Would this get adsense sites suspended?

[Fall]

Hi,

I'm not planning on doing this, but just wondering...
If I do view-source on someone's website, copy his adsense html, and paste it in a page where I also put some content on that's not allowed, like other ads (someone's YPN ads for example)... If I upload this somewhere, and get some traffic to it, this should be enough to get someone's site banned from adsense, right? Pretty scary.
And would I be doing something illegal by doing this?

Again, I have no intentions on doing so, but ever since I was wrongfully suspended, I started thinking about flaws in their system...

[StuntasticAudi]

hmmm good point...thats scary. I'll let others give some input on that.

[jomaxx]

1. No, it would be unlikely to work. It's a newbie suggestion that has come up many times before, and I'm sure Google is on to it.

2. Yes it's illegal, in the sense that there are undoubtedly laws that you could be charged with. You would be at even greater risk of civil liability (being sued by Google and/or the person you're targeting) if discovered.

[Fall]

1. No, it would be unlikely to work. It's a newbie suggestion that has come up many times before, and I'm sure Google is on to it.

So what if someone with an adsense account does this and makes it look like someone else did it? (and yes I do think you can fool google... they don't know who uploaded something on a server they don't control). I don't think google takes any chances with this and they suspend you immediately.

BTW, I'm new here and new to advertising stuff (which is probably what got me suspended, I might have done something wrong that I don't know), but I'm not new to web development at all, as I've been doing it professionally for years... So I find it slightly offensive to be called a newbie :)

2. Yes it's illegal, in the sense that there are undoubtedly laws that you could be charged with. You would be at even greater risk of civil liability (being sued by Google and/or the person you're targeting) if discovered.

I suppose that depends on where you live, but still, I wouldn't risk it even if I wanted to get someone suspended... Which I don't, because I know how bad it feels.

[jomaxx]

Look, we're not here to spitball ideas on how to wreck AdSense. This thread will probably get deleted as it is.

[Fall]

Point taken. I'm not trying to encourage anyone to do this. But I do think it should be allowed to discuss possible risks.

[humblebeginnings]

Hi fall,

I don't doubt your good intentions.
But a weird thing is goin on.
For the past few weeks I have seen numerous threads saying: "I am not planning on doing this, but... (etc)". Why are so many newbies suddenly interested in things they are not going to do anyway?

[Fall]

Well, I can only speak for myself, but as I said, I got suspended recently - and I'm not sure why (like many others). And that gave me the impression the adsense system has a lot of flaws, and I started thinking of possbile flaws, partly because it made me feel good that their system wasn't any good anyway :) but also in order to be aware of these things if I ever get back in, or in a similar program.
And, more importantly, I think google should change their policies. If someone with a bit of knowledge on web technologies can get other sites suspended, they should really consider giving publishers at least a warning that something is wrong before suspending, and maybe even give them a second chance (after a few months).

You know what? Someone could write a virus that invisibly clicks on adsense banners when people surf. Chances are they will be going to their own website now and then, and the virus will produce invalid clicks. How would google handle that?

[Jafo]

For the past few weeks I have seen numerous threads saying: "I am not planning on doing this, but... (etc)". Why are so many newbies suddenly interested in things they are not going to do anyway?

Because they are tired of working so hard for 2 days they feel they need to find an easy way to make money.

[Fall]

Because they are tired of working so hard for 2 days they feel they need to find an easy way to make money.

How is getting someone else suspended going to make you more money?

[Jafo]

How is getting someone else suspended going to make you more money?

How does eliminating competition make you money?

[Fall]

Ok, I see... but my site doesn't have any direct competition so I wouldn't have thought of that :)
The only other site that I could see as competition doesn't even have any ads, and I'm on good terms with the guy who runs it. And most of his visitors frequent my site as well.

[Mr_Fern]

Something similar was done to me in November. So in that regard, such is not a "wouldn't work" situation, but it may occur.

My adsense code was placed on a site in multitude via iframes and "click ad to continue" marked over majority of them.

I found out when Google e-mailed me and told me that one of my pages was in violation of their policies. I was told that they had thus stopped allowing ads to be displayed on that particular domain and that my account would remain active, but that I should review the terms and policies.

I promptly replied and informed them that the site in question did not belong to me, and they acknowledged my e-mail with a response saying they updated their records to reflect that.

So I would have to say that it is a valid concern.

[jomaxx]

Concern, maybe. I do have a lot of concern over things in the broadest sense because the Web's infrastructure is fundamentally not secure and cannot be made secure. But the kind of gimmicks Fall is proposing would be fairly trivial for Google to detect (and no, I am not interested in helping him refine them into something that might actually work).

Anyway, IMO the most important part of your story is that your account didn't get suspended, even temporarily.

[JonSimmonds]

wouldnt one way to prevent this happening to you is to run all of your adds via ur-channels, and the moment you notice clicks/impressions from "un channeled" add blocks you would know something is up, though if you use channels to track specific add blocks that could mess thigns up :S

[jema]

Something similar was done to me in November. So in that regard, such is not a "wouldn't work" situation, but it may occur.

My adsense code was placed on a site in multitude via iframes and "click ad to continue" marked over majority of them.

I found out when Google e-mailed me and told me that one of my pages was in violation of their policies. I was told that they had thus stopped allowing ads to be displayed on that particular domain and that my account would remain active, but that I should review the terms and policies.

I promptly replied and informed them that the site in question did not belong to me, and they acknowledged my e-mail with a response saying they updated their records to reflect that.

So I would have to say that it is a valid concern.

How established were you at this point? I spent a lot of time worrying that some random nonsense could get me suspended, a worry aleviated with time and google getting in contact and say nice things to me :)
But the new user may worry a lot more about not being given the benefit of the doubt.

[incrediBILL]

Not only would it possibly be illegal, but the civil suit could bankrupt you.

If you like being an inmate, homeless or living in your car then tempt fate.

[Woz]

As Mr Fern states, this is a valid concern, and yet another reason to allow publishers to upload/register a list of domains they are using with their account. Then, if something untoward does show up, it would be easy for the Adsense team to double check against valid domains and then double check with the account owner should they need to.

Onya
Woz

[danimal]

>>>My adsense code was placed on a site in multitude via iframes and "click ad to continue" marked over majority of them.<<<

i notified adsense support about something similar, and they ignored it... the offending site that was framing my adsense with it's own adsense is still up and running... it's 4 adsense blocks total, a major violation.

[Mr_Fern]

How established were you at this point? I spent a lot of time worrying that some random nonsense could get me suspended, a worry aleviated with time and google getting in contact and say nice things to me
But the new user may worry a lot more about not being given the benefit of the doubt.

Hey Jema. I had registered with Adsense back in December 04, and used it on a small personal site til March last year, when I started using it on a community site I opened that month. So while in reality I guess you could say I was established 11 months, I consider it more like 8 really.

I've been reading this forum since I joined adsense, and all the "I've been banned from adsense" threads and posts had me paranoid. However, my experiences so far have alleviated my paranoia.

[Moglex]

For the past few weeks I have seen numerous threads saying: "I am not planning on doing this, but... (etc)". Why are so many newbies suddenly interested in things they are not going to do anyway?

Although I haven't posted such a thread, I can think of two reasons why people might.

1) The obvious

2) I came to this site about a week ago, and I have to say the general impression I get from reading posts here is that Adsense is something you shouldn't touch with a ten foot plastic disinfected barge-pole.

It seems that they

Discontinue accounts without giving a reason
Are very unlikely to reinstate them
Operate a "smart pricing" which may (or may not) reduce your earnings willy-nilly
Suddenly stop sending you properly targeted ads

And all of this is done in an atmosphere of great secrecy.

Of course, I'm also aware that the picture I get here is likely to be a little skewed, because there's little point in people posting "I'm using Adsense, everything's ticking along just fine and has been for a couple of years now".

However, the issue of account termination must be a major worry given that Adsense will not give you accurate information about what went wrong, and, from what posters have said (although, again, I take this with a large pinch of salt) once an account is terminated, they are unlikely to reinstate it.

As I have said in another post, (and many others have said before) detecting 'fraudulent' clicks is easy when you have the resources google do, but determining whether culpability lies with the account holder must be much more difficult.

How, for example, could Adsense know if a lot of obviously 'invalid' clicks from someone on another continent were just a bored child idly messing about, or some relative of the account holder?

If you spend a year setting up site content and administrative protocols, you really want to know that (one of) your revenue stream(s) is not going to be arbitrarily discontinued as the result of the actions of a bored teenager.

[jema]

Adsense has tens of thousands of wannabe get rick quick merchants applying to it, people who will sale close to wind on the the T&C, people who run sites with no real value.

Have you ever read a post on this forum that convincingly says:

"I have a years good track record with google, my sites
are not crap MFA sites and I am not involved in fraud"

I am sure that given the sheer numbers of morons involved in try to defraud advertisers, quite a few new sites do get unfairly treated. But I am getting very convinced that if you get a bit of credability behind you, you will be immune from arbitary action.

[humblebeginnings]

Moglex,

Thanks for your interesting reply.
Of course there can be legit reasons for asking these kind of questions. However, the risk of answering these questions in a public forum is that those who wish to get involved in violating Adsense TOS (or doing other stuff that can damage Google, advertisers or publishers) get a helping hand too. Therefore many of us are not willing to get into this kind of debate.

H.

[Moglex]

Of course there can be legit reasons for asking these kind of questions. However, the risk of answering these questions in a public forum is that those who wish to get involved in violating Adsense TOS (or doing other stuff that can damage Google, advertisers or publishers) get a helping hand too. Therefore many of us are not willing to get into this kind of debate.

I absolutely agree.

It's an interesting intellectual exercise thinking of ways to perpetrate click fraud, and then working out ways to prevent it.

So far, no matter how convoluted a plan (including thousands of zombies) I've thought of, it's only taken me a couple of minutes to devise a plan that google could use to detect it.

Of course, I'm not saying a word.

I think the best option is just to tell people the truth: They will know by various traffic profiles - you won't succeed - don't even bother trying.

[humblebeginnings]

And let thou spend thy time making content!