Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I have had an adsense account for just about 8 months now. My earnings were moderate as my site doesnt get a whole lot of traffic. This past weekend i was away visiting family and when i got back and logged into my account, I found that it had been disabled due to fraudulant clicks.
I checked my server logs to see if there was anything unusual or out of the ordinary, and i couldnt find anything. The last time i had checked my adsense earnings prior to leaving for the weekend, there hadnt been any spikes in impressions, clicks, CTR or anything. Everything seemed pretty normal.
I replied to Google explaining my findings and to find out what I could do to rectify the situation so that I dont lose my account. I never did recieve any warnings from Google that there was a fraudulant click being generated, and I assume that the fraudulant clicks they discovered had to have happened over the weekend. But all i recieved back was another automated response explaining that my account will remain disabled due to fraudulant clicks. Is there anything I can do at this point? Or am I just out of luck. I would greatly appreciate anyone's insight.
P.S. Im pretty sure i dont have any enemies or competitors that would do something like this, and i dont have any friends, partners, etc that visit my site or would fraudulantly click on the ads.
Thanks
Kev
<snip>
I have had Adsense running on this site for 8 months now.
[edited by: Jenstar at 11:01 pm (utc) on Nov. 30, 2004]
[edit reason] No URLS as per TOS, please! [/edit]
Btw, dropping your url is against the TOS.
Not a bright idea to encourage people to break the TOS ownerrim. You've been here long enough to know that.
[edited by: martinibuster at 11:02 pm (utc) on Nov. 30, 2004]
I have had Adsense on this site for 8 months now, most of my ads that are generated are of Star wars galaxies nature. I dont see why they would wait 8 months to disable this site because of the name, and they tell me that it was due to fraudulant clicks.
I just was trying to get some information from you folks who are pretty experienced with Adsense in regards to if there is anything that i can do about this situation.
Thanks for all the responses though :)
and i dont have any friends
And what i meant was, i dont have any friends that repeatedly visit my site to click on ads or things like that. <shakes head> thanks anyway though
I agree, that is true and that could very well have been what happened. I just wish Google would give me a chance to fix the situation, by banning the offending IP's, removing the ads from the site, or something...as opposed to just shutting down the account. This is the first time there has been a problem.
But thats a very good point Marketing Guy
star warsperhaps a trademark issue? or did you use content from somebody else?
All kinds of things can be covered with "fraudulent clicks", not just one person sitting there and clicking your links over and over again.
There are many SWG related sites out there, and almost all of them run Adsense or something similar on them. And once again, i cant imagine that it would take 8 months for this to become an issue, and if so, why would they say that fraudulant clicks were the reason for deactivation. I dont know, i guess im just hoping for that magical post saying..."something like this happened to so and so a while back and Google reactivated his account after some investigating...." or such...LOL, but of course im sure thats very unlikely :)
No i have never encouraged anyone to click on the ads or "visit our sponsors" or such and such.
I have not mentioned adsense or advertising of this nature in any of the forum posts, nor has anyone who has posted in the forums as i moderate them pretty regularly
And I have not included Adsense on any error or registration pages, i only had adsense on the handful of main traffic pages of my site.
Thank you though for the clarification on fraudulant clicks :)
Scott
that could be the reason,
what else says...
My mistake. Should have been thinking. Actually, I've never read the tos, but you're right. It is common sense. (however, it is a shame, as my spouse has stated, that, on a fundamental level, none of us really trust each other)
No i have never encouraged anyone to click on the ads or "visit our sponsors" or such and such.
Encouraging others to click on your ads on pages outside your site is against the AdSense terms. For instance:
Feel free to stop by, visit my sponsors, and register on our active forums.
This was posted by you on another message board earlier this year, after you began running AdSense... and it is against the terms to do this. Perhaps someone reported you, or they found it on their own, but that could very likely be what got you suspended. That, or all the posts you made pointing to your now-inactive mesothelioma site...
They rarely are. I have seen 9 sites that were "disabled for no reason" and aside from one where the poster admitted he clicked on his own ads - the others were all in violation of Adsense TOS.
As for the mesothelioma site, i disabled that a long time ago. I have an attorney friend who is in toxic tort litigation and gave me some info for a mesothelioma site...but i never could get any traffic to it. So i wouldnt think that that site would have been a problem now. But who knows. And that site also didnt have any TOS violations, but apparently it is a heated topic keyword
Thanks for the insight, i appreciate you doing the research for me. Could you email that message board quote you found about visiting sponsors to me so i can take a look at it, i cant believe i would have said that on a board
Thanks
Thats strange, i dont remember ever posting anything like that on a message board stating to visit my sponsors....but i might have done something that stupid...
You did, complete with the same user name and URLs ;) Sticky is on its way.
Thank you sir, man ...
Shoud be "Thank you Madam"
Jenstar,
I don't know you're also good at detective work.
Should have done my detective work as well :)
I found that it had been disabled due to fraudulent clicks
And yet another case is solved where the site owner did nothing wrong - yeah right when are these people going learn.
Why don't you try and do it the right way like most other people instead of being greedy.
FWIW, W TF is MMORPG?
Never mind, I'll Google it.
MMORPG = massively multiplayer online role playing game
SO what happens if a competitor spams my URL across thousands of forums telling people to visit my site and click on the sponsors ads?
I imagine they'd treat the incident the way they do suspected click fraud: They might disable your account or not, depending on a number of factors.
IMHO, the best way to avoid getting nailed by the AdSense fraud-control or QC team is to have a high-quality, squeaky-clean site. If your site looks like it was created to make a fast buck, it's less likely to pass the "smell test" than a site with intrinsic value to the user. (It's worth noting that other publishers here, including me, have been "pranked" at one time or another, and we're still in the AdSense network.)
Side note: Any Webmaster who tries to sabotage his "competitors" should stop wasting time and focus on building his site. The Web audience, e-commerce revenues, and AdSense revenues are huge and still growing. To use an analogy, when the trees are full of apples, it's a lot more productive to fill up your own basket than to keep Tom, Dick, and Harriet from filling theirs.
