Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Was the CTR too high,even they were valid clicks?
My check for Feb is above 2k,will it be cleared?
My earning of March is about 1k,will I receive the check?
Last and most important,will it have some good to email google?Is there any chance for me to reinstate my account?
Thanks,and sorry for my poor English ^_^
Thanks for your reply. I am an AdSense publisher, active in the program and not suspended.
You seem to be saying that Google owes publishers something for invalid clicks and some protection against competators clicking. In both cases perhaps this does exist? With as many ads in the variety of markets being served by my peers here I am sure we have encountered both of these situations and are still in the program. Some trust is required in any business relationship....if you can't or won't trust your partner...well then find another. This is for any business deal not just adsense. <for those that don't like the "don't like it move on posts:)>
By the way, I will allow others that know me to figure out what the :) was for.
The advertiser gets double value: your site, and the second site, Google gets its percentage, you get nothing, though your work was used.
Your point is completely off the mark - if the 1st click was fraudulent the advertiser GOT NO VALUE.
If the click was made by a person intent with CLICK FRAUD it has NO VALUE, he wasn't a shopper!
The advertisers gets a SINGLE value when a legitimate click is made and not one second before.
So what if the fraud was on your site or a competitors where someone clicked the link 50 times and a refund had to be given, there was no value in these clicks, not for you, not for the advertiser, not for Google.
The best metaphor I can equate this to is credit card fraud. You THINK you made a valid sale until the REAL owner of the credit card does a chargeback. The only difference being the vendor has lost actual physical goods plus transaction fees due to credit card fraud and you as a publisher have lost NOTHING.
As a victim of click fraud you have lost nothing except the hopes of income that was never really yours. The impressions that generated the clicks would've never made any other money as the fraud clicker made those impressions. The only thing you have truly lost is bandwidth and unless the click fraud perpetrator generated a few million page views it cost you nothing, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
So if you can explain after reading this how an advertiser got "double value" from the process of being defrauded, I'll be more than happy to explain to you how a bank gets "double value" from being robbed and having their money returned by the police.
The best metaphor I can equate this to is credit card fraud. You THINK you made a valid sale until the REAL owner of the credit card does a chargeback. The only difference being the vendor has lost actual physical goods plus transaction fees due to credit card fraud and you as a publisher have lost NOTHING.
IncrediBILL, if click fraud causes publisher to be banned by Google, then he indeed lose something of great value namely AdSense income.
Hypothetically, let's say that G gives you a leeway of 3 instances of "questionable" clicks before it brands your site as engaging in click fraud. Then, with each instance of those questionable click, the publisher does lose something of value namely trust of G.
OK, granted that it's a hypothetical and there may not be a "three strikes you're out" system in AdSense (there may be one strike & your're out...). Nonetheless, click fraud MAY hurt your reputation of a good publisher if AdSense decide to take a look at your site.
Thanks for your message.
Two Points
If you ran AdSense on your site for 2 months, and earned good income, but at the end of those two months became a victim of a bad guy, receiving the email from Google, will you get the income from those OTHER clicks?
Second
Would you agree that a publisher is someone who creates compelling content that attracts readers? If we accept your definition, then ONLY clicks count. One might guess that you have little content, or perhaps you misunderstand how content functions in advertising.
To illustrate: The Antique Show
If I produce the antique show online, and run AdSense, the advertisers who APPEAR on the site gain value from exposure. This is how television, radio and even newspapers work. You recently excoriated the presence of the purple pill on your site. Why would they put the purple pill on your site? Because just SEEING the purple pill adds value to the product. Change that pill to Antique products, and the 50,000 times my content hosted antique related ads BEFORE the first click DO have value. And that is why I work so hard and pay my writers to write such good articles about antiques. Because I know that they will draw the right viewers. Can you see how mere exposure next to the right content has value?
Good antique article – Buy qby’s furniture wax - Good antique article – Buy qby’s furniture wax- Good antique article – Buy qby’s furniture wax
If the advertiser gets to do that twice for the same price, doesn’t he get double value?
But, the real issue is demanding equal risk. Google’s risk is zero, or just the time delay in getting the “legitimate” clicks. Your risk is total. That is unfair, and by design – bad design. Publishers should not accept it. Voiceover artists don’t. Why should we, when a technical solution exists? Your site could be next. Won’t it be too late then?
If the advertiser gets to do that twice for the same price, doesn’t he get double value?
OK, I know I was clear in what I said but you're refusing to hear it.
What is the advertiser getting to do twice?
If the first time the ads was clicked was for a FRAUD VISITOR it has ZERO VALUE, technically the advertiser was ripped off. Yhe publisher has lost nothing but the illusion of income as it was fraud. The 'value' on your page was meaningless during that transaction as it was used to commit fraud, the fraud clicker probably didn't read it, probably didn't care, the page and your site had no value to the visitor committing the fraud except as a device used to commit fraud.
If I come to your site right now, don't bother looking at anything as I have a nefarious agenda, and click an ad 100 times the advertiser gets zilch.
So if they refund his 100 fraud clicks he's getting it "twice"?
Sorry but your math does not add up.
Back to the bank robber that stole $100k, when the police return the money the bank still only has $100k, not $200k, and the same is true in click fraud. The advertiser is just getting his money back from the Google police from whatever AdSense account the Click Frauder happened to stash it under.
Whether or not the advertiser spends that money elsewhere on the next click is irrelevant as it was NEVER legitimately spent on your site in the first place. Your point that the money may go "elsewhere" after the refund is valid, but it was never really yours to start with and seems you're arguing to keep the ill gotten gains of money taken by fraud which hurts the advertiser and threatens the very viability of AdSense.
But, the real issue is demanding equal risk. Google’s risk is zero, or just the time delay in getting the “legitimate” clicks. Your risk is total.
How is Google's risk ZERO? If they do a refund it's a 100% loss.
If the advertiser gets ticked and take their business elswhere it's a loss.
I'm confused as to what you're trying to say is my risk?
My only RISK is if the advertisers quit using Google due to click fraud as AdSense will be just another footnote in the advertising history of the internet.
I run a web site, the same site I ran long before Google was around. People come to read my web site and MAYBE, just MAYBE they click on a profit making link while they are on the site. If they clicked on 100 links to commit fraud it's just refunded as if they had never been there. No actual money came out of my pocket, only the promise of this money from a con artist, a fraud, which was taken back. I don't feel I had any risk whatsoever as a publisher but there would be a certain level of disappointment involved for sure.
Google and the advertiser take all of the risk with the advertiser taking the lion's share.
But the publisher?
Puleeeeeeeez.
If we accept your definition, then ONLY clicks count. One might guess that you have little content, or perhaps you misunderstand how content functions in advertising.
Considering the topic is CLICK FRAUD, that's all that counts in this thread which is all I'm addressing.
I have plenty of content, if you wish to discuss content and marketing start a new thead.
Thanks for your reply.
Risk is ALL Ours Because: Content = Time = Cost
My only RISK is if the advertisers quit using Google due to click fraud as AdSense will be just another footnote in the advertising history of the internet.and
No actual money came out of my pocket, only the promise of this money from a con artist, a fraud, which was taken back. I don't feel I had any risk whatsoever as a publisher but there would be a certain level of disappointment involved for sure.
These statements illustrate that you are in all likelihood not actually a publisher. You may be an aggregator, but your input into content creation appears, by what you say, to be zero: “No actual money came out of my pocket.”
We employ people to create content and I pay myself to create content. When you say no actual money came out of your pocket, either you mean your time is worthless, or your content is, or both. Please can you answer which one it is? Your contentment in the system is more than likely related to the fact that it appears to cost you nothing to create content.
First Point
Please again consider the Purple Pill. Why would they put it on your site? If your site had to use ad space to host it – the space was taken up by the purple pill - and then were not paid, who got that value? Didn’t the Purple Pill get the value from your site, and then the second site?
Don’t forget that an ad needs to be hosted maybe a thousand times before it is clicked. Why is it seen? Because our content is appropriate to the ad. If it takes one thousand views to get a click, but… because a site was called, a fraud, the ad got a second run of one thousand, doesn’t the ad get double exposure? Please can you answer this: is there any value in that? In that double exposure?
Telling us we won’t get paid after hosting the ad is no different from asking a model to pose next to a can of soda, and then saying – no check. It is the model’s face that gets me to open the can. It is our content and our limited space that, after a thousand views, gets people to click the ad. Can we go back in time and replace the ad? Or get refunded for what it cost to create that time specific content? Admittedly, you do not seem to have these expenses. Some explanation is required there on your part.
Most importantly, for other people who do ahve to pay for their work, and get paid, we cannot go back in time and get back production or labor cost once called a fraud, no do we recoup any of the clean weeks (nonfraud). The loss is retroactive. Your content's value is hijacked from you completely and without recourse, while Google's profit is only delayed - moved on to the next "legitimate" clicks on another site. When is it time to say that is wrong?
We employ people to create content and I pay myself to create content.
Again, this isn't about content, it's about click fraud.
Risk is ALL Ours Because: Content = Time = Cost
Yes, and you get rewarded for valid clicks, I'm not sure what you're argument is all about.
You want paid for fraud?
Somewhere I think you're missing the big picture that this is a small blip for publishers but a huge problem for advertisers.
doesn’t the ad get double exposure?
But the exposure that was done when the fraud click occurred was NOT LEGIT!
Sure, technically the ad was displayed a second time but the 1st time had no value whatsoever, it was wasted on a person hellbent on fraud, so how is that a valid impression? Please explain your logic here as I don't see it anymore of a valid impression as the bank robber coming in the door is the winner of the 1 MILLIONth customer prize.
I'm cranking over 1.5M pages a month and Google has deducted a few clicks a couple of times due to irregulatiries and they had added a few clicks due to accounting errors as well. Trust me, I'm too busy trying to get the site up to 2M page views a month to worry about a couple of double exposures.
I notice many of the advertisers on my site are the same advertisers day after day, week after week, month after month and if someone defrauds them I want it refunded as I want them back on my site as it's just good business to treat them fairly and fairly get the rewards in return.
Compare total page impressions to total ad page impressions sometime. I lose WAY more money from garbage like Norton firewall not even showing ads or people rejecting cookies that thwart affiliate tracking, or programs like AdAware zapping all of the valid tracking cookies and on and on.
Bottom line, you show an impression twice, what's the harm? what is your loss?
As long as Google doesn't think you're doing the fraud clicks and leave your site in AdSense you count your blessings and move on, unlike the poster that started this thread.
Your site could be next. Won't it be too late then?
You seem to be so far off course with your ideas that an account is terminated just because of click fraud, if this was the case then this forum and all the other webmaster forums worldwide would be full of postings of ex publishers who have had their account terminated, but they are not...
They are not full of posts because there is more to it than a few extra clicks on your site, if that was the case we all would get banned sooner or later.
Things you don't do....
never click on your own ads
never asked anyone to click on your ads
Do not have text saying click here to sponsor this site
Do not spam google
Do not have empty pages with no content
Do not build sites just for adsense
Do not have pop up's or pop under's
Do not have the ads open in a new window
Do not alter the adsense code
Do not have a zillion affiliate links on your pages
These are the main reasons why publishers have had their accounts terminated and there are lots of threads to prove it
Bottom line is common sense and dont try and game google
Don’t forget that an ad needs to be hosted maybe a thousand times before it is clicked. Why is it seen? Because our content is appropriate to the ad. If it takes one thousand views to get a click, but… because a site was called, a fraud, the ad got a second run of one thousand, doesn’t the ad get double exposure? Please can you answer this: is there any value in that? In that double exposure?
You seem too bright to be confusing CPM and CPC and reading Adsense as a mixture of the two*. But, using your above figures if you got one click per thousand views, showed 2000 impressions, and one click turned out to be fraudulent.... then your CTR is only one in 2000. And, as you are getting paid per action the number of impressions aren't taken into account for calculation of earnings.
* CPM will run along CPC in the future but that's an academic point for the purposes of this thread
"Honestly, one of the first things that enters my mind is whether or not the alleged victim is in china or india."
[edited by: walkman at 8:45 pm (utc) on May 3, 2005]
Thanks for your reply. You wrote:
Yes, and you get rewarded for valid clicks, I'm not sure what you're argument is all about.Don’t you relize that when accused of fraud you lose your whole check?
Sure, technically the ad was displayed a second time but the 1st time had no value whatsoever, it was wasted on a person hellbent on fraud, so how is that a valid impression?
Unique Users
Person 1: legitimate, sees ad
Person 2: legitmate, sees ad … to Person 999: legitimate, sees ad
Person 1000: scammer, your adsense account is closed
Refund, NEW SITE
Unique Users
Person 1: legitimate, sees ad
Person 2: legitmate, sees ad … to Person 999: legitimate, sees ad
Person 1000: legitimate, sees ad and clicks it.
Bill, these are unique users, interested in antiques. The advertiser paid once, and got two thousand impressions.
Finally, you wrote:
Again, this isn't about content, it's about click fraud.This does not follow, and, sadly, makes your whole argument untenable. Click fraud can obliterate a business' entire content investment; the two are inextricably related.
The only thing a publishers HAS is content and the space around it for ads that day. Content it is WHY AdSense is on the site: qby’s furniture wax shown on the antiques site.
Would you say the cost of oil is not related to a business’ bottom line? What you are suggesting is no different. Content production for you appears to be free. Agian, "No actual money came out of my pocket." I’d say it puts you in a unique category.
For most other companies, it costs money to produce the content. If we spend a month showing AdSense, we have given them all we have to give.
What Google asks us to do is accept a system that guarantees that, eventually, we can lose all of the value to the content we created, while guaranteeing that both Google and the advertiser will profit from it. The advertiser twice. Why? Because publishers accept second-class status in their agreements in the HOPE that they can ride it out.
I’m suggesting is that, while this is one way to conduct our lives as publishers, a better way is to INSIST on a fair deal to require the Google come up with a better execution of system.
We should not accept a program that endangers current earnings (all clicks for the “fraud” period) and future earnings (you are out of AdSense for 2 months, potentially forever for something over which you have no way to defend yourself).
We are the engine – we put the CONTEXT in the contextual ads. My antiques site, your travel site, her fiction group site - no different from the writers of tv shows or movies. Their work is protected. Why don’t we DEMAND a system that protects ours? Build some protection for US, not just for advertisers and Google? Or, let them find somewhere else to host that bed and breakfast's ad.
ad got a second run of one thousand, doesn’t the ad get double exposure?
Oddsod, thanks for pointing that overlooked tidbit.
This would be a new thread about IMPRESSION FRAUD and not click fraud now wouldn't it? :)
[edited by: incrediBILL at 8:50 pm (utc) on May 3, 2005]
Thanks for your reply. You wrote:
You seem too bright to be confusing CPM and CPC and reading Adsense as a mixture of the two*. But, using your above figures if you got one click per thousand views, showed 2000 impressions, and one click turned out to be fraudulent.... then your CTR is only one in 2000. And, as you are getting paid per action the number of impressions aren't taken into account for calculation of earnings.
Once your earnings are zero, from being accused of fraud, the distinction you make loses its meaning. You have no money for that period of time but you still have expenses.
I'm suggesting that you are in fact losing TWICE. You have not only lost your income from the upcoming check, but... you have GIVEN your halo of good content away to the advertiser who's ad dwelt amid your content. How did that halo get burnished so? If you are a company with employees and writers... by paying them. The advertiser who's ad was seen amidst your fine content, he gets another go at another contextually related site (reinforcing the ad's image in the mind of the visitor). You have lost not only your check... but that space that his ad took, and the time in the past where it ran. You can't run that again.
I'm saying your site's content has value, and you should INSIST on protecting it.
There is some major flawed thinking in this. Fraudulent clicks is the exact reason why so many advertisers opt-out of content. And now you think they should be subject to click fraud, and be happy with it?
If you think Google is out to get you and all innocent webmasters, why don't you use a different ad network then? There are others out there.
And to quote europeforvisitors from a week or so ago:
Why give space on your pages to an advertising network that you think is evil, untrustworthy, or abusive?
Once your earnings are zero, from being accused of fraud, the distinction you make loses its meaning. You have no money for that period of time but you still have expenses.
If AdSense is your only way of paying expenses then you need to diversify QUICK as this only seems to be a hot button for those rely 100% on AdSense income which is a massively fatal business plan.
I have asked the same question each time. The system is designed to protect advertisers and Google only. Why do we accept this? When will you say it is wrong?
The system does protect publishers as well, in case you weren't aware of this - it doesn't only protect advertisers and Google themselves. Another senior level publisher here had a case or two of click fraud, and he was not suspended, so it is proof the system works to protect AdSense publishers as well.
I have asked the same question each time.
Maybe instead of asking the same question over and over, you should be asking Google AdSense instead, because they are the only ones who can give you a definitive answer. It is obvious you are not getting what you want here.
If you are here to simply find out how to game the system so you can get away with fraudulent clicks without having to worry about being suspended, you are definitely in the wrong place.
we seem to be drifting through this thread presuming the accounts are being closed on innocent victims. That is NOT the case but you can get that impression if the people whose accounts are closed state simply that "I didn't click on my ads" which, I'm afraid, only covers one of about 50 reasons you can get kicked off AS.
So it's not a case of protecting poor, innocent, fluffy adsense publishers, but G protecting themselves from people that are out to rip them off and break the very agreement they themselves agreed to on signing up.
I have not seen a single "my account's been closed" thread on this forum in two years that didn't end up being proved to have been a legitimate closing down for a whole raft of reasons:
1. the person DID click on their ads (but only "sometimes"!)
2. person's friends did
3. person's relatives did
4. etc, etc
5. click incentives found on site
6. or, infamously, on another public forum
7. illegal ad placement/quantity
8. from country not in adsense system
9. site built solely to host adsense ads, no content
all of these will be answered with the "fraudulent clicks" mail from G.
as I imagine has happened in this case.....
Check please.
Thanks for your reply.
from the Webmasterworld Mission Statement:
We are here as a forum for the members to share and gain knowledge in operating and promoting a website. Think of us as part of your extended site development and process team.
you wrote:
It is obvious you are not getting what you want here.I would disagree with this. I'm just one person, hoping to share with other people what I see as a problem for all AdSense publishers.
Maybe instead of asking the same question over and over, you should be asking Google AdSense instead, because they are the only ones who can give you a definitive answer.I hope you'll take a look at the question. I was asking the people I was posting with when would they do something? When would they say something? Wouldn't you agree that the definitive answer to that question lies with them, not Google?
The system does protect publishers as well, in case you weren't aware of this - it doesn't only protect advertisers and Google themselves. Another senior level publisher here had a case or two of click fraud, and he was not suspended, so it is proof the system works to protect AdSense publishers as well.Would you say this is the norm, or that Google protects publishers at its leisure? What kind of business relationship is that? Can't we do better?
I could understand all of what you are saying just a little bit easier if you had been a adsense publisher for some period in time, but you have not so therefore you can't expect anyone to agree with what you are saying because you don't know enough about how it all works, and further more you just don't agree with anything what anyone else has posted
I have had a quick count of how many different members have posted on this thread and its in excess of 20 but you have not listened to any of us
20 people can't be wrong and one person right, think about it, its not possible
Whatever your answer, I think it will go a long way towards explaining why Google's program is set up the way it is.
there has been a lot more than 10 people posting that they have had there account terminated and it has been proved time and time again that it was not down to just click fraud.
I don't think that is worthy of a rethink of the adsense terms of service just because 10 comments have been found, you need to do some more homework on what we have had to endure on a monthly basis each time a publisher has posted "I had my account terminated and I don't know why".
With a little bit of investigation revealed it was always the publisher who was at fault and you know what is really strange, not a single one has ever returned to say "google reinstated my account"
I wonder why...?
- content costs time and money to make <agree>
-the system is designed to protect advertisers and Google only <hope that google has designed system to protect their paying customers, more than their agents>
- Google makes money from adsense <well so do publishers at a rate about 70% publishers, 30% google>
- I have asked the same question each time <we have noticed the lack of definition of the question, or any solutions put forward?>
-why would you use adsense <looks at bank account...nuff said>
Earlier (way earlier) I asked the question of what is the difference in Google versus any other ad serving program out there in relation to "click fraud". We don't seem to have an answer to that one. All programs enforce this with expulsion, no court of appeal....accept it. Google is a business partner, they owe me as a publisher nothing more than the payment of valid clicks that occur. If there are too many invalid clicks I loose the partner. Of course <although you are ignoring these posts> as a long term website that has a long relationship in serving the ads, I think Google would have a sympathatic ear. <as others in this position have noted as happening> I have yet to read on the board an example of a long term ad publisher that was following the TOS being expelled. Others can correct me if they remember this occuring. So thvi, unless you plan on pushing the TOS envelope, I do not understand your issue or what point you are attempting to make here. Seems to be a whole lot more satisfied adsense publishers on the board than "flash in the pan" posters, joining to tell us they have been expelled from the program.
Just my thoughts after almost two years as an adsense publisher.
I have yet to read on the board an example of a long term ad publisher that was following the TOS being expelled. Others can correct me if they remember this occuring.
Visi, consider yourself corrected.
SuzyVirtual was both booted AND re-instated after they determined she didn't do the clicking.
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