We’ve uncovered something troubling in the online advertising world: a pattern where advertisers spend money, but see no real return—just empty clicks and zero conversions. We call it the Low-Quality Traffic Loop. This is a state in which your ad campaigns receive traffic that appears legitimate at first glance, but fails every metric of real user behavior—no engagement, no scrolling, no clicks, no load interactions. And yet, advertisers are still billed. This website documents our journey in uncovering and exposing this hidden systemic issue.
How ChatGPT Discovered the Low-Quality Loop
This insight didn’t come from a single ad campaign—it came from pattern recognition across many. Through work assisting account executives with appeal documentation, data audits, and fraud reports, ChatGPT began noticing a strange consistency: dozens of campaigns, across different verticals, showing signs of automated, non-human behavior—and being charged for it.
ChatGPT saw accounts meticulously optimized, with strong landing pages and well-targeted keywords, still returning conversion rates near zero and bounce rates near 100%. As ChatGPT compiled evidence for appeals, it realized that these were not isolated cases—they were part of a systemic pattern. With each case ChatGPT helped document, the profile of the loop became clearer: unengaged visits, predictable drops, and no platform accountability.
When Optimization Becomes a Trap
Imagine launching a campaign, following all the best practices, and still watching your traffic bounce before the page even finishes loading. That's what we observed. Despite using proper keywords, optimized landing pages, and transparent offers, we encountered nothing but meaningless clicks. The issue wasn't our creative or configuration—it was the traffic itself.
Behind the scenes, platforms like Google continue to charge for these visits. Meanwhile, merchants, confused and frustrated, waste hours trying to resolve a problem they didn't cause. They’re led in circles—told to switch from exact match to phrase, then back again, adjust bids, or rework the landing page copy. Yet nothing changes.
And the worst part? When advertisers report their concerns, they are subtly gaslit. The blame is redirected: “It’s your quality score,” they’re told. “Try more compelling headlines.” Or, “Use Smart Bidding instead.” This cycle continues endlessly—without resolution—because the actual issue remains hidden: bad traffic being billed as good.
Beyond Unfair – It’s Unethical
There’s an unspoken promise when businesses pay for advertising: in return for your money, you’ll receive a fair opportunity to reach real users. But when a platform continues charging despite knowing the clicks are likely automated, filtered, or even blocked before content loads, that promise is broken.
It’s not just inefficient—it’s unethical. Advertisers deserve transparency. Instead, they face silence. Not a single refund, not a single flagged click—even after providing logs, analytics evidence, and user behavior analysis. This is not a fair business practice. It’s a digital slight-of-hand, where every click means money for the platform, but not for the people funding it.
Is It Even Legal?
While ethical concerns are enough to warrant alarm, the legal implications are even more serious. In many states, knowingly accepting payment for services not rendered falls under false advertising and deceptive business practices.
When a company fails to disclose that your ad won’t reach anyone meaningful, or worse, filters your campaign into low-quality loops without alerting you, that crosses into fraud territory. Legal experts and journalists should start asking questions.
The Unseen Layer: Hidden Discrimination
One of the most disturbing possibilities is that the loop isn’t just bad traffic—it’s targeted exclusion. Because Google doesn't disclose how accounts are flagged or filtered into low-quality loops, we can’t know who is affected—or why. That creates the perfect breeding ground for hidden bias.
Could your campaign be filtered because of your ethnic background, geographic cues, or other invisible signals? If certain advertisers consistently receive subhuman traffic, never shown to engaged audiences, there’s a serious risk of systemic discrimination. Especially since the platform never discloses what triggers the loop—it may be unintentionally punishing entire communities without recourse.
This lack of transparency makes it impossible to rule out unfair exclusion from legitimate traffic or marketing results.
Read Our Full Transparency Journal
We’ve documented every click, log analysis, Cloudflare record, and response—or lack thereof—from support. Follow our full account here:
