Adsense account disabled, and now reinstated

Don't give up hope if your Adsense account disabled. Mine was reinstated.

[t2dman]

I recently had my Google Adsense account disabled due to "Fraudulent Click Activity". It understandably got me rather upset, especially after reading all the posts here in WebmasterWorld about others horror stories.

But I thought I would try emailing them. Always worth a try.

I then received an email back with the standard reply saying that they can't give specific information about the specifics they found on my account.

5 minutes later I received another email saying that they had reviewed the matter and that they would be reinstating the account. Apparently I was not responsible for the most recent activity.

I have now written them a nice "thanks" note.

Account disabled 20 June, re enabled 22 June (New Zealand time). Now how about that for quick resolution.

So take heart people. I have possibly clicked on my own ads once or twice and thought that this was the reason for the disabling of my account. Who knows what the reason was, but they have reconsidered and reinstated.

Now I can see my account, and shock horror, there are several days with 10% clickthrough rate when normally it is averaging 1-2%. And a record Adsense month. I can understand why Google was upset. But I have NO idea why there was such a spike.

Looks like some of the days have had the clicks percentages etc kept, but the earnings reduced - as 10% should be a few times greater $ than 2%, but not showing that same multiple.

[woodrow222]

What did you email to them?

Congrats on getting back in :)

[sailorjwd]

Way to go!

It wouldn't matter to me if they reinstated my account.

I would been dead from a heart attack days before.

[t2dman]

I had thought it was my clicks (one or two only), but since when an account is disabled you can't see your account any more, I had no idea.

As mentioned, there had been "too" high clickthrough rates (imho) and so it had raised a flag.

My objecting to the disabling (in the most polite manner-really) was enough that they relooked at the account and saw that the spike was nothing to do with me.

[incrediBILL]

You clicked a few times?

Tsk tsk.... STOP THAT!

Glad you got it back but don't click your own or you could lose it again.

[frox]

Well, that's nice! Congratulations.

At least a small light of hope for the ones that, while playing by the rules, fear the dreaded letter...

So far, yours is the third case I know of.

This has happened to suzyvirtual, asp4bunnies and you...

Is there anyone else out there who succeeded?

[jenkers]

congratulations - it makes a big difference to see what happens when people treat this kind of situation with professionalism and maturity rather than throwing all their toys out of the pram right away and flaming G all over the place.

I've accidentally clicked on my own ads a couple of times (long time ago). I signed up for an affiliate scheme from an adsense ad, after having filled in the form etc with my site name and submitted it - I realised that I had clicked on the ad from my own site - how stupid did I feel.
I was sweating for a while but luckily....

[brickwall]

I think these occasional spikes are caused by Google witholding some clicks during regular days "for whatever verification purpose they have" and then dumping them all at once to your stats after "ascertaining" their validity (or whatever). I have an average ctr of around 2% but there are days where it goes as high as 20%. And during these 20% ctr-days, I can't help but feel a little bit worried whenever it happens.

Is this assumption correct?

[vigo]

"I would been dead from a heart attack days before."
you will probably have one in the future as nothing stays the same.

[moneyraker]

[I then received an email back with the standard reply...5 minutes later I received another email...]

I'd really be interested to know what happened during the 5 minutes between two different emails. Does this mean that it only takes G 5 minutes to review a decision and reverse it?

[Marketing Guy]

Large companies often have automated systems / not very well trained staff (or simply well trained staff who have to jump through corporate hoops).

- Automated ban due to (eg) flagged click spikes.

- Complaint from publisher goes to random customer service staff who replies with canned response

- CS raises the situation with manager / review team / etc who are more qualified / experienced / able to judge the matter.

- Simple misunderstanding is realised; a custom email is sent to client.

Possibly just an elaborate QC / CS procedure, but yes, 5 minutes turnaround time is pretty good.

It would only take 5 minutes for 90% of the regulars on this forum to spot (for example) a reason why a site may be penalised. Such an appraisal would take a non industry professional longer. It's safe to assume that Google would have such "experts" in the Adsense review system on hand to judge cases such as this, in which case they can probably spot errors, etc pretty quick.

MG

[hunderdown]

What's becoming clear is that there are some real differences between the sites/actions of those who were reinstated and those who were not.

I've read through at least a dozen threads, probably more, over the past year started by people who had been banned by AdSense and NOT reinstated. In every case, there was a reasonable cause--something they had done, something about their site, actions by their friends, or a dodgy focus/type of site.

By contrast, we have heard from at least three people who WERE reinstated. And if the others were like this one (I don't remember exactly), then those of us who stick to the TOS should be encouraged. Here's a case where there is a strange surge in CTR, which set off alarm bells at Google. When they (quickly) ascertained that it had not been caused by the site owner, they reinstated.