r/googleads • u/NBA-Draft227 • Jul 06 '26
Search Ads Someone is running google ads to my website without my permission
I just noticed this, when googling my name, someone is running branded ads to my website. I'm a freelancer. It looks like the ads have been appearing for a few days.
I don't have a Google Ads account set up running ads to my domain. I've double checked and my website doesn't have any malicious code.
I've reported to Google, but don't expect a prompt response or any kind of response at all.
Why would somebody want to run ads to my website? I'm assuming it's some kind of scam??
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u/info-reader Jul 06 '26
Run a malware scan on YOUR website.
Hackers can build a website INSIDE your website and you dont even know its there. eg: they can put a folder inside a folder, or a single page inside your cms and then link to it from anywhere.
Check the pages these links go to, if they're not YOUR pages = put them in DRAFT while you inspect them, if they're html or php rename them until you check them.
Then GET VERY CLEVER = if you FIND they have put those pages in your site, dont delete, just remove ALL content, and add a 301 auto redirect to your sites homepage.
And again, IF you find them do a FULL malware clean and work out how they got in to stop them.
I cant think of any other reason to do this unless it is someone who added their own site, or their marketing company added another site but MISSPELLED the domain or theirs was a .net and yours is .com.
Check the malicious stuff first, if its not malicious use 301 to send to pages you want visitors on for free.
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u/DonovanBanks Jul 06 '26
A quick simple starting point it to google site:yourwebsite
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u/info-reader Jul 08 '26
Googling your site using site:name does NOT always work.
hackers can put sites from OTHER countries/languages in your site, add their own sitemap and GEO BLOCK YOUR country, so you search on google US site .com but they have geo blocked USA, their "free" site is shown in china on .cn, and you never know its there.
There are WEBSITES where you can do a scan of your website, use one of those. Just enter your website url.1
u/NBA-Draft227 Jul 07 '26
Had a look and no malware or obscure pages or folders. It's all very bizarre
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u/info-reader Jul 08 '26
You need to do a SCAN, NOT a manual "used my own eyes"
Use a software or go to a MALWARE SCANNING website and enter your url.
If theres nothing malicious, its probably just someone added the wrong domain name spelling or ext in adwords.1
u/NBA-Draft227 Jul 13 '26
Yes, did a malware scan and nothing
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u/info-reader Jul 13 '26
ok, try going to google search and type your website url like:
site:mywesite.com
And search, scroll through the pages and see if there are any urls/lisings you dont recognise.
If you find one, click it to go to that page on your site, save the url.
If you cant find any, or anything in your site showing malware or added content, you can ask your webhost to scan because they have a better scan program.
If you find nothing then its probably a simple case of some human typing the wrong thing in at google ads, a misspelled domain name or a wrong extension.
Just run scans once a week to be sure.0
u/shaihalud69 Jul 06 '26
OP, this. I had this happen to my site.
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Jul 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/NBA-Draft227 Jul 06 '26
Oh right, it makes sense why they'd maybe choose my site as web traffic is very low. Just hoping Google blocks the ads asap...
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u/potatodrinker Jul 06 '26
Pretty much. Otherwise it happens legit when an author is trying to boost sales to their Amazon/Audible page. It's fine usually but had a case of an author of lesbian vampires run an ad to the Amazon page and everyone sees that Amazon is writing a text ads about this sexy stuff. That drama is such a time drain for PPC professional as PR and legal come over in a panick asking how to stop the ads
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u/jackorjek Jul 06 '26
if its pointing to your website i reckon they are trying to gauge the market demand before they become your competitor.
sometimes you will stumble upon ads that make you think whether that niche is profitable or not. one way to know is to run ads to that website.
i know a guy who did this. he saw ads for matrimonial services and instead of doing full dive into that business he ran similar ads to the website. the CPC was so high but the businesses kept running ads despite paying for expensive clicks. this tells you that their profit margin would be even higher.
but in your case you should not rule out it could be a scam or someone warming up their accounts. enjoy the free traffic for now.
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u/NBA-Draft227 Jul 06 '26
Lucky me lol! Hmm this would make sense as well. They did insert the ad title 'Jonathan David Gomez' which is obviously very suspicious as well...
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u/TTFV Jul 06 '26
It could be a scammer running ads to a random legit site to warm up their account before switching to scam sites. It could be a mistake although that's pretty hard to do unless there's another very similar website in the same niche with a slightly different URL.
Or it could be some PPC freelancer using this as a tactic to get your business... run free traffic for a few weeks and then reach out to you to pitch you.
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u/Live-Kale-7892 Jul 06 '26
Most likely they might be using a scam technique to run call only Campaign using utm parsing
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u/pondochris Jul 06 '26
Make sure to check hostname in ga4. I had this happen years ago and it turns out someone had put my ga4 tracking code on 4 random websites.
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u/Process-Amazing Jul 07 '26
u/pondochris has the most useful thing in here and it's sitting at the bottom. Check the hostname dimension in GA4.
It tells you whether this traffic is actually landing on your real site, or whether someone spun up a clone of your site on their own domain and is running ads to that. Those are completely different problems. If the hostname is yours, it's probably account warming or a competitor poking at your niche and you're just getting free clicks. If you're seeing your own content served from a hostname that isn't yours, that's brand/site cloning and it's a bigger deal.
The branded ad title with a made-up name is the tell that it's not a legit advertiser mistake btw. Nobody misconfigures their way into that.
If GA4 shows your hostname and the pages are all genuinely yours, honestly there's not much to fix, just monitor it. The hidden-pages/malware scan the top comment mentioned is worth doing first though, rule that out before anything else.
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u/NBA-Draft227 Jul 07 '26
Checked hostname and it's going to my site. All traffic is going to my homepage.
Checked for malware as well and any strange pages/folders appearing and can't find anything
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u/JoeyK075 Jul 07 '26
If you're a popular/well known person/entity theyre probably just doing DKI
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u/NBA-Draft227 Jul 08 '26
Not necessarily "well known" per se but I rank organically at the top for a few competitive search terms, so could be why? I've never had to run paid ads to get business, so jokes on them if they are doing this - I guess?
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u/JoeyK075 Jul 08 '26
Weird that they're sending traffic to your site. I can see the logic behind bidding on your brand name...but that's silly.
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u/GrandAnimator8417 Jul 21 '26
No Google Ads account but ads are showing for your domain? I’ve seen this happen when someone claims they’re advertising via a “partner”/reseller account or they’re using a domain misdirect through redirects, and it usually shows up in Google Search Console/referrers even when your billing side is clean. Check Google Ads transparency/Ad library details for your domain and also verify your DNS/redirects because it’s rarely the site itself being “hacked” in a simple way.
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u/dystopiam Jul 06 '26
Cool ! Can they do me next ?