Does the site have content that would attract a real human being?.Is the contact or about us page filled with general information and basic forms?.Past the homepage, do the stories relate to local content? Or, is the site filled with generic, national content?.Do the stories have a dateline? If so, is it recent?.When examining a site to determine if it is an imposter, check the following:

Any content that is easy to gather and inexpensive to create is fair game for this type of predatory website. Imposter sites are created quickly with satirical content, generic stories, opinion pieces, and out-of-date information. How do imposters infiltrate the advertising ecosystem? These properties can be used to generate revenue or to promote a particular agenda. These imposter websites look to capitalize on the power of local media, and the higher CPM their quality audience brings, by pretending to be a local media outlet, but skipping out on the hard work of developing real news. This strength comes at a steep price, the development and maintenance of a newsroom with its associated reporters and editors. These community institutions rank above social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), online-only outlets and owned-media as the outlets most trusted by readers.* With that trust comes a large local audience and the ability to sway the audience’s purchasing behavior in favor of their advertisers. Local news media websites, whether they are from newspapers or broadcast stations, provide a trusted outlet into the community. These sites, littered with out-of-date or outright false content, draw tens of thousands of impressions on an hourly basis, resulting in billions of dollars lost to ad fraud.* Why have we seen a rise in imposter news media digital properties?

On the rise in the United States and across the globe is the emergence of low-quality, unqualified sites that are purporting to be real, local news outlets. With over 1.5 billion websites in existence,* digital advertisers have a vast playground in which to research, connect with, and activate consumers but that volume brings with it another danger. Imposter Websites Are Among Us The danger that fake, spoofed, and scam websites present is an increasing concern for both consumers and advertisers.

Imposter among us