Blogger pointing to Ads doesn't get banned

[Buzliteyear]

Okay, this is interesting.

This guy puts on his site a request for visitors to click on ads 3 times. Gets 1000 clicks in a day and an email from G. They gave a warning but did not pull him.

JenStar, this link is to an article from PC magazine, so I thought it would be okay to post.

[pcmag.com...]

[alika]

There have been numerous cases where G will not immediately terminate an account, but instead send an email asking the publisher to remove the action that violates the TOS (e.g. telling people to click, keyword stuffing, popups blocking the ads, etc.). Google pulls the plug immediately without even notifying the publisher only if they find the violation to be "severe." How G defines "severe" violation is of course unknown to us mere mortals.

[webmastertexas]

For someone so tech-savvy as the article writer (or so they claim) it's really baffling how he/she/they didn't think there was anything wrong with them inflating the clicks to profit themselves. They kept repeating that they didn't think what they did was wrong, when anyone with half a brain could see that it was. And these guys kept saying how tech-savvy they are, as well as their users.

[alika]

Webmastertexas ... well, tech-savvy doesn't necessarily mean they have common sense or business sense to understand the implication of an invite to click :o)

[Buzliteyear]

Yeah, the actual article is a whole different story. The guy is a putz in thinking that it is okay for all the G advertisers to make donations to his site.

I'm still baffled that he didn't get banned.

Makes you think that the horror stories we all hear regarding AdSense banning publishers are not the whole story.

[alika]

Makes you think that the horror stories we all hear regarding AdSense banning publishers are not the whole story.

YES! There are always two sides to a story. And all we hear are those who say they have been banned for reasons unknown to them, no fault of their own, etc. Sometimes we learn that they are not as innocent as they present themselves to be. While some, well, we don't know half the story.

[loanuniverse]

A more skeptical person would think {after reading the article}, that this person knew that what she was doing was wrong, but now that she has been caught is pleading ignorance as a defense.

The lack of common sense exhibited by the article disturbs me.

[FromRocky]

Is it against the AdSense's TOS if a request for donation is posted just above "Ads by Gooooogle"?

This is what I saw in their website "AliceandBill".

[webmastertexas]

Half of the article was spent defending their actions, which seems very disingenuous on their part.

[dcmginc]

What a meat-head... I might be able to see their point if they had suggested visiting one of the links (and not to just help them pay the bill, but if the visitor found something of interest)... but they admit that they asked people to click on 3 links each. How much attention are the visitors going to be paying when they're on a mission to hit 3 sites to help you pay your hosting?!

One guy learned about a Dell printer... how many others just right clicked, open in new window to help their favorite site?

[hyperkik]

If you thought the rationalizations in the article were bad, click through to read the comments.... [eyeroll]