Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Surely if your company had been defrauded the sum of $200k, you wouldn't want to co-operate with them anymore? What makes matter more interesting is, over the last 5 months Google have paid out $386k to me, which means over 50% of all my clicks have been invalid. Assuming this has been going on for months and months, why was I never told this during any of the recent and frequent conversations I have with my member of the google optimization staff, especially when the converstaions were about increasing my revenue and optimizing my site?
I hope for certain that this is a decimal point error, but if they intend to deduct over $200,000 from my account over the next few months, I'll be left with little choice but to pull the google ads and replace them with adverts that will actually generate me some income.
Anyone have any thoughts on this matter?
This story is scary. :\
But first, I'd talk to my premium rep for help in figuring out what it is that is wrong, and for any help they could give me to combat this problem in the future. This might help to identify what it is in the past that caused this problem.
Very good luck to the OP. I am interested in your result, and would appreciate it if you could keep me posted. I hope it IS a mistake with the decimal point.
[edited by: RonS at 3:04 am (utc) on Nov. 22, 2006]
Assuming this has been going on for months and months, why was I never told this during any of the recent and frequent conversations I have with my member of the google optimization staff, especially when the converstaions were about increasing my revenue and optimizing my site?
Possibly, the clicks had not been determined "invalid" until recently. Click fraud can be generated to look valid. But if new information arrives, such as a botnet discovered to have generated click fraud over some time period, clicks can be reclassified.
Andreals, following your logic, should we all now set aside 50% of our earnings as “insurance” against being sued for any invalid clicks Google may claim in the future?
Yes, you should. This is yet another aspect of the "dark side" of AdSense. The money you made may not be yours to keep.
I like the pawn shop analogy; quite fitting.
But if new information arrives, such as a botnet discovered to have generated click fraud over some time period...
MyGen, my condolences. You run an awsome site. I don't think the take-back of earnings is right. I can't believe more than half your earnings would be fraudulent, and Google only finds this out now.
Well, they can't eat the costs of the "invalid" clicks; that would cut into profits; no more US $500+ shares. If they decide to smartprice some publishers, that will generate howls from the smartpriced. What are they supposed to do?
The nature of click fraud is such that clicks can be easily made to look legit. They might be reclassified if additional information is discovered, such as a fraudulent botnet or click ring.
But it does seem extremely strange for Google to have actually paid out such a vast amount over such a long period of time before discovering the error.
Why? The clicks probably didn't look questionable enough to raise flags. If the OP had been paid less over that time period, the OP might very well have complained about smartpricing.
G says you owe them $200K for invalid clicks. This means the invalid clicks your site generated over the past few months amount to $400k+. wow
You say that you're earning between $50 to $100K ($75k avg.) a month and that you are estimating 50% of the clicks were invalid.
Now G wants their money back... I heard someone say on this thread that it could take you 4 months to pay them back and start earning again.... Not by my count. If G "fixes" whatever problem that caused the invalid clicks, your earnings will DROP by 50%. At that rate it will take you 5.3 months before you make another penny. If they or you don't fix the problem, you will keep aon accumulating more debts every month for invalid clicks.
Whose to say that, out of the readjusted $37500 of monthly revenue you have left, G wont find more problems now that you are under the microscope? They could easily find more "invalid clicks" as you are paying back your debt and therefore extending you Penance.
I say if you go down this road, be prepared for no revenues for at least 6 to 9 months.
Advice: #%$^& man I don't know what to say.... What a predicament! If I was in your shoes and G didn't come up with a solution where you could still earn, I think I may dump AS for "Punch the monkey for a free Ipod" ads and pay the mortgage.
Gregbo, what's your point? Are you arguing the story ISN'T strange? It is.
Strange, yes. Implausible, no. But I've been saying all along that fraudulent clicks can be made to look legit. So it is quite possible that G thought all along that some clicks were legit, until they came across some new information that caused them to reclassify some clicks. This may just be the first of many accounts that are retroactively flagged for "invalid" clicks that weren't caught earlier.
[google.com...]
Please note that if a publisher's account is found to be in violation of our Terms and Conditions or policies, we may at any time withhold payment (beginning from when Google initiates its investigation of potential violations), charge back the publisher's account, and/or refund advertisers for clicks received on the publisher's site or AdSense for search results page. In addition, if a publisher is past due on any payment to Google in connection with the Google AdWords program, we reserve the right to withhold payment until all outstanding payments have been made.
For a complete description of payment terms, please refer to the AdSense Terms and Conditions.
Ann
On the other hand, should the story be true, then I wish the OP all the best fighting for the money. It can't be true that Google just "discovers" click fraud of that volume and demands money back. As one other poster in this thread said - "shall we all put away 50% of our revenues as insurance?". I don't think so.
Those were deemed fine BUT then a TOS violation cropped up (was discovered) on site that would allow Google to recoup a percentage of clicks they deemed right as measured against how long the violation was in force, ie, not caught by Google but put there by the webmaster.
Some people cannot bear to tell the truth on themselves so
I think it is another case of 'I did no wrong, it's all Google's fault'
Those were deemed fine BUT then a TOS violation cropped up (was discovered) on site..
Ann could this also not have been a concerted effort by a competitor of some regularly appearing ad or of the OP to run out the budget or damage the OP's AS account.
We have to give him the benefit of the doubt that he is indeed an innocent victim here.
In either case Google would have the right to refund the advertisers and re-coup the payments.
When G goes ahead and pays out, I always thought that's a thumbs up/stamp of approval that everything was ok for the preceding month, and all clicks had been validated?
Either there's something really odd going on here, or we should all start worrying that our payments can be clawed back at any time, for any reason.
Like all of these stories we don't have enough information to tell what's really happening, and probably never will.
But whatever it is, the need for accumulating as large a liquid cash reserve as possible is once again the lesson.
As a desert dweller I take my cue from the cactus plants around me--they can survive long dry spells and other insults by prudently accumulating water when it is available. If you don't know what a diversified portfolio of investments is, find out TODAY and begin one. Whether or not you have a crisis to meet in the future it will someday make you happy, that is certain.
What happened here has to be an 'in house' problem to allow Google to demand repayment. It was possibly caught with a human review of the site. In house Tos violation appears to be the ONLY way it could happen.
Ann
Just my take on it according to Googles rules.
However, if you saw your account credited in error. Withdrew all monies and closed the account, they could not get the money back. Perhaps this is the same with Google. If he closed his account immediately, stopped showing adsense adverts, I wonder whether they would legally be able to recoup? Anyone?
'These days it is often used sweepingly to justify an inconsistency. Those who use it seem to be saying that the existence of a case that doesn’t follow a rule proves the rule applies in all other cases and so is generally correct, notwithstanding the exception. This is nonsense, because the logical implication of finding that something doesn’t follow a rule is that there must be something wrong with the rule.'
I used "the exception that proves the rule" in its idiomatic proverbial sense which is generally understood and accepted. Yes, it can be parsed in such a way that it becomes nonsense, but that is true of most natural language which is almost always ambiguous and equivocal. People with too much time on their hands just love to waste my time this way.
I intend to continue using this proverb in its generally accepted sense. But for those who insist on nit-picking let's call it a "statistical outlier that does not change the overall picture."
[edited by: Andreals at 5:04 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2006]
As it is it is like Google saying: if it wasn't for you and your website we would not have incurred these loses - so pay us. There's google for ya.
If you do that without knowing the source of the invalid clicks, whoever you join will encounter the same problem.
And to those of you that would "love to have that problem" no you wouldn't. You earn a great deal of money you get used to it, you depend on it, and when large sums are pulled aways from you it can be far more emotionally devastating then loosing a relatively small amount, even if the percentages are the same.
The OP is most likely silent now at Gs request I would assume. This is likely a "classified" exchange of information and not intended for the public.
