Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Are there any suggestions? Should I start looking for a new ad provider (any suggestions for good one for a content site)? I'd really like to stay with google, I've been with them for about 5 months without any trouble. I have never clicked on my own ads except maybe once or twice when I first started using adsense.
Thanks.
I have never clicked on my own ads except maybe once or twice when I first started using adsense.
You did violate their TOS. You deserve to be booted.
May I ask how many clicks you get daily? Your own few clicks may not be significant at all if you have like 700 clicks a day. If you only get like 100 clicks a month, a few clicks amount to quite a bit... IMHO.
[edit: fixed wording to make more sense :)]
[edited by: rlkanter at 1:47 am (utc) on May 26, 2004]
BTW, Google sent you FOUR account removal notification within the same hour?
Did you buy the traffic or the links? Is the source site independant, or were you funneling traffic from one of your own sites? How come the traffic dropped off again - was it a "cool site of the day" type of thing? Was the new content you added along the same theme as the rest of your site, or targeted towards higher-value ads?
BTW, Google sent you FOUR account removal notification within the same hour?
Yes, I received 2 the same minute, and 2 more about 40 minutes later, all with different reference #'s.
Did you buy the traffic or the links? Is the source site independant, or were you funneling traffic from one of your own sites? How come the traffic dropped off again - was it a "cool site of the day" type of thing? Was the new content you added along the same theme as the rest of your site, or targeted towards higher-value ads?
One of the large sites that covers the same topic I do featured me as a "New" site to checkout. I'm still on their main page, but not "New" anymore. The new content was an extension of what was already on the site. It had the same ads, and was on the same topic as the rest of the site.
I'm really curious how they handle that situation.
Take a look at CJ Evolution. They are setting up an AdSense type solution.
Fortunately, it's pay by conversion so they probably couldn't careless how many fraudulent clicks you send through..
What if people buy adwords but have nothing to sell? How would you charge them?
Adsense is just fine, no need to suggest a conversion payment method anymore, it is this way for a reason.
I removed about 150 filters I had set on various sites so the percentage of clicks and payout went up a lot. But I didn’t get a letter from (G). Assuming that you couple of clicks were not the problem, is it possible that you logged into your adsense account on a computer that someone may have used later and clicked on some ads?
Yes, I received 2 the same minute, and 2 more about 40 minutes later, all with different reference #'s.
I really believe Google is using a mathematical formula that takes several stats into consideration, and once you hit a certain score, you are automatically shutdown.
Is there any possiblity that someone you know may have been trying to "help" you by clicking on ads?
(ex. a moderator at your forum)
Have you analyzed you server log files? Seems you recieved some sort of automatic notification. I would research hard to understand what has happened and maybe help GG and yourself to better estimate what has happened.
I read about these sort of things all the time here on WW. I am absolutely terrified to even come close with my curser to a Adsense ad. I would like to understand how one can be removed from the program by no fault of theirs. This would help all of us to combat fraud!
Post your research here!
Previously I was receiving approx 15k clicks a month but the per day clicks about doubled with the increase in traffic recently.
I would be very surprised if your account was disabled solely because clicks doubled and impressions increased by a factor of 2-4 (according to the first post in this thread).
jomaxx wrote:
I doubt a simple increase in traffic would do it. Every website has considerable fluctuations. Google must have seen something that looked like invalid activity of some kind.
I agree with jomaxx that it's likely due to something other than a simple increase in traffic. In a post of mine from October [webmasterworld.com] (scroll down to msg #5) I noted that one of my sites running AdSense had page views and visitors increase by factors of 15 and 20 respectively over a 3 day period. On a number of occasions the same site had daily AdSense impressions, clicks and earnings increase by factors of 10-30, 5-15 and 3-10 respectively due to links from popular sites, mention in a popular 6-figure distro newsletter and additional linking from other sites that resulted. To put it in perspective, prior to these spikes the site was serving daily impressions in the high 4-figures and clicks in the 3-figures. There was never a warning email or banning of the web site as a result. It was legitimiate traffic and had it been analyzed for fraud I suspect that it would have looked legitimate as well. YMMV.
However, I did get a warning from Google about clicking on my own banners. So I emailed them back and mentioned that I had clicked on it and actually purchased from the site and they said ok, but not to do it again...
I worry about employees clicking on the Adsense banners on our site. I've told them not to but since most have our site set as their homepage it's just a matter of time before someone gets intrigued by a banner ad they see...
Just isolate your computer on which you check AdSense ads from other employees' PCs. Get a dedicated internet connection or whatnot.
Is it possible that a competitor or a competitor of someone who's ads show on your site launched a click attack?
Is there any possiblity that someone you know may have been trying to "help" you by clicking on ads?
I guess the sudden spike of traffic hit you out. Most cheaters are greedy, and if they start cheating, they can't hold back to click lots of ads an generate lots of traffic from one day to the other. And since your CTR also rised, I bet your traffic pattern seemed really suspicious to the google alogorithm.
Have you analyzed you server log files? Seems you recieved some sort of automatic notification. I would research hard to understand what has happened and maybe help GG and yourself to better estimate what has happened.
I'm still waiting to hear back from google, but from what I've heard going back through older threads I couldn't find many specific examples of them reversing their decision.
Thanks for all replies, I'll keep you informed if I find anything concrete or hear back from them.
I don't have any forums, and the people I have told about the page I've told to make sure they don't click more then once every few weeks if that often
This part stuck out to me.
When you told people about your site, did you tell them to click the ads, but just not more than once every few weeks?
If so, this might have shown up as a pattern on Google's end. If the same people are clicking ads on the same site from the same IP addresses (which ever ones they have), then it could be seen as fraudulent activity.
You would probably have been better off telling people to NOT click on the ads at all.
They may have thought they were helping you out, or they may have just clicked more often than the thought. Either way, it doesn't "sound" good.
At, say, 2% CTR, you would get 300 clicks a month. or more pertinently 10 clicks a day.
Not difficult to see how Google could spot even a couple of friends clicking!
>> I was receiving approx 15k clicks a month but the per day clicks about doubled with the increase in traffic recently<<At, say, 2% CTR, you would get 300 clicks a month. or more pertinently 10 clicks a day.
No, I receive 15k clicks, not impressions.
