Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Speaking of PC Magazine and click fraud, the online edition has an "Alice and Bill's Tech Edge" column titled "Google's Senseless AdSense Program." It seems that Alice posted a message asking "everyone who liked our blog to do their part and 'click three times for Alice and Bill' each time they visited our site." A reader reported Alice and Bill to Google, a Google rep told them to remove the "incentive to click," and now Alice is unhappy with Google because the blog's daily click count has dropped from nearly 1,000 to the low 20s. Her comment: "The AdSense policy may make sense to someone, but not me." Is it any wonder that some advertisers are leery of the content network?
They shouldn't have gotten a warning for such a flagrant violation of the ToS.
Hopefully they get the G-Boot up their ass for flaming G for simply protecting the financial interests of their Advertisers. Sounds like Alice and Bill need a crash course on ethics. They are lucky they were not sued and forced to give back prior months earnings that came about via artificial inflation.
And then for the owners of the site to be whining about it is just amazing.
If all the members of this forum would spend 15 minutes a day to do Google searches for phrases that indicate cheating and report the culpable we could get rid of a good percentage of these idiots.
Couldn't Google write a bot for that and spit out a report overnight for their quality control to review in the morning?
Some people are just hard of thinking.
[I can't resist adding to this...]
"Click three times"? Who are you kidding? You're stealing from advertisers!
Where do you get the nerve to post an article like this on a major website and then continue running AdSense ads? Why don't you join one of those programs where you can use any method you want to get people to click? Maybe because they only pay about 2 cents a click?
[edited by: jomaxx at 7:12 pm (utc) on Aug. 28, 2005]
they have 4 ads on the first page itself *sigh*
Premium Publisher
Blogger pointing to Ads doesn't get banned [webmasterworld.com]
One question that's worth discussing is why the publisher's account wasn't closed. I suspect it's because Google felt that the site had intrinsic value and was worth keeping if the publisher removed the invitation to click on ads. In other words, the underlying site passed the "smell test." Still, if I were Google, I might wonder about the site owner's commitment to honoring the TOS after reading "Google's Senseless AdSense Program," which suggests that she still doesn't get it or is in denial.
For more discussion on "Alice & Bill", see the old WW thread:
Good memory. :-) I'd forgotten that thread and hadn't noticed the December, 2004 date on the Alice & Bill column (probably because the dateline was in such small type!).
Anyway, this goes to show that Google doesn't always boot publishers who violate the TOS if the sites have intrinsic value and the publishers respond to Google's warnings.
EFV, did you read the thread on PC Mag about that article?
They just didn't get what was wrong with it!
What most amazes me is:
a) Google didn't just ban them to make a very visible example out of them
b) PC Mag left the article up to show just now inept and stupid their authors are and let it continue to poison and discredit the magazine
c) That Alice still has a job after she proved herself to be completely incompetent
FWIW, I quit reading PC Mag back in the early 90s when I found out (was standing next to the phone during the call) that our product manager was feeding them information about a product I worked on. The article read nearly word for word what he told them, mind you this went in a product REVIEW page. Then we noticed that a lot of the competitive products in our category had regurgitated repeat reviews from year old copy although WE knew our competitors had changed and the reviews were outdated and inaccurate. Didn't bother renewing my subscription after that little eye opener.
Needless to say, this incident just reinforces what I already knew about that rag.
EFV, did you read the thread on PC Mag about that article?They just didn't get what was wrong with it!
Or at least they pretended not to get what was wrong with it. :-)
She seems extra super duper dumb.
I mean, seriously! They are asking people to click an ad 3 times every time they visit, meaning their users are clicking ads just to be clicking AND taking money from the advertisers and giving it to them without having any real interest in the product. This is basically STEALING.
If I was an adwords advertiser who had ads showing on that page...EVER, I would make it known that I am PUBLICLY boycotting them AND PC Magazine. I would also be demanding money back from Google.
Can you imagine this, going from 1000 clicks a day to 20 or less!
That means nearly 1000 clicks a day that were ALL FRAUD. How many days has this been going on?
That's a lot of clicks.
Actually, I'm happy to see a thread like this. As you go up the ladder of journalism, the egos get larger as the quality diminishes. At the very top, it's total misinformation, manipulation and usually misleading.
The internet is proving just how flawed the mainstream is (a few notable newspaper reporters excepted). The big networks and media conglomerates have thrown millions$$$ at the internet but bloggers beat them to stories and offer better analysis all the time.
More power to individuals (self included).
Like many small bloggers, Bill and I receive no income for our work running aliceandbill.com.
Today's click total, post-spank-down: 22. <sigh>
There's really no difference between asking for clicks and publicly lamenting the low number of clicks you're getting (with a not-so-subtle reference to your web address).
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".
This donation request is no longer there as today. I don't know whether they removed it themselves or Google asked them the second time.
You can "submit a story" on the website. I know a good one . . .
