A Bit Worried - Making too much $

[rookiecrd1]

Hi, I noticed a drastic increase in my clicks last night and this morning. Lets just say, it's only 10am and google is telling me that I made more then I usually do in an entire day. Yesterday was also about 85% more then my average day.

What my concern is is that someone is clicking the ads just to get me in trouble. Is this possible? Can I be suspended from google? What should I do? I rely on google for a good portion of my monthly income. If I am banned I'd have some problems.

Please let me know what you guys recommend I do, and how likely it is that I may be banned over this.

Thank you
Brian

[hunderdown]

Several people have posted in the past about similar "jumps." The best thing to do seems to be to email Google with as much information about this as you have. Ask them if you need to take action. They appreciate your being proactive.

[trillianjedi]

Have your page impressions gone up accordingly, or simply CTR?

[rookiecrd1]

Should I wait 24-48 hours so I can see my channel data to see what site the extra clicks are comeing from?

[rookiecrd1]

My impressions have gone up a bit, but not close to as much as the CTR. I did recently move some banners around, however I don't see how it can increase my earnings this much.

Brian

[moltar]

How did you move your banners? Sometimes banners placement and it's color plays a huge role in CTR.

[trillianjedi]

Sometimes banners placement and it's color plays a huge role in CTR.

Oh yes, absolutely. That can double your CTR if you just manage to find the right spot....

No harm in emailing AdSense and expressing concern though, but I would also mention to them that you have experimented and changed Ad placement.

TJ

[Macro]

Adsense did a dump that I am seeing on some Adsense accounts. I suspect it's the old withheld for checking issue that I covered here (Point 7) [webmasterworld.com].

Reported jump in CPM for today's dump is roughly 30-50% over recent average.

[rookiecrd1]

Thanks Macro. Reported Jumps are 30-50%? Who are reporting them?

This might make sense to me. A site I have recently quintupled it's traffic about a week ago. (1200 uniques to 6000 uniques within a week) Maybe google was suspicious and withheld some earnings.

Brian

[Macro]

>>Who are reporting them?

Er, accounts I know.

[rookiecrd1]

Macro, thanks, I appreciate your help

Brian

[olias]

Macro, I am seeing a big increases in my CPM without a particular rise in CTR which makes me think this is not the 'click dump' effect that you suggest - I can't help wondering if I am currently benefiting from a bid war ahead of the AdWords affiliate changes

[Macro]

>>big increases in my CPM

Are you talking today, this week, yesterday? Today's stats are not complete yet ...

>> bidding war.

I'm not aware of any bidding war.

I quoted the CPM figure because that what seems to be the most affected. Wild guess: Maybe they've already credited us with most of the clicks, just not the revenue?

[edited by: Macro at 4:47 pm (utc) on Jan. 11, 2005]

[rj87uk]

If you have a travel related website then yes you should be earning maybe 70 - 80% more than normaly.

Hey i found that by putting Bright green ads on some pages increase click the through rate by loads! (try it)

[olias]

Are you talking today, this week, yesterday? Today's stats are not complete yet ...

Yes I appreciate todays stats are not complete and best not to read a whole lot into them but todays CPM is much higher than I'd normally expect to see at this point and impressions and clicks are relatively normal for this time of day.

The idea of a bidding war is just wild speculation but my CPM has been elevated ever since last Wednesday (as in significantly higher than the previous 500+ days) and the only reason I could see is that we tend to get several ads for one merchant run by several affiliates who might be busily trying to outbid each other.

Having said that I like the theory about clicks being credited but not revenue, that seems more believable.

[rapidcars]

I'm gonna agree with the people that said just email them. I got temporarily linked a popular website this weekend so my traffic literally went up 500%. I emailed google and they said thanks for letting us now and it will be noted on your account.

[Macro]

>> I emailed google and they said thanks for letting us now and it will be noted on your account.

That means they're going to debit the full amount from your account. Not just what they estimate is the excess you've earned. It will all be debited and your account should reflect that in the next few days.

Only kidding, only kidding :-)

[nuevojefe]

Damn Macro, that was harsh. ;-)

[Macro]

My mission is to spread joy. Consider how happy/relieved he would have been when he read the small print.

[nuevojefe]

True. You never appreciate something until you lose it. Cash, AdSense account, Pagerank, etc.

[cyberair]

Macro, very funny!

"Hey i found that by putting Bright green ads on some pages increase click the through rate by loads! (try it)"

Does anyone else confirm this?

[alika]

Not bright green, but we have bright yellow (contrasting nicely with our blue color scheme) on the homepage - and CTR for that page reaches almost double digits :o)

[Tutorialized]

I once made an Adsense placement change that caused my clicks per day to go from ~500 to ~2,500.. placement is huge.

[cyberair]

Is the increase consistent, or does it go back lower to normal after some time?

[elguapo]

In our case, consistent. We maintained the bright yellow color of the leaderboard. CTR never went down below after we implemented the change.

[awall19s brother]

rookie the jump could be old clicks that google froze because of possible fraud. They do this alot if they think there is fraud. After they look into the clicks and see they are not fraud they credit the clicks to your account which could be days later so it looks like you had some massive jumps in clicks one day. It is a regular thing i wouldnt be concerned about it.