Paying LookSmart but getting traffic from filter.clicksocean(dot)com

[schleprock]

I have been buying KW traffic from LookSmart but when I look at my Google Analytics it says most of the Direct traffic I am getting comes from filter.clicksocean.com.

Is LookSmart just a middleman/broker? I went to ClicksOcean and it looks like I can sign up directly with them and maybe save some money.

The traffic also has wildly varying bounce rates. Sometimes it is pretty good, sometimes it bounces immediately.
ClicksOcean seems to get its traffic from wide range of sources.

Can anyone tell me anything about this so I can decide if I want to keep doing this or not. Or is there a way to tell what KWs are sending the traffic because it seems like somedays the people are not at all interested in my niche, they see it and run away as quick as they can.

(BTW - this traffic is cheap, $0.006 per click for some of it)
Nevertheless, it is costing me if it increased my bounce rate and lowers my time of page scores. Of course almost none of these folks are visiting a second page. So I might be paying$ 0.006 per click to harm myself.
That is why I ask the question

 

[Graybeard]

Use a landing page on a noindex domain or a sub domain; with no GA code on it and meta tag it =noindex.
Use your server log for the click stats for that landing page -- have the traffic click-thru to your main site -- then that landing page will become the referrer that GA sees.

The bounce rate *shouldn't* be seen or correlate -- utilize that cheap traffic -- why not?

 

[schleprock]

can the subdomain be on my niche site?
Or would I need to register a completely different domain? Just to be safe.
I have some shared hosting, so it would only cost a couple of bucks to set it up.

Do you know why LookSmart would sell me ClicksOcean traffic. Are they just an arbitrage outfit?
and is it really KW traffic? or maybe it is pop up traffic from torrenting and porn sites.

Hey, thanks for answering my query

 

[Graybeard]

I would buy a second (throw-away) domain just to be safe.
No idea of the traffic source you would have to look at the referrers in your server logs -- maybe see?

Supposedly, a sub-domain with no Google-Analytics might work --but it's the parent domain so it might count against you?