Disabled for invalid click activity but i've never had an account.

Disapproved application.

[pmidds]

Hi,

I recently applied for a google adsense account and after waiting 3 weeks with no reply I chased google. I got the following response.

'We've found that your AdSense account is related to an account previously disabled for invalid click activity. Publishers whose accounts have been disabled for invalid clicks are not allowed further participation in the AdSense programme.'

The thing is I've never had an active adsense account! I'm guessing that a previous owner of my domain was disabled?

I replied to google with the following :-

'thanks for the reply.

I have never had an active adsense account so it can not have been me that had the 'invalid click activity'.

My only thought is that a previous owner of the domain %mydomain%.com had their account disabled for this?

Please see the whois data below which shows that I have only owned the domain since May this year. The domain was available and I have no idea who owned it before me. I can get godaddy.com to confirm this if required.

I am keen to try the adsense programme and can assure you I will fully respect your Terms and Conditions and programme policies if accepted onto your scheme. I would ask therefore that you enable the account if my site meets your criteria.

If you have any further questions regarding my ownership of the %mydomain%.com domain please let me know. As I said I will be happy to get further confirmation from godaddy.com if required.'

It has been a week since I sent this but I've received no reply.

Any advice? Should I chase again? Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks in advance.

[dzcap]

Tough luck. You're in a really bad position because they could think you changed owner details just so you can reapply for adsense. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it is certainly a possibility.

[pmidds]

No i am telling the truth I've never had an adsense account.

Surely by looking at the history of the domain they could work this out. Surely if I'd wanted back in I'd have selected a new domain and copied across my website.

The current domain wasn't listed in any SERPS when I purchased it so there would be no benefit for me going down this path if I wanted to 'sneak' back in (it's not even that greater domain name).

[novice]

When you check the history at Archive, does it show if there was ever a website for that domain? If so, is there something there that would have violated AdSense TOS? Such as, asking visitors to click the ads.

[dzcap]

Your best bet is to explain to them calmly about this.

[pmidds]

dzcap - I am / intend to be calm and polite I'll keep on chasing in said fashion.

novice - you said

'When you check the history at Archive,'

How do I do this?

Is it a website. It would certainly be useful to see who had the domain before me and how long ago.

[dzcap]

its a website, add a .org to Archive and you'll reach it =P

[arran]

[archive.org ]

[pmidds]

Thanks for the info Gents.

I put my domain through there and there's nothing indexed.

I guess this means it hasn't been live since 1996?

How long has Adsense been running? I thought it had only been about for a few years?

[jomaxx]

Among other things Google keep a list of expiring domains, so if that was really the problem then you should be able to get it sorted out.

I would tend to look elsewhere - friends, relatives, roommates, people with the same name, people in the same building, sites you may appear affiliated with, etc.

[pmidds]

This is my first website it doesn't have many links at present and is independent.

I'm starting to wonder if someone with the same name got banned in the past?

I can't believe they'd ban every Paul Middleton in the world because someone with that name screwed up before? It's a reasonably common name and there must be hundreds of thousands of us across the globe.

I've chased again offering to prove from when I got ownership of the domain and my identity if required!

Hopefully they'll let me prove my innocence.

[dzcap]

How long have you been living at your current residence?

[pmidds]

One and a half years.

I didn't think of that :-/

[dzcap]

adsense has been out longer than that, so maybe someone who used to live there got banned

[pmidds]

Good point it's the only thing I can think of.

I'll see if / what the reply is from google. Proving how long i've lived in my current flat will be easy enough - hopefully they get back to me this time.

[Juan_G]

pmidds wrote:

I put my domain through there and there's nothing indexed.

I guess this means it hasn't been live since 1996?

The Internet Archive doesn't show the most recent months, there is a delay always (about 6 to 12 months). Also, they really archive a lot, but not everything.

[dansanchez5000]

it doesn't matter what you do or say, or what the truth is....Google and company are real jerks about this. They disabled my adwords account for no reason....they say I fraudulently clicked through, but I NEVER did -I didn't have to, I was making $800 a month just from that part of the site....Google sucks more than Microsoft now - some of their recent initiatives seem very intrusive and devious -I hope they crater.

[dzcap]

How did you make $800 with your adwords account?

[skippy]

Do you use an Internet cafe or buy your computer used? A computer you are using could be associated with a banned account.

[perldiver]

What? You could be banned for buying a used computer? How could they track that? That doesn't sound right...

[jomaxx]

Some of these suggestions seem vanishingly unlikely, especially since this person hadn't even been accepted into the program yet.

This forum notwithstanding, not that many people could have EVER been kicked out of AdSense. The idea that you could be using the computer or living in the flat of a former fraudster is a little farfetched.

[skippy]

I agree that it is unlikely but computers can be tracked by the MAC address.

[perldiver]

You can see my MAC address over the web without custom software interaction? I don't think so... Someone correct me here if I'm wrong.

[thegreatpretender]

It could be that google didn't accept you for other reason, but they just pressed the wrong button. Instead of sending you a conned letter telling you that your site is not yet ready for adsense because your site has non-working links, etc., they mistakenly sent you this invalid click letter.

[blairsp]

sort of related. One of the other boards I am a member of has a post where someone claims that they have never received any earnigns from adsense and yet received the invalid clicks e-mail. Obviously most of us are all going to think he is a great big fibber, however maybe it backs up the idea of wrong letters getting sent out (maybe G is overworked with all the new publishers it is getting from the referral programme)

[robsynnott]

> I agree that it is unlikely but computers can be tracked by the MAC address

Not over the internet they can't: only the next layer up and onwards is routed.

[nikolas22t]

Google adsense blocked my account for the same reson when i complited $100! i never had an account and i own the domain for 8 years now! Strange.... Google sucks they just close the accounts when you reach a payout.

[ann]

If that's true I must be just dreaming I made a downpayment on a new home...Google money of course. :)

[aeiouy]

What? You could be banned for buying a used computer? How could they track that? That doesn't sound right...

Cookies could be on the computer for example.

Do you have any friends, relatives, or associates who are in adsense or ever were in adsense? Perhaps you accessed something with them on a common pc and got mistakenly linked together.

Google has access to a ton of information. Sounds like you got caught by the filters. If you want to join, be polite but persistant and explain to them your issue.

[OmoD]

When I applied to Google earlier this year my account was disapproved becauase of Invalid Clicks.

I was in the same situation as you. I had never had and Adsense account and the domain name that I was using was brand new. I made it up!

What I did was that I wrote a polite letter to Adsense asking them to review my application with explanations why they should do so.

A week or so later I got a reply from Adsense saying that they had made an error and that they have decided to approve my application.

So the best thing to do is just to calmly and politely write to them explaining your case