Forum Moderators: martinibuster
"It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s)..."
Is it fairly certain to assume this is the only message sent to notify a publisher he or she has had their account disabled, regardless of the "real tos violation"?
People whose accounts are terminated because they are associated with previously-disabled accounts seem to get a different email. I believe sites suspended due to inappropriate content receive yet another canned email.
I respect Google's right to protect their advertisers, as well the integrity of their program. It's just hard to sleep with the fact that I have no idea why my account was suspended. I've been analyzing traffic data for the last 14 hours straight, there is nothing I can find that seems unusual or suspect. I did notice my non US traffic ratio seems to have increased over the last couple of months by about 30%, I wonder if this was the reason. I've had an Adsense account in good standing for 2 years. They have the right to ban me, but couldn't they at least tell me why? I know it's ok to give someone the boot without reason according to their tos, but it is really legal?
I have no idea why my account was suspended
Hello adamallen,
Sorry to hear that your account was disabled. In a previous thread you started you mentioned that your eCPM declined starting at August 16. In other threads about AdSense, some banned people also wrote that they first saw a lower eCPM, followed by a ban. Others have suggested that this is, because Google is overcompensating when it finds invalid clicks. Personally I am not sure if this is the case, but it is a pattern seen more than once.
Reading that you are using AdSense for about 2 years and having an eCPM decline just recently, I would advice you to investigate traffic pattern changes around August 16.
I know it's ok to give someone the boot without reason according to their tos, but it is really legal?
Why do you question its legality? Is there something unclear about the TOS? What do you believe you are "owed?"
Perhaps not on the first notice, but on a follow-up notice.
The only issue I could see with this is they don't want to reveal or potential risk exposing the techniques they use to expose click fraud. By revealing more details on bannings, potential fraud syndicates could use that information to determine what the google algos are doing to detect fraud.
I think they limit their words in order to limit their risk to fraud improvement.
My site is commerical, so attacks are possible.
But IMO the main reason is that as soon as they enter into a discussion about what the specific problem is, it would inevitably lead to follow-up questions, protestations, bargaining, hairsplitting, apologies and promises to be good, debates about what % of clicks were invalid, lawyers searching for loopholes in the wording of the TOS, explanations about how your brother-in-law thought he was doing you a favor by clicking repeatedly, etc etc etc etc etc. All at a very high emotional pitch.
They will take a second look if you're polite and persistent, but I'm sure they feel there's no percentage in it for them if they're too forthcoming in these cases.
P.S. Per your tentative theories... Minor change in traffic origin seem unlikely to be the reason, in the absence of other factors. Deliberate attack seems unlikely. My two cents.
Google may at any time, in its sole discretion, terminate all or part of the Program, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate the participation of any Site in all or part of the Program for any reason.
You agreed to this when you signed up, so they don't have to explain anything to you.
I would be happy with an answer like "your account was banned due to suspect traffic patterns from January 1 - 15". I could at least protect my interests with this information in the future. I also don't think an answer as such would compromise AdSense. Perhaps they don't have the man hours for personnalized emails addressing the problem, in which case is ethically wrong in my opinion.
If you feel so strongly, you should publish with businesses that have the person-hours to appropriately deal with abuse, or have business models that don't require so many person-hours.
