MyBlogLog Ad Click Tracking
Posted on February 23, 2007 by
Adie 
News 
19 Comments
Shoemoney just reported another potential problem with MyBlogLog (following a number of exploit posts which led to some drama). This time they say MyBlogLog is tracking your Adsense and YPN stats and possibly showing this private information to third parties. If you want to read his technical analysis you can visit his post or see this video.
I’ve said it time and time again: I’m a tech idiot. I barely know what all of that script stuff is. What I do know, however, is that in my MyBlogLog Pro account (that Eric hooked me up with, thx Eric) all of my Adsense clicks are counted *and* displayed for me to see as “outgoing links”. I can even sort by Ads. Here’s a screenshot:
Could this be a potential justified reason for MyBlogLog tracking Adsense and YPN clicks? Did they implement this planning on adding all ad networks in the future? I don’t know. Like I said, all this techno mumbo-jumbo is over my head. Maybe that means I’m completely off base, and that might be true. I’m just not so sure if this is a secret plot by MyBlogLog (and Yahoo!) to acquire ad click information or if it’s just a half-finished ad statistics tracker for MyBlogLog Pro.
Anybody have any ideas? Is this another problem with MyBlogLog or a legitimate tracking code?
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This may be because I also am not a tech wiz, but I like seeing the links people click on once visiting my site. The way MBL displays it is simple and seems accurate. Dunno though, could be wrong. I don’t have the pro, just the standard MBL that everyone gets.
Yea they updated the original post. I suppose the question is now whether or not this tracking is necessary for non-pro accounts? Does MBL want to keep tracking them so that when you upgrade it will have past info? Or were they just too lazy to make it track only pro account info? With all the shortcuts they’ve become popular for, I think it’s just the latter.
lol…yeah, i think the lazyness is the cause of them not just having it exclusively for pro accounts.
[…] the clicks that YPN is not paying for and now they have confirmed it themselves through MyBlogLog. Netbusiness as well as this and this has picked it up […]
[…] Additional Reading: 091 AM, Net Business Blog […]
Trust me, this has a potential to be a bombshell!
It is super public how desperate Yahoo is to compete with google’s ad business. And it is also super public that MBL acquisition was always so of a mystery for a company less than a year old and a $10-15mil pricetag. It all makes sense now.
-Zaid
But it was never a secret! Also, what do they stand to gain? Learning which sized ad block performs best? I guarantee they already have this information from their own publishers. Learning which content areas have the most clicks?
Nevertheless…something smells off about it.
It was and is obvious to all that MyBlogLog tracking algorithm can detect ad clicks as well, I think it has been mentioned somewhere else before.
Schoemaker obviously had his own reasons for pointing out any flaw he can find in MyBlogLog and publicizing it, as we all know. But I think he’ll be quiet for a while.
I’m not using MyBlogLog for other, already discussed reasons.
Allen.H
Well well was a little taken aback when I read about this posting on MBL. Definitely a thing to be worried about.
People seem to be putting out statement about million dollar targets. Think I saw a similar thing from wpdesigner.com aka Small Potato …
If you are not tracking your Adsense clicks in some way you are placing your account in danger, because the only way to defend yourself in a situation where you are accused of click fraud is to have data to back it up.
I would say the tracking isn’t finished yet, by a long shot, but I am also sure that that is something that will be easily addressed.
Ad clicking works for all accounts not just pro, I just posted a screenshot to clear up any doubt.
People were using 3rd party tracking services and scripts well before Google owned Analytics, and analytics can only track adsense if you use a 3rd party script, the same one pointed out by DDN, and you can get modified versions that work in all browsers and work for YPN and Chitika.
Yes you can track YPN conversion with Analytics… actually since 2005 - where is the big scandal? It never happened
As far as I know there isn’t a solution available that is 100% secure without some kind of competition clash or security problem. If you run scripts (I own 4 different ones on different servers), you are liable to being hacked.
If you use a service, they have access to your data, and there are other services that every blogger loves that not only track adverts, but the owners have a financial link to a monetisation service.
Then you have niche competitors, lots of people who run these services also have their own sites.
Did you trust Performancing? Performancing had the same data and were effectively blogging competitors. (Yes I trusted them)
People need to do some real research before jumping on these hackbait bandwagons. That is no disrespect to you Matt, you have the data you have available and reported it honestly. Other people didn’t
I really appreciate that response, Andy. You know a lot more on this subject than I do. I admit all this was over my head, but I just didn’t see a problem with MBL tracking ad clicks when they were actually displayed in my log! Thanks for all this additional info.
I never knew mybloglog would do anything of that sort to track adsense. But if its true I think they are going to make more foes just like digg did
wow, this could get really hairy
That’s the trouble when all these different venues need to share information. Even if it’s helping, like you described, it still makes people nervous/edgy to have something poking around in your site.
Has anybody else had the problem that their supposed Adsense clicks monitored in MBL are not counted by Adsense? I found an old achived post about this on Problogger, but no answer as to why there are such discrepencies.
Since installing MBL, I have not seen any of the Adsense clicks it monitors, pass over to, and show up in Adsense. Some sort of click-fraud to hurt the competition maybe?
Also, I’m just not sure what to make of the Ad tracking by MBL… does sound a bit dodgy. I will probably delete MBL unless I find some good answers and reasons to keep it.
I’m not sure what the problem is either. MBL shows about 10x the amount of clicks that I actually get credited for in Adsense.
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