March 2014 AdSense Earnings and Observations

This May be my Last Month

[JCKline]

I'm starting the March earnings thread as it may be my last month with Non-Sense.

[wa desert rat]

when i check traffic source, it's this site bserpa.com (HACK3D BY ABS3NT) so probably they run bot there which is clicking on the ads.

What are you using to check traffic source? Can you explain how you do it?

[HowYesNo]

latest visitors in control panel

[RedBar]

Total collapse of EPC today, i.e. about 25% of average.

I'll not write any more since I may appear to be writing too often!

[netmeg]

(Well *some* mobile clicks are likely to be invalid, if for no other reason than the law of averages)

[Lame_Wolf]

I've had over £8 (that I've noticed) removed today from one account. Two channels are now showing no earnings, yet I (used to) get valid clicks on those channels every day. Apparently, they are now all invalid. Same thing, day in, day out.

[Lame_Wolf]

Spoke too soon. Another £4 gone. :/

[ember]

It might be too soon to say this, but things are looking normal again. CTR is back to normal. They've even added in some revenue that was taken away yesterday.

[wa desert rat]

@Netmeg: Yup... I think the visitor clicked twice on the same ad by accident. :)

[eek2121]

Doing good so far. Up about 3% compared to last month. May not seem like much, but after an absolutely horrendous january, ti's awesome.

[webcentric]

Where invalid clicks are concerned, the question remains "why are some publishers seeing astronomically high take-back percentages when others are not?" I see an occasional take-back and would call them rare from my perspective so why are some seeing virtually all of their clicks removed (seemingly every day and then again at the end of the month)?

Only the people who are seeing this are capable of providing details but it seems the worse a person is hit by this, the less actual information they are willing to provide about the subject. All I know is that it's not a shared experience from my perspective. For all I know, it could be common for publishers who use WordPress or other popular PHP-based CMS platforms. There's certainly not enough information in the pipeline to draw any such conclusions so I won't which leaves every possible reason under the sun to blame it on.

Like everyone else, I'd like to avoid these types of problems if possible but I guess I'm going to have to just stumble along in the dark like everyone else. It's like trying to solve a puzzle when someone else has half the pieces in their pocket. I guess I'm sorry if all your clicks are disappearing but if that's all you're willing to contribute to the conversation what more can anyone say about it?

Have a great weekend all.

[Lame_Wolf]

For all I know, it could be common for publishers who use WordPress or other popular PHP-based CMS platforms.

For me...
synchronous
Some text only, some text/image.
HTML only.
Not wordpress or blog.
No CMS.

[HowYesNo]

most of my 'invalid' clicks came from 728x90 ad at the top (async, text/image), custom script, no accidental clicks possible

2/3 of the clicks are shaved there

[jrstark]

Text/image
HTML/PHP
I use SMF for the forum, but it looks like the bad clicks are on hand-coded pages
Channel I noticed today is 728x90 ad at the top, beneath navigation so could be some accidental.
Heavy desktop today, lighter tablet/mobile than usual

[HowYesNo]

i'm being click bombed, replaced that top 728 ad with custom size ad 730x100 but after an hour ctr and earnings went crazy

United States
Desktop
Contextual
121.05% <--- wtf

[webcentric]

OK, this question is specific to those with high percentages of invalid clicks being taken back and not to click bombing per se. How many of you use a robots meta tag with NOARCHIVE in it? Perhaps, you're seeing where this is heading. And how many of you use the Authorized Sites feature of Adsense to limit what sites can display your ads?

NOARCHIVE tells the major SE's to NOT keep a cached version of your page available in the search results. The Authorized Sites feature of Adsense names the sites that can display and earn money with your Adsense account. These two things can work with each other or against each other depending on how they're set up.

If NOARCHIVE is not set then there are probably cached pages of your site floating around the Internet (at least in the serps). I ask if people clicking on cached pages in the SERPS could be responsible for clicking on a site that's not in your Authorized Sites list? In other words, the cached page is actually located on a Google server, not on your authorized domain. I use noarchive on all pages these days given the dynamic nature of my sites but I'm wondering if this combination is playing any role in at least some invalid click. Cached pages are targets for scrapers as well so who knows if there isn't some connection to what some are seeing. It's just another angle to consider where invalid clicks are concerned.

[webcentric]

Channel I noticed today is 728x90 ad at the top, beneath navigation so could be some accidental.

If the nav has dropdown lists in it that can cover the ad then accidentals are entirely possible. Anything that can expand over the page like that is troublesome where Adsense is concerned and the way such lists render can change depending on screen width. A dropdown menu item on the right of your menu in wide screen can become a dropdown menu on the left if the menu wraps on smaller screen size. This kind of a menu can be a pain in the neck where Adsense is concerned.

Also drop down combo boxes can open both down and up depending on where they are in relation to the top or bottom of the viewport and this relative position changes as a viewer scrolls the screen. I have a tendency to use other solutions for these elements on pages where Adsense is concerned whenever possible. Often the exercise of replacing them with different solutions leads to interface designs that I'd never thought of otherwise. A side benefit so to speak.

[netmeg]

All my sites have been NOARCHIVE for at least six years. And yes, I use the authorized sites feature in AdSense.

[jrstark]

No noarchive, no authorized sites, no expanding/dropdown navigation. Just plain links.

Picked up again overnight, but looks like they took most of it back already. Bunch of spiders yesterday.

[wa desert rat]

Looking beyond the click-bombs, take-backs, and extra workload it appears that my main website might actually hit the minimum for a check this month.

Of course, that assumes that the reports can be believed. And that is seriously in doubt. A little digging into the various reports indicates that my "earnings" for last month are questionable. I did not make the threshold... and checking "payments" I discovered that the credits for last month are only 80% of what the "earnings" are on the Adsense "home" page for "last month".

So it appears that even after the month ends and it's all sorted out there are more take-backs than they told me about.

It would be nice to be able to see which visitor is executing clicks so we would have an independent count that could be used to compare with Google's counts in the reports.

[ken_b]

Well click bombing (or whatever) came to visit me today. One channel has generated a crazy number of clicks and earnings this morning. That channel is also showing a EPC that is way higher than the rest of my channels.

I removed the adblock and sent an email to Google to alert them to the problem.

But I'm baffled...

What is the point of click bombing?

What benefit does the person doing this get out of it?

.

[Lame_Wolf]

I am not getting click-bombed at all. Normal, if anything, lower than normal.
For me, any higher/high paying clicks seem to disappear. Sometimes the whole channel shows zero earnings, yet I know that channel receives valid clicks every day.

[netmeg]

My Analytics reports don't see the click bombs. So I'm thinking THAT part of it is just messed up reporting. I can't guarantee it, so make your own decisions on how to proceed, but...

[ember]

Yo yo-ing is back! Up and down. Arrggh.

What is the point of click bombing?

What benefit does the person doing this get out of it?

I don't get that either. It costs the advertiser money and us money, but how does the criminal make money doing this? Is it just simply malicious?

[JCKline]

I am not getting click-bombed at all.

I'm not either. Earnings just stink. There must be some more common factors for those who are being click-bombed aside from it being from desktop computers. The residing country or countries perhaps? Unusual bot activity? What?

[gogu258]

Hello everyone, I'm new here as a poster even if I'm reading your posts since 2009.

I was thinking that maybe, all this bots fuss is about adsense intermediators stealing money from their own clients. I mean, since traffic is down for many sites, and those intermediators are managing campaigns for middle and big companies why not "sniff" more money using bots strategy?! I don't know, was a time when click bombing was used by some competitors in the same niche, but from what you describe is no longer the same situation.

[jrstark]

US based, 99% earnings US. Seeing the yoyo, it is mostly coming in a channel that hasn't had a lot of activity recently (off season) and other channels on those same pages aren't getting it. Looks like they took back more just now.

Couple "unknown robot" spiders hit me after midnight according to AWStats.

[webcentric]

I removed the adblock and sent an email to Google to alert them to the problem.

Question, are there other, unaffected Adsense blocks on the page where the click bomb occurred? Seems like I'm hearing examples where a single unit on a page is effected. Wondering if removing a single unit causes the problem to shift to another existing unit or if multiple units on the same page are being impacted simultaneously.

This seems to be happening to a variety of ad configurations (synchronous and asynchronous, text and display, various sized units but perhaps focused on the most popular sizes for the simple reason that they are more prevalent generally). I too am still wondering if there is some sort of identifiable targeting involved but I'm also wondering if this isn't just a reporting bug in G's system. This could be related to a combination of factors too that are only met in the effected site but haven't been publicly correlated yet e.g. particular ad sizes coupled with a certain configuration of ad settings.

One setting not discussed here so far is third-party networks. I have all third-party networks turned off and haven't seen click bombs or high volumes of invalid click take-backs (yet, knock on wood). Could there be holes in TPN adverts that trigger either of these phenomenon? Anybody got any insights in that direction?

[wa desert rat]

I was thinking that maybe, all this bots fuss is about adsense intermediators stealing money from their own clients. I mean, since traffic is down for many sites, and those intermediators are managing campaigns for middle and big companies why not "sniff" more money using bots strategy?! I don't know, was a time when click bombing was used by some competitors in the same niche, but from

This is the scenario described by the UC-Berkeley Division of Computer Science in this report on sophisticated click-bots under the control of C&C servers: [icsi.berkeley.edu...]

The .pdf makes for fascinating reading and seems to me to explain at least some of what many of us are experiencing. Infected PCs (almost all of which are Windows) forming a botnet in which individual machines "call home" for instruction. They are then directed to web sites where the C&C servers know that target ads will appear and are then told to "click". The behavior of these sophisticated bots is such that publishers are not likely to be able to easily spot them. The motive is profit; advertisers pay agencies and agents to create and place ads. Part of the payment can be revenue derived from clicks.

It's even possible that agents (middle-men or intermediaries) could profit when clicks are invalidated when funds are returned to the agents; if they don't report the refunds to their clients, then they profit even more. However the exact nature of the profit picture is a little fuzzy, I think.

But that study doesn't address the "click bomb" which could be an attack on a web site by a competing publisher in the same niche trying to discredit the attacked site.

[ken_b]

This set of pages had only this one AdSense block on each page.

Third Party Networks are ALL turned off.

[netmeg]

I have all third-party networks turned off and haven't seen click bombs or high volumes of invalid click take-backs (yet, knock on wood). Could there be holes in TPN adverts that trigger either of these phenomenon? Anybody got any insights in that direction?

I've had all third party networks turned off for two years.