Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Nope No Way.... I have a website to help developers. I may have people clicking on my links but that is what they want right? There was a day I put up a gallery of photos with the ad at the bottom the next 2 days I got a lot more impressions and only a few extra clicks...
Anyone else have this happen?
I emailed them and they have NOT responded yet.
I am FED UP....
Sounds like another CON to get your ads for FREE for them.
Look back in your AdSense history, and see if that kind of fluctuation is normal. And you should also wait at least 24 hours before using your daily stats for any kind of analysis, simply because the stats do not update in real time. Sometimes clickthroughs lag behind, othertimes impressions do, and sometimes all the stats are not updating at all.
I believe you are mistaken. Paid ad links have a target URL on the host pagead2.googlesyndication.com which redirects to the destination site. Non-paying ads (PSAs) have a target URL of the destination site directly.
I believe you are mistaken. Paid ad links have a target URL on the host pagead2.googlesyndication.com which redirects to the destination site. Non-paying ads (PSAs) have a target URL of the destination site directly.
hyperkik replied:
As do the links from Google's SERPs. That doesn't mean that they don't keep track of every single click on their SERP pages.
Actually, that's exactly what it means, with some exceptions I'll note shortly. Google's SERPs link to the target URL directly, not through a tracking URL on a Google-owned domain. Please explain what mechanism you know (or speculate) they have for tracking SERP clicks? Short of tracking URLs a la the paying AdSense links they'd need to either gather data from the browser or request and analyze webserver logs from the destination URL's web server.
Back to the exceptions. Google appears to have the capability to gather this data from users who have the Google Toolbar installed. Whether they take advantage of it is another question and I've never investigated. Google has also used tracking URLs on SERPs which allowed them to track clicks. I've seen them use tracking URLs on at least two separate occasions this year and others here at WW have as well. For more see these two WW threads.
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
Now, I can't honestly say whether any of the PSA sites share their web server data with Google. Unless I have evidence one way or the other I'm simply speculating. My gut says they don't. But I'm simply forming an opinion based on the fact that I don't share my web server logs with Google, they've never asked me or any of my clients or colleagues to share this data and I've never heard of other sharing it with Google, though to be fair if they are they might be obligated not to disclose that they are. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
The fact that they're not charging a commision for the PSA click means that they can treat the link differently, but certainly does not mean that they aren't monitoring and tracking traffic through the PSA links.
You're right, of course. But it doesn't mean they are either. Hopefully I've explained why I think it's extremely unlikely they aren't though. I would love to hear other views though. If you or anyone else thinks they are, please explain why and include anything that backs your position. If I'm missing something about how Google is, might be or could be tracking SERP clicks, non-paying PSA AdSense links, etc. I definitely want to know about it.
Why don't they just filter out any bad eggs.
Yes, why? Maybe GoogleGuy could answer?
Filtering out suspicious clicks would solve the problem and Google could immediately gain million more publishers and publishers using AdSense would get peace of mind... (and more energy to create content)
Why don't they just filter out any bad eggs
Because that wouldn't discourage fraud. It would like intercepting shoplifters at the store exit and saying, "Sorry--we're taking those items back. Now, go on your way, and better luck next time."
Since this issue, for the most part, seems to be completely outside the control of the publisher, it is Google's responsibility to take a greater role in curbing this problem from their end.
How can the publisher discourage fraud if he hasn't encouraged it in the first place?
from someone who is particularly uneasy today after seeing a CTR spike.
It would like intercepting shoplifters at the store exit and saying, "Sorry--we're taking those items back. Now, go on your way, and better luck next time."
Above sentence would apply to this situation if accusations wouldn't be directed also at webmasters, who have never ever clicked these ads. Unfortunately many such webmasters are also getting these accusations and/or are being dumped, therefore, dear europe-for-visitors, your comparison is a bit offending to me and probably to people who got dumped despite not clicking even once on these ads.
Webmasters can do absolutely nothing to prevent this situation from happening! Imagine that some people don't like europe (I can imagine many people who could!) and will start making invalid clicks on your site, dear europe-for-visitors, then you will get this accusation and you will get dumped. Will you then feel like a shoplifter yourserlf? Really, I find your comparison to be a bit too offensive...
You're entitled to your belief that Google doesn't track traffic from its outgoing links. I don't happen to share that opinion, but I'm not interested in arguing about it.
You're entitled to yours too. I just wish you'd actually say something that supported your views, especially in light of the fact that unless you know something I don't know and refuse to share it so that all of us here can benefit from it, you made several statements which I think I've shown to be incorrect.
I think WW readers appreciate it when users post evidence to support their views, don't you?
I agreed that it's possible that the PSA partner sites track AdSense clicks and share the data with Google. The context of the discussion was whether Google could be selectively testing increasing PSAs displayed on individual sites in order to detect publisher fraud. To do so they'd need the partner sites to log the data, share it with Google and analyze it. That's unlikely and as I explained earlier in this thread it's not a very effective, statistically sound way to detect this type of fraud and there are much easier methods.
The very first statement you made was:
Why wouldn't Google be able to monitor PSA clicks in the very same way it monitors other clicks? The links, after all, are on their servers, not ours. Just like with regular ads.
I explained that you were wrong about the links being on Google's servers. You later implied that Google could be tracking SERP clicks. I explained that for the most part that's impossible.
You haven't mentioned anything that supports your view. When you say that you're "not interested in arguing about it" I have to assume that you either know you're wrong, your opinions are unfounded or you simply don't want to share what you know with others here at WW. So, which is it?
You know, it's ok to be wrong. If I'm wrong I'll admit it...
I can't speak on behalf of EFV, but I think the point he/she was trying to make was that if a person was so inclined, they will find other ways to defraud the system. Don't shoot the messenger or slag off where they live. Having said that though, I'm totally with you on the fact that it would be good if Google could filter suspicious clicks, inform the publisher, and re-imburse the advertiser. That way, it seems, everybody would win.
2odd...
Still, there are two reasons why Google can't just filter out questionable clicks:
1) It's inevitable that a tiny minority of publishers will be dishonest. (Anyone who doesn't believe this obviously hasn't heard of clickbots.) Without a deterrent, such publishers would have no incentive to behave themselves.
2) The existence of a deterrent sends a reassuring message to advertisers. If advertisers know that Google won't tolerate publisher fraud, they'll be more willing to select the "content ads" option when buying AdWords.
Side note: Being dumped by AdSense doesn't necessarily mean that Google thinks you're guilty of fraud. It could simply mean that Google doesn't think your site's revenue potential is great enough to justify the time required to determine your innocence or guilt. Or it could mean that your site seems likely to attract click fraud on a regular basis, just because of your topic or the makeup of your audience. Remember, AdSense is a business, and business decisions are usually based on economic factors.
[edited by: europeforvisitors at 2:33 pm (utc) on Oct. 2, 2003]
Where do Google's detection methods come from? If Google have brought in experienced people from other CPC networks with experience in fraud then good on them. If not, then their methods are likely to be based on 'unusual' behaviour on the Adwords program. These methods would probably be looking just for malicious repeated impressions and/or clicks (Adwords was CPM for a long time). How would these methods have been generated? From compaints from Adwords advertisers about sudden jumps in the costs of their adverts. Not a great basis for detecting click fraud by Publishers of adverts.
How are Google's detection methods validated? Simple answer is almost certainly, they aren't. I wonder how many people on receipt of the Adsense fraud email (warning or temination) email back 'Yes, Google you got me bang-to-rights on that one - I had 17 members of my extended family clicking on my ads'. Of course everyone replied they had done nothing wrong. Google don't know what percentage are telling the truth. I think that they realised that the first batch of fraud emails (I got one of them) 2 months ago were mistaken in most cases. This looks like their second attempt to guess at fraud detection. But they still don't know if they are right.
I know Google have a lot of clever people working for them - but how many of these are working on Adsense fraud detection? How many years have these people worked on fraud detection in a CPC ad network? How much time do they have to investigate each potential fraud that is flagged?
It would like intercepting shoplifters at the store exit and saying, "Sorry--we're taking those items back. Now, go on your way, and better luck next time."
Actually, it's more like this:-
Intercepting shoplifters at the store exit and saying, "sorry--we're taking those items back. Now go on your way" and saying to the store "We're taking away your licence to trade" and saying to the product manufacturers "cheque please".
It clearly needs sorting out however you look at it, but there is no simple fix and I rather think that google are waiting for the economies involved with adsense to settle down into a natural position where everyone is profitable and the fraudulent element, which will always exist, becomes negligable.
TJ
Intercepting shoplifters at the store exit and saying, "sorry--we're taking those items back. Now go on your way" and saying to the store "We're taking away your licence to trade" and saying to the product manufacturers "cheque please".
Maybe Google is in the position of that vendor, and we're in the position of the store owners. At some point, Google will say, "We don't much care if we're taking a loss because you're cheating us, your employees are cheating us behind your back, or if your customers are cheating us. We're still taking a loss, and so we're not going to continue to put our product on your shelves."
(I'm not offering this as a definitive analogy - just as a variation on a theme.)
[edited by: hyperkik at 10:03 pm (utc) on Oct. 2, 2003]
Intercepting shoplifters at the store exit and saying, "sorry--we're taking those items back. Now go on your way" and saying to the store "We're taking away your licence to trade" and saying to the product manufacturers "cheque please"..
Yes! It's exactly like this. You have put it nicely!
Just imagine that store has invested in equipment and then think of it what such decision means to this poor store...
