Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For me to be banned who religiously read Google rules and religiously monitored my account for compliance is really disaster. I am really sad! Hope they ban people who cheat and abuse Adsense, but not me!
I am disgusted by this decision and will be appealing it to Google tonight; will offer 1000% co-operation, including website logs and anything Google asks me to provide.
I will keep you posted what happens. I believe that Google will reverse this decision, because I never cheated or did anything illegal.
Although it doesn't bear any relevance to Toldan's banning today, I can't but help feel my level of sympathy for toldan drop a few notches now.
I feel sorry for you; However I will never forget this post.
[webmasterworld.com...]Oh, man, that's a serious OUCH. I wish we had some way of understanding the relationship between being banned, and certain behaviors on the net (or apparently attitudes and approaches) that might contribute to being banned. Sometimes there seems to be weird, may I say, Karmic connections.
The problem is that for any specific case, such as with Toldan, there's really no way of knowing.
I wish we had some way of understanding the relationship between being banned, and certain behaviors on the net
Possibly something more to the story than meets the eye perhaps?
Although it doesn't bear any relevance to Toldan's banning today, I can't but help feel my level of sympathy for toldan drop a few notches now.
Quick comment NOT to do with Toldan's situation, ok, just a general.
I'm starting to be more and more convinced that when I hear of someone (or a site, for example) that cuts corners in one way or area, even in a small way, that is visible, there seems to be a whole lot more corner cutting, or TOS violations that one cannot easily see.
This came up with ref to some obvious MFA sites. A little corner cutting, ya, but the more I thought about things, the more I suspected they were generating way more views than could be possible, and probably a bunch of other nasty stuff.
Maybe people get caught in a slippery slope type type thing, where they stretch the limits far enough, ultimately, to get caught.
(Again, PLEASE, I am NOT referring to Toldan here).
Wow! I had completely forgot about that. Interesting. I guess it's possible that somebody told AdSense to watch Toldan's behavior after he made that post and since Toldan posted his URL in his profile - made that a very easy thing to do too. Going to be a tough appeal I'm afraid.
[edited by: Play_Bach at 2:31 am (utc) on May 18, 2006]
I guess it's possible that somebody told AdSense to watch Toldan's behavior after making that post and since Toldan posted his URL in his profile
Yes that was the first thing that came to mind. It may have well been ASA who had seen the original comment made by Toldan and simply followed his profile.
Another Possibility
Google tracks toldan over a period of time leaving "tips" for other publishers as he/she has admitted to doing. Invalid clicks by Google's definition could extend to publishers visitng other publishers sites and screwing with the system.
Since the moment I joined AdSense, I deliberately decided to not click on ads on other sites - period. As a result, I've never clicked on any of my own ads by accident either as I'm so habituated to avoid them! If I'm interested in an ad, I just type the domain into the browser.
[edited by: Play_Bach at 2:39 am (utc) on May 18, 2006]
but clicking all over everyone else's ads is NOT against TOS... IS it?
Think about it. There are clicks and there are invalid clicks. As it would seem Google is quite competent at tracking this sort of activitiy and is relentless in it's persuit of. Imagine a situation where the culprit has shamelessly admitted to it publicly and provided his/her url in the process.
I seriously doubt it. I would still bet it has more to do with the reasons for the recent upsurge in traffic.
For toldan's sake I hope you are right.
You are a top candidate for 'Adsense cancelled my account, but I didn't do anything...'. You are discrediting our whole business.
(I'm going to go ask jurii what lotto numbers to play next week!)
I wonder if Toldan - in his "tipping" efforts, maybe contacted the webmasters of the sites he visits and "tips" regularly, and suggested they do the same? If so, I bet Google would pick up on it pretty quickly that it's an exchange system.... seems as though that would be easy to spot.
Ok.. for sake of argument.. what kind of traffic upsurge would be against TOS?
Toomer might be on to something. What kind of numbers was Toldan bringing in daily $$? Can this be posted here? I am curious to see if he was a heavy hitter or just bringing in a buck a day for Google, not that this has any bearing on breaking the rules or not, just curious.
"Tippers" as Tolden calls them in that other thread are not considered to be part of that group. So it is immoral to rob advertisers by "tipping" when you visit someone's site that has adsense on it. And you never know if someone has original content or not, so you could be tipping plagiarizers without knowing it.
He claimed to be making over $8,000 per month back in February.
[webmasterworld.com ]
With those kinds of numbers at stake, I'd be VERY surprised if AdSense reinstates his account. I think he's done.
