Forum Moderators: martinibuster
2) Is it against the TOS to make an effort to conceal the origin of the traffic? What I mean is.. putting every in-bound link thru a local referrer switch/re-direct, so the only referrers Google would see - would be something like yoursite.com/trafficmgmt.php?as=348&sdj=uuihA&8 ?
3) Did anyone get in trouble for doing what's described in #2?
P.S. To prevent overzealous replies (like "o but why would u wanna do this to good ol G?"), let me state the following right away:
We know that G is very secretive about many things (when secrecy benefits their business model) - so I believe I have my right to not disclose certain proprietary business information to G either.
I would would personally be leery of you, if all your data was concealed. If I were google, I would have to wonder why?
You would put yourself in a small minority, and that would attract attention to yourself.
They may not even be able to figure out *why* you are doing it, and they may take the stance of "Why risk it?" and get rid of you.
Just a thought..
[edited by: MThiessen at 5:36 pm (utc) on April 21, 2007]
MThiessen said all I wanted to say.
2. Yes, although I'm not certain it's spelled out in the TOS.
3. Yes, "sneaky redirects" is one reason they have given for banning a publisher's site. For obvious reasons.
The question of the referrer came up in another thread a while ago, and when you actually mimic Google's code, you can see that the referring page to the current page is visible to Google (or was at the time).
so I believe I have my right to not disclose certain proprietary business information to G either.
Unfortunately, it'll be Google that determines that. Just as you can leave them, they can leave you. I'd read the TOS very thoroughly, or just simply find another advertiser. No need for you to game them, or for you to feel gamed.
2) So it's not against the TOS but given the power of G ya'll simply afraid to try because G can ban you with no valid reason at all and steal your earnings with no re-course. You're basically afraid the G monster might not "like" it.
3) I'd be interested to hear from/about people who actually tried. I don't think I'm the only LEGITIMATE publisher who doesn't feel like providing G with information they're not entitled to.
I don't think I'm the only LEGITIMATE publisher who doesn't feel like providing G with information they're not entitled to.
Bear in mind that Google is not forcing you to put their AdSense code in your pages. The easiest step if you want to keep information to yourself is to avoid the AdSense programme.
ya'll simply afraid to try
G probably doesn't give a s*** about where your customers came from except (a) to help reassure itself that your traffic is legit and (b) *possibly* for general statistical purposes and (c) *possibly* to help in its general crackdown on MFA contentless arbitrage "Web SPAM". I think (a) is the most likely, and doesn't hurt you at all. The rest only hurt you if G cares and if you are hurting the end-user Web experience (in G's opinion, and mine in this case too).
Rgds
Damon
Now, if they noticed this and said "we don't like it, so we don't want you as a partner, byebye" - that would be 1 thing and I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Another thing is when they would say "we dont like it so we don't want you as a partner AND we're gonna STEAL all of your un-paid earnings". Now that's something different, and of course I would have a problem with that.
I'm talking about this to respond to people who mentioned the partner-partner thing. You don't wanna be my partner for whatever reason? Fine. But that doesn't give you the right to steal the money I earned WITHOUT VIOLATING YOUR RULES OR ANY LAWS during our partnership.
Now for those who like to jump to conclusion and make assumptions: I've never been banned by Adsense.
But I have heard many stories of G banning people who did NOT violate TOS or any laws AND STEALING THEIR MONEY (yea, chew on this). Are you gonna go as far as to say, there's never been a case of G "withholding" (stealing) Adsense earnings when they had absolutely NO legitimate/legal reason to do so?
But I have heard many stories of G banning people who did NOT violate TOS or any laws AND STEALING THEIR MONEY
Yes, so have I. I've never seen any evidence though. The same story can be retold many times in many different places very loudly. That doesn't make it true.
Lucky for me I don't and I do.
Sounds like you are just plain in the wrong business.
Then, a big time issue could well be problems with traffic from "auto-surf" programs, so they'd absolutely need to know the source of traffic for that reason alone. I've seen a site that got booted that had been involved with auto-surf programs.
[edited by: Marcia at 11:07 pm (utc) on April 23, 2007]
I wouldn't be so sure. Evidence from when we were temporarily missing from the G index, seemed to show pretty clearly that they valued clicks originating from visitors who got to our site from OTHER search engines much more highly than those who found us from G.
Just like G doesn't tell you how much of each click's worth it takes for itself and how much it gives to you. Very neat, basic piece of info... anyone in any normal "partnership" would not mind knowing, eh? But you accept this concealment of crucial business information simply because G says "we're not disclosing it".
So G doesn't disclose whatever they feel like.. and I don't think I have to disclose my traffic origins as long as I'm not breaking TOS. Only seems fair to me.
Anyway, it looks like I'm not gonna get a response from people who actually tried what I've described. Cause this forum is full of people who think G stands for God and who are scared to death to do anything that might potentially displease this "God".
I'll say again as I did above, at least one WW member seems to have done what you are suggesting and come a cropper afterwards (discussed in private email and I'm not going to "out" them) whether by coincidence or not.
Unless your volume is *huge* then it's unlikely to be worth G's effort to treat you differently to all its other partners and take "on trust" what you feel that you need to keep from them. G may simply not find your business worth its risk and time for special-case handling, without any view on the rightness or wrongness of your actions or theirs. AS/AW is a mass-market product.
Rgds
Damon
If you are using their javascript and putting it on your site, and therevby on your user's machine then they can see whatever they want and you gave them the ok for that.
If you don't want their client side code on your client's browser then don't use adsense.
simple as that
if you want to try and hide that info you are probably going to have to play with the js and that will definitely get you banned if caught
as DamonHD mentioned, yes people have gotten banned for what you are asking
The thing about bouncing the traffic around is that your referers will get harder to track for you, your users may have some issues if you miss something and really
what's the point?
No, I don't think G has a "right" to know the origins and other proprietary details of my traffic. If they have a valid reason to believe that my traffic violates TOS, then yes, they could investigate and ask me the origins. But it should not be a "guilty until proven innocent" thing.
Marcia explained why Google might need to know where your traffic comes from. And how does monitoring to prevent potential fraud equate with as assumption that you're "guilty until proven innocent?" It's just common sense, like having security people in a casino or auditors in a bank. What's more, it's completely voluntary on your part, because you aren't locked into a long-term contract--you can tell Google to get stuffed at any time.
I will not tamper with the Adsense Javascript in any way and will put it on my site in its uber-pristine-virgin site. What I intend to do... is pass all incoming traffic to the page that contains Adsense thru an onsite traffic handling (re-direction) script.
This does not violate Adsense TOS but it does limit the Adsense Javascript's ability to spy on the origins (Referrers) of my traffic (as all referrers will look like mysite.com/traffic.php?param1=2289as¶m2=whatever8933
you might run into some issues with this, probably when spiders come to look at specific pages
how are you going to intercept the incoming traffic? I would assume the excample you showed would not be what you see in SEs
And I read what you said too. And as I said, another WW member who similarly 'laundered' traffic seemed to be in significant difficulty (not banned, just rotten ROI etc) with G afterwards, which may or may not be linked.
If G can't vouch for the clicking traffic, G may not pay well (or at all) for it.
Elsewhere it has been suggested that G may pay *more* for traffic from certain sources, eg possibly from its competitors. If so, you'd probably lose out there for a start.
Rgds
Damon
