Forum Moderators: martinibuster
BUT - to find out who my competitors are I mainly have to click Adwords adverts because they are obviously the ones hard at work promoting their site. The natural results are normally full of information pages and "less specific" firms.
As I'm clicking on Adwords adverts anyway I decided to search from my affiliate search box (why not get a bit of the cash I'm giving to Google?). My question therefore is as these searches are valid and I would be performing them anyway in the course of my duties as a marketer, does earning some cash out of it go against Adwords/Adsense terms and conditions?
I thought I'd be better asking here before declaring my actions to Google!
You're all making me out to be some sort of criminal and someone who doesn't care, the fact that I am asking this question puts me well out of the league of people who do this simply for personal gain. Try and focus on this particular situation rather than feeling like you've "caught" me. I came forward of my own accord asking for help ... and I'm certainly not getting it ...
If you weren't in it for personal gain, it seems like you wouldn't be clicking ads on your "own" site. Why not use the regular google search engine?
If you really want help with your issue and you don't seem to be getting the right answer you want here, why not go straight to the source?
If you email Google Adsense with what you're doing and describe to them what are trying to accomplish, maybe they can come up with a solution for you.
People are reacting to the words you wrote. With so many people having the same reactions, it may be worth looking a bit deeper into what they are trying to get across to you.
I don't think they are necessarily out to "catch you" (I can only speak for myself that I'm not), it's that they are trying to help you NOT lose your Adsense for Search Account and NOT take money from Advertisers.
The fact that you don't have another way to do your research shouldn't even be an issue. If the way you do your research is against the TOS, then you should stop doing it. I think that's the point.
That's probably about all the "help" folks here could give...which is why I suggest you ask Google directly. Maybe you could report back with your findings.
What if all of your competitors did the same thing to you? That could potentially be hundreds of dollars each month!
[money.cnn.com ]Results:
"I think something has to be done about this really, really quickly, because I think, potentially, it threatens our business model," Google chief financial officer George Reyes said at a conference Wednesday.Reasons:
"The main perpetrators appear to be competitors of advertisers and also scam sites set up for the sole purpose of hosting ad links provided by Google, through its AdSense unit, or Yahoo!'s, through its Overture service. Humans or specially designed software then click on those ad links in order to "steal" revenue from advertisers." the article wrote
The scam sites, scrapers and such, can be dealt with somewhat easily. Google just needs to devote more manpower to the issue so they can monitor their publisher base and react to reports submitted by other publishers who are trying to keep the system clean.
Nailing competitors who try to deplete other advertiser's budgets: other than invalidating excess numbers of clicks occurring from the same ip's, how do they do that?
What if all of your competitors did the same thing to you? That could potentially be hundreds of dollars each month!
In my market they probably are, the need to do so for them is probably the same as mine. 1 click a month from 10-20 competitors would not cost me hundreds of dollars, maybe $20-$30. On my other campaigns that pay out thousands a month, there probably is hundreds of dollars of fraud from my competitors.
I'm not trying to scam anyone and I'm really looking for a way around this. I have emailed Google Adsense as suggested by one of the only posters in this thread who sounded reasonable (and therefore believable) and I will post there response for those who are reading this thread and performing the same research.
FromRocky - your post is so far away from what I'm doing and my ethics that I really can't think how to respond ... was that post supposed to say something to me (you used FYI) because it really didn't and I don't think it has a bearing on this thread. Is that what people really think of me by asking this question?
If you weren't in it for personal gain, it seems like you wouldn't be clicking ads on your "own" site. Why not use the regular google search engine?
please advise.
I'm not trying to scam anyone and I'm really looking for a way around this.
Then send your competitors a check each month.
The bottom line is WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS WRONG!
Since there's no way around it, DON'T DO IT!
In my market they probably are, the need to do so for them is probably the same as mine.
"Everyone's doing it......"
That's a nine year old kid's argument.
I'm not trying to scam anyone and I'm really looking for a way around this. I have emailed Google Adsense as suggested by one of the only posters in this thread who sounded reasonable (and therefore believable) and I will post there response for those who are reading this thread and performing the same research.
I can't believe you did that. Is this a Friday afternoon wind up? You didn't email them, did you?
"My account got closed through no fault of my own. G stinks!"
I've been trying so hard to give you the benefit of the doubt...so very hard....thinking I was mis-reading something....wanting to help in some way....
Then you post this:
"Shame to let Google have all the money though, seems unfair, at least this way my competitors and I get back some of our cash!"
Do you realize you have now declared yourself guilty of the very thing you have been declaring yourself innocent of?
What a waste of time and what a waste of a thread!
Folks, there are many people on the forums who really need and would like our help, why waste time on someone who is simply getting their kicks out of drawing people into lengthy meaningless discussions.
Too bad there isn't a "trust" or "karma" rating like slashdot. I'd never read another one of your posts again.
You refuse the help of people trying to help you...all along claiming your innocence, and then 5 pages later...."Oh...by the way....I really did want to steal money from my competitors...and from Google!".
Folks, do everyone a favor....next time internetheaven posts a question, think long and hard about your time, and how to best put it to use.
This thread will at least prove to be a another reminder for any other Adsense newbies out there that you dont mess with it.
I never wait more than 48 hours for replies from Adsense.They are amazingly good that way for a company when you consider the mind boggling volumes they deal in.
I wil be surprised if you dont get cut, thats pushing the envelope in the biggest way and i doubt they'll want to see a follow up post by you here saying they forgave you after that kind of activity, but if you've been running ads for a while with no problems like this before, you never know...
Not everyone is a weathered adsense veteran. I'm sure this issue will continue to surface for years.
I dunno, I think that it's troubling that even someone brand-new would consider clicking competitors' ads, on their own site no less. The first day I went to the Adsense website to learn about it and found out that the way it worked was that the publishers get money from click-throughs, my *first* thought was, "Huh, publishers would try to cheat by clicking the ads on their own sites. I suppose for that reason that Google disallows all clicks on ads on your own site through their TOS." Then I checked the TOS. Bingo.
What would be better, 100 posts filled with hatred for what I'm doing, or 1 that helps me to find a different way?
Maybe the hatred is useful in impressing upon you *how far* over the line this one is. From your responses I'm not sure the message has gotten through (and I think that's what's fueled the continued tirade). But in any event, the posters here *have* tried to help you. I'll say again whath others mentioned: right-click an ad and then choose "Copy Shortcut" to get the address onto the clipboard without actually clicking through on the ad.
Shame to let Google have all the money though, seems unfair, at least this way my competitors and I get back some of our cash! ;)
(groan)
I do understand the "letter of the law" of Google Adsense but surely if you were on your own site and an ad came up for something you were interested in and you clicked it, that click is not wrong?
Do you want to be right in what you think or do you want to run AdSense?
If you click on the "Ads by Goooooogle" it lists the url's without the google tracking, just copy and paste these into a new browser window.
I know when I use adwords I send my links to www.example.com/somepage/ but I list the domain in the ad as www.example.com. I imagine I'm not the only person who does this. Is there a way to find the EXACT landing page of an adsense ad without clicking?
Does it harm anyone? Yes. Does google allow this behavior? Absolutely not. I have my own adsense campaign and never touched any of my competitors ads. You should be ashamed and I hope they catch you. If you want to check out the competition try a YAHOO search!
Always check with them if its not clear in the TOS.
I never wait more than 48 hours for replies from Adsense.They are amazingly good that way for a large company when you consider the mind boggling volumes they deal in.
Sorry , i was too late for an owner edit,just wanted to clarify.
I know when I use adwords I send my links to www.example.com/somepage/ but I list the domain in the ad as www.example.com. I imagine I'm not the only person who does this. Is there a way to find the EXACT landing page of an adsense ad without clicking?
Yet again: Control-click the url and chose "Copy Shortcut" to put it on the clipboard. That's the full url including Google's tracking. Filter out the tracking junk from the beginning and end of the url and you have the advertiser's url.
Go ahead, someone ask this question for a fourth time. :)
"Everyone's doing it......" That's a nine year old kid's argument.
Please could you point out at which moment I said the "everyone's doing it" statement? I never made that argument but if you can't think of something helpful (or indeed truthful) to say toward this discussion I suppose you'll just have to resort to making stuff up to have a go at me about.
"My account got closed through no fault of my own. G stinks!"
Why would I say that? If they shut me down because they feel I've broken the terms and conditions then they have every right.
I've been trying so hard to give you the benefit of the doubt... Then you post this: "Shame to let Google have all the money though, seems unfair, at least this way my competitors and I get back some of our cash!"
The use of the exclamation mark and the little winking face usually distinguishes what a poster is saying as humerous or just taking the mickey. I'm sorry, I should have made that more clear for newbies.
You and people like you are the reason that I don't advertise with google anymore.
One click a month on 10-20 competitor's ads - since when did I become the international fraudster? I click on my OWN ads periodically to check the tracking isn't interfering with my own session IDs and scripting and if think I may have forgotten to change the landing page on that particular advert but can't bothered logging in, finding the campaign, finding the advert ... should I write myself a cheque in compensation? "Here you go Mike, that's the $0.12 I owe you for last month ..."
I imagine I'm not the only person who does this. Is there a way to find the EXACT landing page of an adsense ad without clicking?Go ahead, someone ask this question for a fourth time. :)
Ah! But you're the only one to have answered it. Unless someone answered mid "evil-terrorist-rant" so we didn't bother reading it. Thanks MichaelBlueJay.
Walrus - Always check with them if its not clear in the TOS. Sorry , i was too late for an owner edit,just wanted to clarify.
Fair point, in hind-sight I should have written Adsense first. But that's hind-sight - I've done it, I've come clean in public and I've written to Google Adsense.
The rest of you can vent your anger at fraudsters if you like, but how about creating a different thread for general statements? What you are doing is comparing "walking out the store with a candy-bar forgetting you picked it up" with "armed robbery of a bank". Both are wrong but they don't deserve the same response. I've done this only for the past two months and I'm here trying to sort things out. Keep calling a guy a criminal when he gets out of jail and he'll re-offend for sure ... maybe if you were a little more lenient more people would come forward and discuss problems.
Who in their right mind would now ask if what they are doing is right if this is the response they get from the forums? You've closed doors I was opening.
you are perfectly aware the candy bar is in your jacket pocket. You went into the store with the explicit intention of taking the candy bar and even came onto this forum saying that you did it and why you do it. There was nothing forgetful or "subconscious" about it at all.
don't create fake analogies to defend what is, at the end of the day, theft.
If that same guy was a marketing student, and was genuinely interested in finding out how the customer service of that insurance company was wrong - would it be any less wrong? Of course not.
Your stance reminds me of the people that register at our forums just to post a link to their site for advertisement. We sometimes get > dozen a day. These poeple cannot be convinced that what they are doing is harmful for the community, they think because it's only a tiny thing ("it's just one message!") for us. Of course the internet makes every "tiny thing" by repetition and imitation a huge thing very quickly. And the damage done is very real.
It's like saying "ok, I took part in burying him alive, but I only threw a handful of dirt on him" - just a handful - like everybody else.
How about we quit the "you're evil stuff", I get it - people don't like me, fine. But do you all have to say the same stuff? We're on page six of this thread and maybe only 2-3 questions have been asked/answered/addressed. Like I said, you're not really encouraging people to ask questions about what they're doing by having six pages of hate. Offering alternative solutions to a problem is the only way to change someone's mind about something and the only way to get other webmasters to publicly admit to something in search for another way.
"Stoning people" went out a long time ago, it's all about re-habilitation and education now ...
Speeding costs tens of thosands of lives every year ..but when was the last time you seen anyone doing the speed limit..
I think it's just a sad reflection on our species ..all the rules apply ..except to me mentality some live that mentality meekly others flaunt it and will tell you no one can do anything about it..
I say Let G drop the Hammer .. Hire a few hundred "Quality control" people and start dropping PEOPLE and Companies from the program
Everyone has told you to read the TOS AGAIN & AGAIN ..and change your ways.. but you insist you dont want that eduction..
Yes stoning is out (shame) ..so hopefully G will just trace your IP and ban you from the adwords and adsense programs.
Who in their right mind would now ask if what they are doing is right if this is the response they get from the forums? You've closed doors I was opening.
Internetheaven - you started by asking a question and were given the answer clearly and unambiguously. You tried to mitigate it and once again it was pointed out that what you were doing was completely wrong and that there were no circumstances where it was acceptable.
You countered this by once again trying to justify what you had done. I think it was the fact that you would not accept that what you had done was wrong that started to frustrate people. The fact remains that clicking on your own Ads is wrong. It consitutes theft and Google will ban you for life if you are caught. There is no grey in this situation, only black or white but I still hope you have a merry xmas :)
But do you all have to say the same stuff?
I'm guessing that as long as you keep trying to justify one or two clicks a month as "OK", then people are going to keep trying to communicate to you that it is wrong in different ways in order to impress on you that it is not OK.
The message before you posted the above quote, you tried to defend your actions once again by comparing it to "accidental" theft by a kid in a candy store.
That brought on another wave of people posting how that was a flawed analogy.
It seems that each time you try to rationalize the theft, more people post to counter your rationalizations.
Maybe you could post a message saying that you understand what you were doing is wrong, and you won't do it again.
Heck, even if you don't believe it, it could at least change the tone of the responses in the thread :)
Everyone has told you to read the TOS AGAIN & AGAIN ..and change your ways.. but you insist you dont want that eduction..
I know what the TOS says. I already agreed that it was "wrong", try reading my posts. Like the last one that talked about repeating the same thing over and over ...
You countered this by once again trying to justify what you had done. I think it was the fact that you would not accept that what you had done was wrong that started to frustrate people.
I did accept that it was "wrong", and that it was "against TOS". I was trying to get the point across that my intentions were not malicious and that the couple of dollars I might have earned from it should not make my actions that of "personal gain". If I sent a cheque for $0.50 to all my competitors to compensate them they'd probably laugh in my face and throw it in the bin.
I was defending my ethics against those of intentional fraudsters whose only goal is to earn money from clicking on others ads. I was defending myself against the generalisation and the spiteful comments that I feel are unwarranted in this situation. I'm not trying to rip anyone off, I'm not depleting anyone's account, I'm not trying to screw over Adsense, I'm not in charge of a fraudulent clicking ring, these clicks I'm talking about constitute 0.4% of my total clickthroughs on Adsense etc. etc. etc.
Does this make it any less wrong? NO! That's why I'm here talking about it. You guys didn't catch me in the act, I'm owning up to it and trying to find out alternatives. Hell, I bet none of you have kids otherwise they're going to be screwed up for life if this is the way you deal with owning up to things ... I'm ready to accept any punishment GOOGLE sees fit which is why I emailed them. I was trying to have an open discussion here, not a witch hunt ...
It consitutes theft and Google will ban you for life if you are caught. There is no grey in this situation, only black or white but I still hope you have a merry xmas :)
"Caught"? I told THEM I'm doing it, with only 0.4% of the clickthroughs being mine I'm pretty sure they would never have "caught" me anyway. This constitutes a lack of understanding - I'll put up with being called stupid but don't call me a thief ...
... oh, and merry christmas to you too. Just out of curiosity, do you tell your kids Santa exists? That's a lie isn't it? If a couple of clicks makes me an international thief then surely you're all liars ... and to your own kids too ... the shame of it ... ;)
Black and white = theft is theft and a lie is a lie, it doesn't matter what the intention or the understanding was. I personally don't like the sound of that and I have every intention of telling my kids Santa exists and if I'm on a motorway with no-one else on it I'll still sneak up a couple of MPH. I understand rules but I also understand tolerance.
I think the reason you stirred up a hornets nest is many webmasters prior to adsense found it difficult to moniterise their websites and are worried that to many advertisers are seeing content advertising as fraut with fraud and are opting out of content advertising or bidding very low and webmasters are concerned that the income which was a godsend to small publishers could be lost if too many publishers abuse the system , if fraud does grow then the advertisers will build it into their cpc as part of ensuring ROI .
I also would like to ask you a question if you were booted from adsense would it hurt your bottom line if so suspect you yourself would ensure you did not jeopordise the additional income it provides , one further note if your compitiion does some form of checking clicks they could identify and report you to big G .
steve
your post may have had very negative response but very brave to have put it up to be shot at
PS merry xmas to you
