Invalid clicks problem: Google says they are aware .

and are working on a possible solution

[ken_b]

I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more dicussion in this forum. Especially when a number of posters here have commented on the "adjustment"between estimated and finalized earnings the last few months.

AdSense TrafficTeamGoogle Employee

May 22

Hey all,

This is Andrew from the Ad Traffic Quality Team at Google. We're aware of a problem with a third-party crawler in the network that is generating invalid activity across a number of different publishers. We've recently made some changes to our filtering so that this invalid activity will be excluded more quickly from your earnings reports and the discrepancy between estimated and actual earnings will be smaller.

Andrew

I'm having trouble getting the link tp load right now, keep getting an error message.

[productforums.google.com...]

[edited by: incrediBILL at 11:11 am (utc) on Jun 9, 2012]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]

[Scurramunga]

Translation: So watch your credited ctr drop even further as an Google moves to high alert.

[IanCP]

I didn't even bother to to read Ken's link.

That says it all.

[ADDED]

No reflection on Ken.

I no longer trust Google.

[rustybrick]

Here is the link to the thread [productforums.google.com...]

[AdTrafficQuality]

Hi everyone -

If you need any clarification on this issue please let me know.

Thanks!
John

[CrimsonGirl]

I just looked at my account and OH MY GOODNESS.

In the past the estimated earnings at month's end have differed from the actual amount paid 4 weeks later by less than a dollar.

This month it is going to be an almost 2% difference.

Really surprised Google is having these problems at this late a stage in AdSense's lifecycle.

[Lame_Wolf]

Who said they were having problems ?

[Leosghost]

Hi everyone -

If you need any clarification on this issue please let me know.

Thanks!
John

OK John ..clarify, why the discrepancies ?

[AdTrafficQuality]

For more information about the difference between estimated and finalized earnings, please visit our Help Center at: [support.google.com ]

Hopefully that helps!

John

[Leosghost]

Not really .."clarify".. doesn't mean point the readers at the help centre..they already knew where it was..and what was there ..unless you guys at G have changed it since the thread started ..

[ken_b]

For more information about the difference between estimated and finalized earnings, please visit our Help Center at: [support.google.com ]

That doesn't really address the question in this thread John (AdTrafficQuality).

The question in this thread is what Google knows about these "crawler(s)" running amok on publishers sites and what they are doing about it. The link/quote in the OP mentions that Google is aware of the problem.

This is Andrew from the Ad Traffic Quality Team at Google. We're aware of a problem with a third-party crawler in the network that is generating invalid activity across a number of different publishers. [productforums.google.com...]
Has Google solved the problem?

[AdTrafficQuality]

Yes, I was pointing to the Help Center article to help clarify the differences between estimated and finalized earnings incase some weren't aware of why the situation occurs.

In this particular case, we have identified third party crawlers that are generating invalid ad activity across the network, and are actively filtering them so that they result in a minimized difference between estimated and finalized earnings. Our goal is to provide publishers with a more accurate view into their earnings when viewing estimated versus finalized.

[HuskyPup]

In this particular case, we have identified third party crawlers that are generating invalid ad activity across the network

Insofar as I am concerned, can you clarify that for some of us this has only been happening for the last couple of months?

I ask this simply because since the inception of AdSense my finalised earnings have never had a deduction until the past two months and at a time when my earnings this month will be about 3.5% of just a few years back, and in fact about 67% compared to January/February this year, it just makes me wonder at which point I would need to start paying Google for displaying ads?

[AdTrafficQuality]

While I can't publicly speak about any one publishers case in particular, in general we have identified increased activity from these crawlers that might have not been a problem for some publishers in the past. This could be a reason for the recent deduction.

[HuskyPup]

@AdTrafficQuality

Here's possibly a stupid question for you.

Just what do these crawlers derive from this activity?

Surely the only beneficiary would be the publisher and Google? The downside is obviously the advertiser is paying for nothing.

Or...and I appreciate this is a difficult one for you to to answer, are these random rogue crawlers (RRC) going anywhere or could they be programmed RRCs from a major AdSense publisher(s) who have their incomes artifically boosted and G has to find and delete them?

I understand completely if you have to give an extremely veiled answer, I'm just trying to wrap my head around their overall purpose other than some method of click fraud keeping G busy.

[AdTrafficQuality]

Hi HuskyPup -

Crawlers could be used for all sorts of reasons, and the relative difficulty in setting up and operating them has decreased as the technology matures.

That being said, we do know that these crawlers are generating invalid activity in the network intentionally or not, and our goal is to help ensure that publishers do not see such a large discrepancy between the estimated and finalized earnings when these clicks are filtered.

Hopefully that clarifies things.

[pixar24]

just as the months before, the difference between estimated and finalized earnings is 20%.
I blocked the Amazon crawler ( as suggested in another post), and hoped this would have been the cause of the invalid clicks, but I see no difference.

[Lame_Wolf]

That being said, we do know that these crawlers are generating invalid activity in the network intentionally or not, and our goal is to help ensure that publishers do not see such a large discrepancy between the estimated and finalized earnings when these clicks are filtered.

I'd rather see discrepancies than an email from Google to say they have suspended/banned me for no fault of my own.

[Str82u]

I'd rather see discrepancies than an email from Google to say they have suspended/banned me for no fault of my own.

AMEN Brother.

We had a month that was about 10% short, the two months prior was roughly 4-5%, enough that we just assumed it was going to be that way forever, some new algorithm in adsense. We also suspected we were at fault because of a "drydock" site were we develop for a live site and the ads were displaying (we block traffic, we are the only ones seeing ads)... we replaced the ads with blanks like we should have in the first place and everything settled down to less than a 1-2% difference after that.

Another thing about invalid clicks, related to what @Lame_Wolf posted, I've suspected competitors trying to cause the invalid clicks and subsequent cancellation of the AdSense account but I think that the AdSense team can see that too.

In regards to AmazonAWS, I've heard rumors that they duplicated some site's content as well as "clicking" ads as part of following links, both are totally unconfirmed on my part.

[pixar24]

Hi, I found an interesting related post here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

It made me find the exact ad location that is causing the invalid click count, by comparing the numbers in DFP and Adsense.

I also tried to fix it by removing code that possibly caused a conflict with Adsense ( and generating the invalid clicks).
Have to see if it will work.