Is this part of Google's impression fraud filter?
by Heidi Edelmuller
This morning I was testing out a few keywords on Google.co.uk to see what my competitors were up to.
The best way to see your live advert (and those of your competitors) is by using Google’s Ad Preview Tool, which allows you to view the SERPs without your search being counted as an impression.
Sometimes, however, I just do it the old fashioned way.
I entered a few different versions of a similar phrase and on my third try got this Google 403 Error:
“We’re sorry but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users we can’t process your request right now”.And then of course the usual CAPTCHA to prove my searches were coming from a human.
After a bit of research it seems that this 403 error has popped up for a few people and for a variety of different reasons. In this case it seems to be aimed at preventing impression fraud.
Any thoughts?
Comments
post a commentTotally Sarah - it seems overly paranoid, doesn't it? Maybe Google has flagged us as suspicious ;)
Posted by Heidi on 2007/12/05
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Yup - I also got that this morning. Searched for something "or tambo" and then refined my search term "or tambo international airport" and received the error.
Seems a bit much delivering this kind of message when a user has only tried to refine a search in order to get more relevant results.
Posted by Sarah on 2007/12/05