I assumed this just meant they built something on top of access logs that told them what percentage of page loads also loaded JavaScript. I don't know about your webserver, but mine doesn't tell me this kind of thing out of the box.
Anyway, it's pretty irrelevant whether they added logging in their app (one line of code?) or enabled their webserver's built in logging.
Access logs that write continually from different processes or threads (like PHP) can cause System IO to reach critical proportions. In any non-trivial enterprise application it's completely reasonable to have a stat-logic-layer for recording events... The access log can still do it's own sorta thing - this is more true if you have more than 1 server.
You wouldn't, but if the vast majority of your ad click visitors have javascript disabled, and only a tiny percentage of your other visitors do, what conclusion would you draw?
You don't, but it's very unlikely that there were enough noscript users to match the stats. From the post:
"...in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have JavaScript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from Facebook."
For example, target something for the Reddit.com users and you'll see 90%+ block ads.
With facebook granular targetting you could very specifically end up with a target segment with a large proportion of noscript type plugin users. Without more details on their campaign I would not be so quick to place blame purely on bots.
But this is about users who click on ads on Facebook. The sort of users who have javascript disabled are going to self-select out of that group pretty strongly.
And even among the most technically literate groups, I'd be amazed if you saw 80% use of noscript. So many sites require javascript that it's easier to browse with it enabled.
There are a few tricks to do that, described on the old ha.ckers.org weblog, or perhaps on the related sla.ckers.org forum. No idea if they still work, though ..
You could always see if you could trigger NoScript's built-in XSS or frame hijacking protection :) Bots will not notice, and users get a scary warning message and believe your ad is trying to hack them. Not good for your conversion rates, but a pretty sure way to tell them apart.
What you say is valid, however no-script users are a small minority of internet users. I doubt their numbers would tip the results in either direction.
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I assumed this just meant they built something on top of access logs that told them what percentage of page loads also loaded JavaScript. I don't know about your webserver, but mine doesn't tell me this kind of thing out of the box.
Anyway, it's pretty irrelevant whether they added logging in their app (one line of code?) or enabled their webserver's built in logging.
Access logs that write continually from different processes or threads (like PHP) can cause System IO to reach critical proportions. In any non-trivial enterprise application it's completely reasonable to have a stat-logic-layer for recording events... The access log can still do it's own sorta thing - this is more true if you have more than 1 server.
Surprised no ones mentioned the noscript plugin.
Since the user is on facebook they'd have facebook unblocked, but noscript still blocking everything else.
How would you discern a noscript user from bot?
You wouldn't, but if the vast majority of your ad click visitors have javascript disabled, and only a tiny percentage of your other visitors do, what conclusion would you draw?
You don't, but it's very unlikely that there were enough noscript users to match the stats. From the post:
"...in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have JavaScript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from Facebook."
It's a different marketing block.
For example, target something for the Reddit.com users and you'll see 90%+ block ads.
With facebook granular targetting you could very specifically end up with a target segment with a large proportion of noscript type plugin users. Without more details on their campaign I would not be so quick to place blame purely on bots.
But this is about users who click on ads on Facebook. The sort of users who have javascript disabled are going to self-select out of that group pretty strongly.
And even among the most technically literate groups, I'd be amazed if you saw 80% use of noscript. So many sites require javascript that it's easier to browse with it enabled.
> How would you discern a noscript user from bot?
There are a few tricks to do that, described on the old ha.ckers.org weblog, or perhaps on the related sla.ckers.org forum. No idea if they still work, though ..
You could always see if you could trigger NoScript's built-in XSS or frame hijacking protection :) Bots will not notice, and users get a scary warning message and believe your ad is trying to hack them. Not good for your conversion rates, but a pretty sure way to tell them apart.
Unless you're targeting noscript users there's no way they account for a significant portion of those 80% of clicks.
What you say is valid, however no-script users are a small minority of internet users. I doubt their numbers would tip the results in either direction.