Forum Moderators: martinibuster
"It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the ads on your web pages. We have therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.
A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including but not limited to clicks generated by a publisher on his own web pages, clicks generated through the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or any other deceptive software."
I admit I did click thru some ads to see what other people are using for landing pages and the like but no abuse from me anyway.
My sites only generated about 400 clicks to adsense per day anyway. How could I abuse it?
Anyway I can get reinstated. Adsense support just sent me a few template emails saying sorry.
Sucks that this happens to a honest small timer like me!
So another new poster one just hits a few of the ads to see if they are working, small number of impressions and a high percentage coming from logged account owners IP. Asks on board how to get reinstated....small flaming dealing with perhaps a note on reading contracts that are put in front of you for agreement.
After all of that...a lecture on doing business the old fashioned way? and that everything works out in the end. For sure I'm sending this one to my accountant...he always enjoys fairy tales with happy endings:)
For all you people who crapped on me when I asked for help should think back about how businesses were developed back in the day and learn some. I have.
If that's what you think happened then you really haven't learned a thing which is sad as many people here have seen this tale of woe many times before with disastrous results.
My grandfather had a saying as well: "If you're lucky crap will do for brains"
If you truly were reinstated, hope you don't mess it up this time!
Good Luck, you'll need it.
You shouldn't need Google or a TOS to tell you that this is wrong.
I made calls to Google for hours yesterday and today
The squeaky wheel gets the grease. kensav, I give you credit for putting so much effort into getting reinstated. That may be what made the difference--other people gave up after a few emails.
I thought you wouldn't get reinstated because Google doesn't seem to want to bother with small accounts that mess up. More trouble than they are worth. But you made it less trouble to reinstate you than to keep fielding the calls. Nice work.
I'm sure that they have debited you for the bad clicks and that you'll keep your nose clean in the future....
BTW, when you telephone Google there is something they will say to any Adsense publisher - we cannot handle you call over the phone, please use the support area of your account. I seriously doubt he spoke to anyone about his case.
And I have been totally forthcoming about everything. I don't know any or other webmasters in my life nor anyone who has ever done business with Google. I turned to this board for advice and I appreciate the criticism and comments.
When you look a man in the eye and shake his hand, don't slip your other hand in his pocket and snatch his coin purse out of curiosity. It's simply bad form.
Maybe this has been covered all ready, if someone has a link or 2 to a thread that explains explicitly why it isn't possible or reasonable to just discount these clicks, especially when google are so confident that its the account holder who is the responsible party, then Id be very much obliged.
Cheers
I've printed out and read both the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions and program policies.
Don't just put them in the draw and forget them. Frame them and hang them on the wall above your monitor. Every time you get curios about landing pages, glance up to your printed TOS and remind yourself next time your banned for life :-)
If you want to see the landing pages of the ads, don't click the ads but click on the part where it says "Ads by Goooooogle".
That will take to a page where you can see the all of the URLs for each ad, and this does not violate the terms.
HTH.
The 'offical' TOS says:
invalid means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks, the use of robots
Repeated manual clicks. Now unless he was intentionally sitting there, clicky clicky clicky, with the intention of raising revenue, with wrongfull intentions, I dont see a need for half these posts.
Wasn't one or two lectures good enuff?
Need 10 lectures?
Compared to a pack of wolves? Having a bad day, need someone to chomp on. Now its become personal and you post for the sake of argument, not constructivity.
Yes. If he got banned for it, obviously he clicked a few too many times. But he handled the matter properly, he IS reinstated.
Congrats on being reinstated.
What troubles me in all of this is that if G can detect the 'abuse' then it should be able to just as easily discount it, eg the 'abuser' doesn't get paid for it, and the advertiser doesn't get charged! No need for emails, no need for silly I got booted threads, everybody wins
There's one flaw in your logic: If Google removes consequences for violating the TOS, publishers have no incentive for behaving themselves. (It's the same with Google Search: The spamming crowd are always asking "Why doesn't Google just ignore spam techniques instead of penalizing for them?", and the answer is obviously "Because if they did, the spammers would be even more aggressive.")
Send e-mail to publisher, and dock that month's pay. That is incentive enough.
As for the rest... I love how all of you are so presumptuous.
Of course s/he should have read the TOS. Of course s/he should not have clicked repeatedly on the ads. I think s/he figured that out - that is why s/he came here. For HELP.
As Yamaha_R1 said so elequently "pack of wolves"...
Tisk, tisk, tisk.
I thought we HELPED each other. Of course, you can beat someone with a stick a few times, but I think s/he was looking for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.
What troubles me in all of this is that if G can detect the 'abuse' then it should be able to just as easily discount it, eg the 'abuser' doesn't get paid for it, and the advertiser doesn't get charged! No need for emails, no need for silly I got booted threads, everybody wins.
Everybody wins including the real cheaters, eh? If you get caught, you just give back the money. If you don't get caught, you keep the money.
No, I don't think this will work. There is a little incentive to not cheat. And it assumes the cheating detection can be 100% accurate, which I'm sure Google themselves does not assume.
Send e-mail to publisher, and dock that month's pay.
What he said implies that if you cheated by 10 bucks, you could get docked the 'whole month', or say, 50 bucks.
So I'd say no, cheaters don't win either.
Maybe this has been covered all ready, if someone has a link or 2 to a thread that explains explicitly why it isn't possible or reasonable to just discount these clicks, especially when google are so confident that its the account holder who is the responsible party, then Id be very much obliged.
How can google track anyone discarding cookies and using dialups like AOL or some such?
IPs are rarely static these days as most have DHCP, my cable modem holds an IP for a long time but sites like AOL rotate them about every 15 minutes from a server pool.
If you have a solution to the problem, we're all ears.
Beyond that, what part of "ITS AGAINST THE RULES" are you missing? You don't always need technology to fix something that common sense, reading, and knowing right from wrong would stop an honest person from doing in the first place.
I thought we HELPED each other. Of course, you can beat someone with a stick a few times, but I think s/he was looking for CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.
There is only so much help you can give someone that doesn't bother reading the rules in the first place. I think you're mistaking help for sympathy as we were in no position to offer any help at that juncture other than "write google", oh big whoop and dee doo, some help.
MAYBE, just MAYBE someone else that caught this thread that hasn't really read the TOS and went back and read them after this so we don't go thru this every day for the rest of the month. MAYBE we helped the next hapless victim from becoming one.
You can't help them all, but maybe a couple of lurkers learned and won't be the next forum fodder, but that would be a ray of hope wouldn't it?
What AM I thinking....?
DON'T CLICK ON YOUR SITES ADS ON PAIN OF DISMEMBERMENT'
That should get everyones attention :-).
I hope my little bit of advice helped.
Charlier, did you really mean dismemberment, or dismembership? Dismemberment for clicking on your ads is a bit harsh in this day and age, don't you think? :)
How can google track anyone discarding cookies and using dialups like AOL or some such?
I dont believe I said they could. If you read what I said, I refered to instances when google were pretty sure that the user were responsible for the clicks then they shouldn't make a big hoo ha out of it.
Sure, there may well be all sorts of issues, which are seperate from this particular thread. The guy who started this thread was obviously not the most sophisticated in his approach and for whatever reason-label people want to stick on him, but he hardly deserves to be hung at dawn for it.
If you have a solution to the problem, we're all ears.
Right, yes sure, Ill knock one up just for your benefit.
Look, I know it isnt simple, I never said it was theproliferation of adwords analysis data companies [google.com] shows that, but I do believe that if the will existed, the adwords program could be made sufficiently robust to look at and analyse click throughs using a combination of cookies, sessids, Ips, user agents, timeframes far more proactively then it already appears to do, and certainly to do a little more work on behalf of the advertiser. If the companies offering these services can do it, then why can't/won't google?
In my experience they seldom volunteer refunds for click fraud, unless evidence of it is presented to them on a plate. How do I come to this conclusion? Well, 6 months or so back, I looked at a clients logfiles and identified what were clearly 'abusive' clicks simply by virtue of the IP, useragent and time of day. The guy was getting clciks left right and center from someone who was likely to be a competitior, aim being, exhaust his funds, click him out of the game. The guy was spending around 30k per month, not exactly small beer, yet the program let him down. Where was the proactivity?
EFV >
I do hear the mindset that says, every now and then its good to see a public outing and evidence that naughty behaviour has its price, keep people on their toes and all that jazz, but that doesn't mean I have to agree its the only way, or that the way used currently is the only one worth using. I don't disagree that sanctions of sorts should be in place, I just disagree in the "we caught you, you MF so take that" approach. It creates ill will, suspicion , hysteria, mean style posts, and a whole host of other forms of non productive stuff, in most cases its a lose lose lose situation, the advertiser loses out on legitimate clicks that may have stemmed forth susequently, the publisher loses on revenue as does Google. Its sledgehammer and nut stuff.
Maybe there should be a ban on these types of threads. Point people to a sticky faq that covers all the bases.
Anyways, Im sure this debate has been had before, hence my request for a link or 2 to a similar type thread, thats all i asked for, Im outta this one ;) Time for a beer or 2 :)
The guy who started this thread was obviously not the most sophisticated in his approach and for whatever reason-label people want to stick on him, but he hardly deserves to be hung at dawn for it
We didn't stick the label on the guy, he admitted to click fraud.
I wouldn't hang him for it, maybe a little bamboo under a fingernail as a reminder....
he admitted to click fraud.
No, at least not in my opinion. He admitted he clicked on ads on his own site. Fraud is in my opinion when it was intentionally to gain money. I think Google had the same opinion because I just checked kensav's website and Google's ads are running, no PSA's.
For some reason I think kensav spoke the truth and really thought he would receive valuable advice on this forum after he realized he made a mistake.
Actualy, who on this board--besides AdSenseAdvisor and Jenstar--knows all the details of the Google Terms and Conditions? Yes, that is the real name. All those who are talking about the TOS didn't read it entirely. They didn't even read the title of the document correctly.
He admitted he clicked on ads on his own site. Fraud is in my opinion when it was intentionally to gain money.
Call it fraud, or call it a willingness to examine landing pages at the advertiser's expense. Either way, there's no question that the clicks were invalid, and Google terminates accounts for "invalid clicks" all the time.
Actualy, who on this board--besides AdSenseAdvisor and Jenstar--knows all the details of the Google Terms and Conditions?
A publisher doesn't have to know the TOS intimately (or even to read the TOS) to understand that advertisers pay for clicks, and that publishers who click on ads for "testing purposes" are profiting at the advertisers' expense.
All those who are talking about the TOS didn't read it entirely. They didn't even read the title of the document correctly.
I know it's T&Cs but if you don't call it TOS most of the people go HUH? WHAT?
If he's reinstated good, hope it sticks this time.
What? Re-instated? Why are they reinstating these people? It should be perfectly obvious to anybody that when they click on their own ads, it's costing SOMEBODY money...
Apparently it isn't that obvious to everyone.
As an AdSense publisher, I have a regular email conversation with AdSense support about all kind of issues. Not long ago I emailed them that in the Dutch T&C it was allowed to have AdSense on a specific type of page where the English version prohibited that use. So it is not always strictly defined for all publishers what is allowed and what isn't. Although the English version of the T&C is the base contract between the Publisher and Google, I think users from other countries can succesfully apply if their local version uses different words or definitions, especially in those cases where the Publisher only has a poor understanding of the English language (one of the patterns that people recognize in the "Banned from AdSense" threads).
Also, where it is a common idea on this forum that is not allowed to click on ads on your own site, there have been many posts of users who claim "I clicked once on my own ad, but I still have my AdSense account". Also the T&C doesn't mention the "accidental one-time click" in the prohibited use paragraph.
As a professional webmaster community we should not judge and nail people down for what WE think is immoral or fraudulous. In the end it is only an agreement between Google and the Publisher, and if Google decides that the account should be reinstated, there were probably no grounds to terminate the account.
Actually we should judge people - the more we pull people into line to keep the system honest, the better the system works and the more flexibility we get from Google. Pressure by peers is a very effective deterrent.
Most of us avoided clicking on our own ads either through moral reasons or reading the FAQs/Program Policies - even before joining this forum. Also I am still surprised at the naivety - he gets paid per click and he clicks his own ads. You mean it *never* entered into his head that he would get money for it?
I know we talk about the TOS and invlaid clicks, but the much briefer Program Policy page also says it very very clearly - note the last sentence:
[google.com...]
Prohibited Clicks
Any method that artificially generates clicks is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to: repeated manual clicks, incentives to click, using robots, automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited, to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs.
