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Just been kicked off Adsense

Whats to stop someone clicking every Ad they see?

         

benflux

7:16 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Having just been told that fraudulent activity has been detected and I've been barred, I was wondering what stops someone who competes with me just clicking on my ads 3 times a day then moving on to the next website and clicking them as well, resulting in everyone being kicked off?

Awaiting my appeal response...

Ben.

trillianjedi

7:31 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



One presumes some kind of clever filtering system. I don't think google will be so worried about the AdSense publisher, more the AdWords advertiser that's footing the bill for it.

You won't have been kicked off for that reason. You probably got kicked off for clicking your own ads from a machine that had been used to access your control panel, or some activity on the site that's against the AdSense TOS.

TJ

benflux

9:03 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I'll let you know what happens - 100% have never clicked an ad though.

hola

9:15 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



maybe somebody who used your computer clicked on your ad without your knowledge.. just a suggestion

2oddSox

9:41 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Sorry to hear that Benflux - keep us all informed how you get on, and good luck.

Tell me, did you get any warning beforehand? ASA, in his response here [webmasterworld.com], stated that warning shots are normally fired across the bow first, but I haven't heard too many instances of that actually happening.

2odd...

Broadway

10:54 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



benflux very well may have done nothing wrong. Many months ago I got a warning about fraudulent clicks. It was related to a site I basically work in alone and in secret with. Absolutely no ad clicks were generated at my end. It was either an error with their detection methods or else some mischief, for whatever reason, by some low life.

wonderboy

11:30 pm on Apr 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



hmm...

I have read loads of things like this now in the past couple of months, got me thinking about large networks within companies, schools etc that all have the same IP - If someone logged in to adsense from one of these computers to check stats, and a co-worker the other side of the building actually visited the site and clicked on an ad - would google pick this up as fraud - or do they have a way round this?

W.

irock

1:28 am on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



This is why I would never try to log on another PC to check stats.

europeforvisitors

1:47 am on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)



I'm sure Google's "invalid click" detection scheme is a lot more sophisticated than a simple IP-address checker. As to where invalid clicks might come from, thera could be a number of sources other than a dishonest publisher, such as: (a) advertisers' competitors; (b) people who have a grudge against the publisher; and (c) people who have a grudge against an advertiser.

Google doesn't always close accounts of publishers who have invalid clicks; they discovered invalid clicks on my account once, and on another occasion I wrote them after noticing that my revenue one day was about $1,300 above normal (and yes, that's way above my normal daily figure!). Other publishers have reported getting "invalid clicks" e-mails and surviving the inquisition. I suspect that a number of factors may go into the decision on whether to close an account, such as (a) the amount of revenue the account earns; (b) the publisher's history with AdSense; (c) whether the publisher's topic or audience is more prone to fraudulent clicks (including revenge, nuisance, or "happy" clicks) than average; and whether the case is being reviewed by Happy Hal or Dour Dan.

wonderboy

3:59 am on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Me and my simple mind =)

If I had $1300 extra in one day, I'd keep me mouth shut :p
Google can't kick you out if you done nothing wrong.

If 1300 = way more than normal and way more = lets say 1000, does that mean you earn 300 per day =)

W.

ken_b

4:06 am on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Google can't kick you out if you done nothing wrong.

That's certainly debatable.

Google can pretty much drop a publisher for any reason they choose at the moment, and probably for no reason at all, other than they decided to.

wonderboy

11:21 am on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



What I mean is, they can't kick you out and keep you out if you have not infringed upon any of their regulations.
Obviously they can do as they wish, but it would not make any sense to do this from a business perspective...

w.

trillianjedi

12:00 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm sure Google's "invalid click" detection scheme is a lot more sophisticated than a simple IP-address checker.

Yes, I'm also pretty sure it's likely to be a more complex filtering system. It does seem to be the key element that gets most people kicked from the program though. It's also the one that there is no possible defence to, so likely to be just a boot out without warning email.

That's why it sprang to mind when I read the first post.

Every single thread like this I've read on here has ended up with the initial poster admitting further down the thread that they clicked on their own ads.

That may not, of course, be the case here, in which case it'll be a good opportunity for google to improve their filtering and I'm sure, on "appeal", benflux will be readmitted if he has done nothing wrong.

TJ

mdurrant

2:38 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



What I mean is, they can't kick you out and keep you out if you have not infringed upon any of their regulations.

Sure they can. I'm almost positive I read somewhere in their TOS that they can drop you for any reason, at any time.

DaveN

2:58 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I click on my ad's all the time and I have only been banned twice! and not for clicking my own ads

DaveN

nyet

3:01 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Sure they can. I'm almost positive I read somewhere in their TOS that they can drop you for any reason, at any time.

And in fact it may often make sense to do so. If you don't generate much $$ it may not be worth their time to try and figure out what is going on on your site....

YOU have to provide ROI to THEM......

chrisk999

3:15 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



irock (#8) just got me thinking - I do sometimes log onto friends' computers to check my stats, and it's possible that they could have clicked on my ads (and in your case?).

I got the fraudulent-clicks-detected warning email last month, and I've never clicked an ad myself, so perhaps irock has suggested the mystery cause.

mvander

3:16 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I wrote them after noticing that my revenue one day was about $1,300 above normal (and yes, that's way above my normal daily figure!)

So what did they do? Did they take it away?

zoltan

3:19 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I have asked this many times...from the ones who were kicked... have you made good money with them? If you have made less than $100 / month, than Google probably didn't want to spend too many resources to investigate your account's clicks and the best decision for them was to terminate your account...
I feel your pain...

trillianjedi

3:38 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



perhaps irock has suggested the mystery cause

This is the kind of thing that always seems to materialise at the end of these threads....

Never ever view your control panel on a PC other than your main PC.

TJ

jaxomlotus

4:18 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I click on my ad's all the time and I have only been banned twice! and not for clicking my own ads

Why are you openly saying that you are violating their ToS? As stated before, the success of the AdSense program depends on getting rid of fraudulent behavior, and clicking your own ads is fraudulent behaviour under their ToS.

jaxomlotus

4:19 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Never ever view your control panel on a PC other than your main PC.

Hmm, crap. I've checked the control panel from lots of different school library computers. Guess I should stop doing that. :/

nyet

6:07 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I click on my ad's all the time and I have only been banned twice! and not for clicking my own ads

nice.

(advertiser here) more and more reason to disable content tageting.....

jiffypop

6:10 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I click on my ad's all the time and I have only been banned twice! and not for clicking my own ads

If you people think that this loser is serious, think again. Banned twice, yea sure.

If anyone is interested in some land in Florida, sticky me, very cheap.

jaxomlotus

6:16 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



what disturbs me most about what dave_N said, is that he's listed as a webmasterworld moderator.

ncw164x

6:18 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



>>If you people think that this loser is serious

Believe me, DaveN is not a loser matey

ncw164x

europeforvisitors

6:42 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)



(advertiser here) more and more reason to disable content tageting.....

And all the more reason for demanding that Google provide advertiser controls in the form of include and exclude filters (not unlike the "exclude by domain" filter that publishers already have).

nyet

6:53 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



And all the more reason for demanding that Google provide advertiser controls in the form of include and exclude filters (not unlike the "exclude by domain" filter that publishers already have).

yikes! who has the time for that! Our ad appears (near as I can tell) on hundreds of sites.......

Talk about a bad ROI (Investment being time in this case)

If google (and the publishers) want their product (which I am buying) to be valuable they will have to make it so themselves.

yintercept

6:54 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



First, I would think that Google would have a good mechanism for removing duplicate clicks. Rather than punishing publishers when someone goes click happy on the ad bar, I think Google would do more for its advertisers if they simply limited the number of clicks allowed from any one client.

If a user clicks 20+ plus ads a day...that user, by default, is a low quality hit.

There is also a lot of bot traffic that could be mistaken as humans. I often get hit by malformed spiders and bots that download my entire site (ignoring robots.txt...). Such programs click on every single link on the site. So far, they have not hit the java script ads...but we should never underestimate the stupidity of spiders.

Reading this thread, I might make a program that limits the number of pages a user can view on my site. I would hate to get booted from Google because some bozo is copying my site with a malformed derivative of frontpage.

Looking through the clicks that come in from my adword program, I notice I get a large number of repeat IPs. Most of the IPs are from AOL, COX or UUNET. I assume that these are proxy servers. If Google does tracking by IP, I would consider this a good argument for getting a dedicated IP for your primary client.

jomaxx

7:03 pm on Apr 16, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Spiders are generally not much of a problem because they rarely execute Javascript. In fact I don't know of a single mainsteam one that does, although they probably exist.
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