Booted from Adsense - don't know why.

[RustyACE]

I've been booted from Google Adsense after earning about $250 bucks or so in the past couple of months.

They claim that I have been clicking on my own ads. Which I have not.

No recourse, just, <paraphrase>"We cannot reveal our algorithm, but we reviewed your account again and confirm that invalid clicks were generated with your account"</paraphrase>

Account closed, end of story, see ya'- next.

I have not clicked on any of my ads. I have emailed them several times and this is all I get above.

Has anyone else experienced this?

$250 isn't much, but it's a big deal when they take about 90 days to pay and then when you are about to get your first check they boot you.

How is it possible for them to confirm that I've been clicking on my ads when I haven't?

Thanks in advance for advice,

Rusty

[edited by: Jenstar at 4:43 pm (utc) on Feb. 11, 2004]
[edit reason] No email quotes as per TOS, thanks! [/edit]

[mayor]

>> taking all of the Adsense money and dumping back into the Adwords

Heh, sounds like a perpetual motion machine to me. Used to study those things in Physics class. What would your ROI be if you hadn't got the boot?

[Brett_Tabke]

> actually it does not state it inside the TOS

Bingo Bingo Bingo. Clicking your own ads on your own PROPERTY in YOUR HOME is not against any tos.

> 1) It doesn't discourage publisher fraud, because there are no consequences if a publisher decides to "try and get away with it."

That is already the case. Required a webmaster cookie, would actually increase G's chances of finding the *real* fraud out there.

> Every time a publisher comes on this forum and complains

That is why we need to talk about the concept of click bots and all the erroneous clicking going on.

> AdSense is a great income opportunity for publishers.

To alot of people, they are our biggest competitor - the nightmare scenario made manifest.

> There have been a handful of cases of being dropped for fraudulent clicks

That is unknown and I believe nonsense. That is the excuse often reported. However, those sites were really dropped for content quality (lack thereof). That content quality factor - can not be defined.

> this is the first time that a lot of people deal with advertising networks,

Absolutly, and it is why we continue to point out this "don't click" rookie lameness.

> I can't recall seeing anything like this for the more reputable ad networks like Burst,

I was on the burst mailing list 'fraud squad' for awhile. It's where I became aware of the vast number of clickbot networks, and "friend click networkds" operating. It is why G has to find a better way than this "please don't click" stuff.

[europeforvisitors]

> Clicking your own ads on your own PROPERTY in YOUR HOME is not against any tos.

It's in the FAQ, and it's fraud no matter how you much you try to justify it. What's more, the ads aren't "your" ads--they belong to Google and the advertiser, who are paying to have the "Ads by Google" box displayed on your site.

I don't know what your motives are in continuing to tell newbies that "it's okay to click on your ads," but you're doing them a disservice. Google isn't likely to accept "Brett told me to do it" as an excuse when those clueless or self-deceiving publishers get caught.

That is why we need to talk about the concept of click bots and all the erroneous clicking going on.

Clickbots have been discussed here, though not in depth. As for "all the erroneous clicking going on," do you have information that we don't? Would you like to share it? (I haven't heard anything but anecdotal evidence, and very little specific anecdotal evidence at that.)

> AdSense is a great income opportunity for publishers.

To alot of people, they are our biggest competitor - the nightmare scenario made manifest.

In what way? Since when is advertising competition for publishing? Are THE NEW YORK TIMES, ROAD & TRACK, or TRAVEL AND LEISURE in danger of going under because of competition from their advertisers? Of course not, and neither are we as publishers.

(E-commerce and affiliate sites might be exceptions, since they aren't "publishers" in the traditional sense of the term, but they don't have to use AdSense on their sites if they don't want to.)

> There have been a handful of cases of being dropped for fraudulent clicks

That is unknown and I believe nonsense. That is the excuse often reported. However, those sites were really dropped for content quality (lack thereof). That content quality factor - can not be defined.

It's certainly possible that, when it discovers invalid clicks on a site, Google might use a lack of content (or truly terrible content) as a reason for tipping the scales toward the "Dump 'em" side. But there's no reason to believe that Google is going around and booting sites because of poor content unless something like invalid clicks has triggered a site audit. (Too bad--quality checks might go a long way toward reassuring leery advertisers that contextual "content ads" are worthwhile.)

> this is the first time that a lot of people deal with advertising networks,

Absolutly, and it is why we continue to point out this "don't click" rookie lameness.

What's lame about telling rookies not to defraud advertisers? Some of these rookies apparently haven't stopped to think that, when they click on an ad, they're stealing money from an advertiser's account.

I was on the burst mailing list 'fraud squad' for awhile. It's where I became aware of the vast number of clickbot networks, and "friend click networkds" operating. It is why G has to find a better way than this "please don't click" stuff.

Sophisticated fraud detection and warning publishers not to click on their own ads aren't mutually exclusive. Banks may have auditors and other systems to protect them from large-scale embezzlers who can make off with millions, but that doesn't keep them from counting the cash in the teller drawers and posting a guard by the door.

[mayor]

I hope I'm not drifting too far off the subject, but I'm a little surprised that Google it taking the PPC route for publishers when the Internet is littered with the tombstones of other PPC programs before them.

I hope I'm wrong, but the longer I hang out on the web the more fraud I see. I'd love to see AdSense grow and prosper and give people a chance to earn revenue from their website. But seeing the little guy get trashed really concerns me. How often have we read about a big fraudster getting trashed? Is Google so helpless against the big frauds they have to come down on a little webmaster that clicks on a couple of his/her own ads?

I'll bet there's some really sophisticated fraud schemes going on out there and the webmaster who clicks on a couple of his own ads isn't one of them. Trashing the little guy and sending him/her over here to whine about it seems like a smoke and mirrors tactic to manipulate the media.

[billegal]

EFV is dead on. DO NOT click repeatedly on the ads on your site as it is against the Adsense Terms and Conditions because its probably considered a repeated manual click. Even if it's not exactly that, it seems a fair reason to drop someone when the click takes someone else's money and puts it in your pocket.

And if you really want to know if it's permissible, I suggest you email Google for clarification. Who wants to volunteer for that mission?

[europeforvisitors]

But seeing the little guy get trashed really concerns me.

Why? If shoplifters get arrested at your local Wal-Mart, does that mean the cops won't arrest people who break into the store and haul merchandise away in trucks?

How often have we read about a big fraudster getting trashed?

First, there are fewer of them; second, they're probably too smart to assert their innocence and complain about Google's cruelty at Webmaster World. :-)

Is Google so helpless against the big frauds they have to come down on a little webmaster that clicks on a couple of his/her own ads?

Of course not. But why should they let the "little Webmasters" get away with fraud any more than your local department store lets "little shoplifters" walk off with a couple of shirts and a pocketful of panties?

[mayor]

Come on, I'm not talking about intentional theft by the little guy. In fact, it may not be theft at all on his part. It may be his competition trying to get him trashed.

And you're right, the big fraudster isn't going to be found here whining ... they're going to be out working another account and domain and laughing at Google putting the fear of God in every honest webmaster on the web.

[jomaxx]

Theft is theft. Saying "I'll bet" there are big fraud schemes does not make it so, and does not mean that Google is unfair to enforce antifraud policies vigorously.

[danny]

Harder to fake CPM in any significant numbers than CPC

I don't believe this is true. In order to fake clicks, someone would have to fake the background pattern of impressions as well, so defrauding a CPC program is actually harder than defrauding a CPM program. (Though I guess CPM programs probably track clicks as well, which gives them the same information to work with.)

[europeforvisitors]

In order to fake clicks, someone would have to fake the background pattern of impressions as well...

Interesting point. Also, even if someone did fake the background pattern of impressions, a huge spike in traffic might look suspicious in itself. (And it would have to be a fairly huge spike in traffic to yield significant income on a typical site with a single-digit clickthrough rate.)

[transactiongeek]

Faking CPM is trivial. Just add an invisible WebBrowser component to some popular software utility that you upload to Kazaa and have the software visit the IP address every now and then.

Trivial to do the same thing on click-thrus as well.

The only way to stop fraud is to pay on conversion. AdSense is fundamentally broken. People will discover this soon enough.

[europeforvisitors]

The only way to stop fraud is to pay on conversion. AdSense is fundamentally broken. People will discover this soon enough.

By that logic, all Web advertising is fatally broken, except for affiliate or pay-per-sale advertising. And if that's the case, somebody had better tell the AdWords and Overture advertisers who are making sales and profits with PPC ads. :-)

Also, someone (I think it may have been an AdWords advertiser) made an interesting point a while back: As long as fraud remains at background-noise levels, it's just part of the cost of doing business. That's especially true for traditional advertisers as opposed to affiliate sites and other advertisers who are working on tight margins and "making money on the turn." If Captain Nemo's Nile Cruises is used to paying $5 per lead from ads in THE NEW YORKER and AdWords/AdSense leads cost an average of $2, that $2 is a bargain even if 5% or 10% of the $2 represents phony clicks by publishers or competitors that Google wasn't able to catch.

Don't forget, there's waste circulation in all media, from television (where viewers may be in the bathroom or using a TiVo) to direct mail (where 10% of a list's addresses are likely to be outdated). Fraudulent clicks are just another form of waste circulation. To put it another way, you'll never be able to get rid of them completely, but you can't just let them multiply unchecked, either.)

[transactiongeek]

"Waste circulation"

Absolutely, I am glad that you are boiling the conversation down to this. It's statistical and measurable.

The question then is no longer whether AdSense (or PPC for that matter) should become conversion, the question is now whether or not "Waste circulation" is going to rise to levels unacceptable as a cost of doing business.

My implicit argument has been that it will .. I don't feel I have backed that up well enough to make my point, however I am very hesitant to list the numerous ways to defraud AdSense in a public forum.

Anyone who argues against Conversion really believes that Google can boot the right people and win the cat-and-mouse game against the fraudsters. I suppose this is possible, but only at the cost of killing off the little guy (like RustyACE) and, at least for me, ruining the democratic appeal of the AdSense program.

[europeforvisitors]

Anyone who argues against Conversion really believes that Google can boot the right people and win the cat-and-mouse game against the fraudsters.

I think Google can do a better job of controlling fraud than many people think. The little guys who do dumb things like clicking on their own ads are easy enough to catch, and the big guys face the challenge of how to boost clicks and revenues without artificially inflating their traffic to unrealistic levels so they can maintain believable CTRs. I suspect there's a lot that can be done with statistical analysis; Google has a lot of experience in analyzing linking, keyword, and other patterns in its search engine, so why not apply that "pattern-recognition" technology to fraud detection?

I suppose this is possible, but only at the cost of killing off the little guy (like RustyACE) and, at least for me, ruining the democratic appeal of the AdSense program.

I don't think Google is dumping many "little guys" arbitrarily. However, invalid clicks may trigger a human audit, and if that happens, the quality or intrinsic value of the site as perceived by Google may determine whether Google gives the publisher the benefit of the doubt. I'd guess that Google wants two kinds of publisher in the AdSense network:

1) Publishers who generate significant revenues.

2) Publishers who may not generate significant revenues but fit into Google's utopian vision of what the Web should be.

Little guys who aren't in the first category may need to be in the second category if they want to survive a human audit by the AdSense team.

[RustyACE]

Fortunately for me, Google has forced me to take a look at their competitor's product.

And I can tell you that everything that I didn't like about the Adsense program has been adressed by their competitor's product.

Of, course I've signed a TOS with them so now I'm not about to break one letter of the agreement so I can't say anything except so far it's everything I was looking for in the Adsense program but wasn't able to get.

Squashing the little guy, like me, isn't going to improve the Adsense program. They have fundamental flaws of which many have been brought to light in this thread and others.

The bottom line is this, as long as their is competition, then Google can't just take a knife to the little guys as easily as they could before.

I for one, have taken the Google knife out of my back, wiped the blood off of it and will continue on with their competitor.

Rusty

[europeforvisitors]

Since Brett has made it clear that he doesn't want the competitor discussed in this forum, I'll simply say that (1) I wish Google's competitors well, but (2) I'll adopt a "show me" attitude until there's good reason to believe that such competitors can match AdSense when it comes to delivering targeted advertising and revenue. (The reports that I've heard so far haven't been encouraging, but maybe the competitors will attract more advertisers over time.)

[danny]

Faking CPM is trivial. Just add an invisible WebBrowser component to some popular software utility that you upload to Kazaa and have the software visit the IP address every now and then.

I don't think trojaning thousands of computers counts as "trivial" - it's well beyond the scope of ordinary webmasters. And even that isn't enough by itself. You'd also need a lot of data on web traffic - the kind of data Alexa has, say. And you'd need some pretty damn good stats people.

Which is not to say rorting AdSense is impossible, just that doing it on any scale is going to be decidedly non-trivial - you can't just get a few friends together and set up "click circles".

[Macro]

Of, course I've signed a TOS with them so now I'm not about to break one letter of the agreement

Unless of course something goes wrong with the relationship in which case you'll convince yourself you have justification to break the TOS - like you did with Adsense (by disclosing the stats)?

[RustyACE]

Google cancelled my account. Therefore Google and I had no agreement and the TOS is no longer a valid contract. I disclosed no stats until I was no longer a member of the Adsense program.

Therefore I didn't break the TOS by posting my paultry stats.

Rusty

[Macro]

RustyACE, I do sympathise with your position, and I'd be devastated if Adsense terminated by account BUT which part of the Google TOS said that the confidentiality only applied for as long as you were getting checks from them? Or is that something you've assumed?

Section 8:

You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google's prior written consent

It says nothing about the confidentiality ending when the contract is terminated.

In fact Section 7 says:

Upon termination of participation of any Site in the Program or termination of this Agreement for any reason, Sections 3, 7 through 11, 15, 16 and 17 shall survive termination.

That's what you agreed to. That's one TOS you've definitely broken. I'm unable to comment on whether you've broken any other TOS after - or indeed before - termination of your account (apart from what you've already admitted).

[ncw164x]

Rusty,
while I sympathise with you getting the boot from adsense it is time for you to move on and forget about it, it's a lesson learned, it happens all the time in business, people don't get paid for whatever reasons but you don't hear them going on and on about it

Channel your energy into the future rather than the past and move forward knowing that you wont make the same mistake again (until the next time)

ncw164x

[RustyACE]

This has actually been a short conversation. If we had been at a party this would have taken about 10 min. to discuss what we have so far.

As far as moving on, I have.

This has opened my eyes.

Thanks for all of the input from everyone. This is obviously a passionate topic with many varied points of view.

If I had terminated the agreement with Google I would be true to everyword of the TOS, but they terminated the agreement with me. The TOS I agreed to no longer is a valid contract.

No contract, even Google's TOS, can survive termination by Google. There is no recourse other than removing me from their program if I violate the TOS and since they removed me there is no other recourse.

Kind of a catch 22 for them.

Sorry if my posting stats have offended anyone. I gave away no trade secrets, I revealed no algorithms, I gave away no propritary information. I didn't even attempt to defraud Google.

Rusty

[mbennie]

I am an AdSense publisher and an AdWords buyer. I buy many of the same keywords that I publish.

I have recently stopped having my AdWords ads published on content sites. My cost/conversion was 8X higher than on search listings.

Why is this? Click fraud comes to mind. I had spent tens of thousands of dollars on ads displayed on content sites before I pulled the plug.

I don't click my AdSense Ads and if my employees do, it's grounds for immediate termination.

As for encouraging publishers to click their ads. This is wrong. Very very wrong. This takes real money out of real pockets in the here and now. It is theft.

But, there are longer term ramifications. What will happen when more and more advertisers compare the conversion ratios of their Search/Content ads and pull the plug? Do you really want to have PSA's because there are no advertisers willing to risk their money on fraudulent clicks?

You can debate all day long about the TOS and the ethics and about your right to check content. Keep clicking your own ads and you'll kill the goose that laid the golden egg. It isn't your goose to kill, it belongs to all of us AdSense publishers.

[richmondsteve]

RustyACE wrote:

If I had terminated the agreement with Google I would be true to everyword of the TOS, but they terminated the agreement with me. The TOS I agreed to no longer is a valid contract.

No contract, even Google's TOS, can survive termination by Google. There is no recourse other than removing me from their program if I violate the TOS and since they removed me there is no other recourse.

RustyACE I was going to disagree with you because it is legal for a contract to have specific terms that go beyond the end of any relationship and recourse is definitely not limited in the way you described. However, in this case, based on my interpretation of the TOS, the confidentiality section no longer applies once the agreement is terminated so in the end I think you're safe even though I think your logic is faulty.

From Google AdSense - Terms and Conditions [google.com], Section 7 reads "Upon termination of participation of any Site in the Program or termination of this Agreement for any reason, Sections 3, 7 through 11, 15, 16 and 17 shall survive termination." Since Section 8 is the section on Confidentiality that seems to imply that Section 8 doesn't survive termination.

Warning: I'm not a lawyer.

[Macro]

that seems to imply that Section 8 doesn't survive termination

To me it suggests that it does.

Richmondsteve, am I missing something here... or have I misinterpreted it? Surely "7 through 11" includes "8"?

[richmondsteve]

Macro, I think I need some caffeine...and an editor. Thanks for catching that! I went to read the TOS to clarify and missed the word "through" which means my interpretation about whether confidentiality survives termination was incorrect.

I didn't edit my post because then yours won't make sense, but now that I see that it said "through" my interpretation is that the confidentiality section does in fact survive termination so sharing prohibited statistics is definitely a violation of the AdSense TOS. That's not to say that RustyACE and others might not get away with such violations, but it's important that others here don't go around sharing statistics without at least knowing that it is in fact a violation of the AdSense TOS and legally there are plenty of remedies available besides simply removing a publisher from the program.

[Roomy]

Having followed this thread with interest and being a small time adsense publisher it does occour to me that the Google Adsense TOS ie. contract is grossly unfair in not allowing any form of redress.

In the UK at least, a contract is invalid if it contains unfair terms imposed by a significantly stronger party.

If I break the contract....fine as long as it's fair and equitable I'll take the hit. But I must know that the other party has not made any gain from my services. If they have then I should be compensated or shown that no material gain was made. I should also incidently be given the opportunity to defend my alleged breach and be given details of exactly what my breach was, with accompanying evidence!

Now of course this is impossible with Adsense and this discrepancy in contractual law is another reason why you won't see Google going public or make payments in Sterling to UK financial institutions until it irons out little problems like adsense.

Interestingly Paypal has recently received UK approval and must now publish full details of contractual disputes and provide proper remedies.

[loanuniverse]

In the UK at least, a contract is invalid if it contains unfair terms imposed by a significantly stronger party.

There is something similar in America is called “unconscionable contract terms”. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that Google must have ran the verbiage in the TOS by a lawyer or lawyers. It is also fair to say that noting the location where the contract laws apply “usually” the home state of the party drafting the contract provides another layer of protection when it comes to creating an agreement that will withstand challenge.

Then again, anything can be challenged and sometimes you can even win.

[Roomy]

If they hadn't been on rock solid legal ground I'm sure the TOS would have been challenged long ago, particularly given the wonderfully litigous culture you guys have! Class action?

It still does beggar belief though that this type of contract is regarded as fair. It'll be a whole new ball game when they go public, can you imagine groups of unsatisfied webmasters, making Gordan Gecko speeches at Google shareholder meeetings!

[alika]

Google's TOS is not much different from other banner ad networks. In one form or the other, ad networks include in their contracts words to the effect -- "If your account is judged to be a source of fraudulent clicks, then you are booted out with your income withheld from you."

I've seen other ad networks like Valueclick boot out sites when they deem them to be "cheating" and generating false impressions or clicks. It is not only Google who boots out sites.

So far, no class action suits against banner ad networks ("so far" being the operative word).