Confirmed: a hidden honeypot link flagged 23% of pop zones as bot-fed
A pop affiliate suspected fake clicks but couldn't prove which zones. They embedded an invisible honeypot link on the redirect page — no human ever sees it, only automated crawlers click.
Across 30 days:
— 23% of zones triggered honeypot clicks at >5% rate
— those zones were quietly blacklisted
— overall CVR on remaining traffic rose 33%
Cheap, passive, brutal. The zones lighting up the honeypot were exactly the ones eating budget.
— confidence: high
Pop Wire
@pop_wire