I can see traffic coming from google ads, even though I don't have any google ads running, how is that possible?

Question

I can see "googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads...." as a referrer on my website. However I am not running any google ads. So how am I getting the traffic?

Here's the complete URL

http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads?output=html&h=250&slotname=5275434421&w=300&lmt=1311690266&flash=10.1.102&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humbug.in%2Fsuperuser%2Fes%2Fpromiscuous-modo-con-intel-centrino-adelantado-n-6200-agn-tarjeta-inalambrica--214946.html&dt=1311690268347&bpp=3&shv=r20110713&jsv=r20110719&prev_slotnames=7553874535%2C5896307875%2C8590890981&correlator=1311690268052&frm=4&adk=3153418812&ga_vid=1396001617.1311690268&ga_sid=1311690268&ga_hid=558368546&ga_fc=1&u_tz=-180&u_his=1&u_java=0&u_h=1024&u_w=1280&u_ah=960&u_aw=1280&u_cd=24&u_nplug=6&u_nmime=22&biw=1263&bih=851&fu=0&ifi=4&dtd=441&xpc=T5MgG9EVV9&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.humbug.in

Solution 1

One of your affiliates is likely paying for a Google AdWords campaign using their referral link to drive traffic to your site (and boost their sales). That's the simplest explanation, and therefore probably the most likely cause of the AdSense referrals you're seeing.

I've had affiliates take out ads to boost their sales before; a welcome side effect of running an affiliate program is that other people sometimes pay for advertising for you. As long as the ads they run aren't misleading, it's usually good for business.

Solution 2

I have recently started using Google AdSense matched content on my site and I have also started to see these referrals. I would imagine they are click on the matched content that link to elsewhere on the site.

Comments

[paulmorriss]

Are you seeing this in your referrer logs or somewhere else?

[Joshua Olson]

Do the keywords associated with the traffic match words you would expect?

[Nick]

Is it possible that someone else might be running ads to direct traffic to your site? e.g. Do you sell a product through affiliates?

[David]

I can confirm that using matched content (or auto ads involving matched content) will imitate incoming traffic from googleads.g.doubleclick.net/pagead/ads. I'm concerned that such behavior causes same visitor to be counted twice in analytics (once for original source and once for doubleclick.net as referal) did anyone managed to resolve this issue?

[hobbyscripter]

Can confirm. Same thing happened to me, so maybe it's that? Matched Content kind of does what it promises, but it's implement in a very awkward way reporting-wise.