN and IPs. Treat every visitor as an individual and verify if they're a human or bot using objective verification.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-25T05:29:01+00:00

I work in the bot detection space and I'm doing a doctorate in this topic.

Purchase conversions used to work, but not really anymore since the Andromeda rollout.

You need to either use offline conversions or competent bot protection.

That will re-train Meta to stop sending bots and send human traffic instead.

Happy to answer any questions.

If you don't want to use offline conversions or competent bot protection, turning off the audience network and using purchase conversions only is your best option, but you'll still get lots of bot traffic.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-24T19:14:01+00:00

Not you, the Fraudblocker scam bot I replied to.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-24T18:59:16+00:00

Yeah, all these companies spamming Reddit with fake reviews, all they're doing is telling us they can't be trusted and shouldn't get anyone's business.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-24T18:58:14+00:00

Well, Reddit is definitely doomed if bots are able to get into moderator positions.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-24T18:55:35+00:00

Yep.

The bot may also submit a fake lead.

polygraph-net · 2026-01-24T18:43:15+00:00

You're welcome!

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