Joeychgo
06-23-2005, 05:56 AM
Yes, we were maliciously targeted. Someone nearly caused my Google Adsense Account to be permanently banned.
We were in fact banned by adsense. But I'll get to that a little later.
On Saturday, June 11th, I saw my adsense clicks more then double. As I looked further, all of the increase was here on VBW, but the traffic hadn't increased substantially. This trend continued and on Sunday I emailed the Ad Sense Support Team alerting them to what I was seeing.
This trend continued, with my overall clicks 3 times the normal rate during the next few days. I had not heard back from Google, so I sent another email on Thursday.
Then - It happened. I got this email on Sunday:
It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on
the ads on your web pages. We have therefore disabled your Google
Adsense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an
effort to protect the interest of the Ad Words advertisers.
A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including
but not limited to clicks generated by a publisher on his own web
pages, clicks generated through the use of robots, automated clicking
tools, or any other deceptive software.
Practices such as these are in violation of the Google Adsense Terms
and Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:
https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US
Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further
participation in Adsense and do not receive any further payment. The
earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected
advertisers.
Sincerely,
The Google Adsense Team
For the record, I have clicked my own ad once in all the time I have been running adsense ads. That was completely by accident, months ago. I emailed them right away with my confession. I have never asked anyone to click my ads either.
Naturally, I was quite upset. I wont reveal what I earn via adsense but its a big part of my income. Beside the loss, was the knowledge that someone had targeted this site and managed to get me banned from Ad Sense.
After I calmed down a bit, I wrote to Ad Sense. I first explained that I have never violate the TOS nor clicked any of my own ads. I further explained that I had reported the unusually high clicks twice. I also pointed out my IP address and told them they needed to check their records as they would find no clicks from that IP. I commented on how it was unfair to penalize publishers for click fraud when they have nothing to do with the attack, and have no way to control or stop such an attack. I also started searching and sent similar emails to everyone from Google I could find. I even wrote to the guy that writes the Google Blog. LOL I was desperate for someone to help.
Not expecting a positive response, since I had never heard of anyone ever being reinstated, I began searching for viable alternatives. What I found was quite disappointing. There are others out there who can deliver ads, but they have few advertisers, so it doesn't do much good when the same ad runs on every page. I chose one just to try and placed it on one of my sites that usually earns $xx.xx a day. I made less then $1 a day with the new program.
Then, I got this email a few days after I had been banned:
Thank you for your email regarding your Adsense account.
As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click activity very seriously. We have reviewed your circumstances and determined that you are not responsible for the most recent activity. We have reinstated your account, effective immediately. However, there will be a delay before ads start running on your web site. It may take up to 48 hours before all of our servers are informed of the change.
Thank you for clarifying your situation. We appreciate your patience, and apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this email.
Sincerely,
The Google Adsense Team
WOW!!!
I was amazed and delighted. Kudos to Google for actually looking into the matter and making the right decision! It restored my faith in Google, which had been shaken with the events of the prior week or two. All I can hope now is that they have a way to catch whoever would do something like this.
Many times in the past I've read posts on other forums where people complained they had been banned unfairly. I have seen many posts regarding things of this nature, and never found one to indicate anyone was ever reinstated. To be honest and frank, I generally figured them to be BS. Kids trying to outsmart the system or something of the sort. I have a new appreciation now.
I was lucky. Somehow I caught the right ear at Google and was reinstated. People who do things like this threaten the whole contextual advertising system. It costs Ad Words advertisers money, and causes publishers a means of support. To me, this kind of click fraud is the worst of all. Its malicious and intended to cost someone their livelihood. I see sites all the time that say "Help us by clicking the ads" and that's wrong too. But I suspect its usually done by people who don't know better. What happened to me, was an attempt to cause me harm. Luckily, Google didn't ignore my pleas, and saw the right thing to do.
-
We were in fact banned by adsense. But I'll get to that a little later.
On Saturday, June 11th, I saw my adsense clicks more then double. As I looked further, all of the increase was here on VBW, but the traffic hadn't increased substantially. This trend continued and on Sunday I emailed the Ad Sense Support Team alerting them to what I was seeing.
This trend continued, with my overall clicks 3 times the normal rate during the next few days. I had not heard back from Google, so I sent another email on Thursday.
Then - It happened. I got this email on Sunday:
It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on
the ads on your web pages. We have therefore disabled your Google
Adsense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an
effort to protect the interest of the Ad Words advertisers.
A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including
but not limited to clicks generated by a publisher on his own web
pages, clicks generated through the use of robots, automated clicking
tools, or any other deceptive software.
Practices such as these are in violation of the Google Adsense Terms
and Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:
https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US
Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further
participation in Adsense and do not receive any further payment. The
earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected
advertisers.
Sincerely,
The Google Adsense Team
For the record, I have clicked my own ad once in all the time I have been running adsense ads. That was completely by accident, months ago. I emailed them right away with my confession. I have never asked anyone to click my ads either.
Naturally, I was quite upset. I wont reveal what I earn via adsense but its a big part of my income. Beside the loss, was the knowledge that someone had targeted this site and managed to get me banned from Ad Sense.
After I calmed down a bit, I wrote to Ad Sense. I first explained that I have never violate the TOS nor clicked any of my own ads. I further explained that I had reported the unusually high clicks twice. I also pointed out my IP address and told them they needed to check their records as they would find no clicks from that IP. I commented on how it was unfair to penalize publishers for click fraud when they have nothing to do with the attack, and have no way to control or stop such an attack. I also started searching and sent similar emails to everyone from Google I could find. I even wrote to the guy that writes the Google Blog. LOL I was desperate for someone to help.
Not expecting a positive response, since I had never heard of anyone ever being reinstated, I began searching for viable alternatives. What I found was quite disappointing. There are others out there who can deliver ads, but they have few advertisers, so it doesn't do much good when the same ad runs on every page. I chose one just to try and placed it on one of my sites that usually earns $xx.xx a day. I made less then $1 a day with the new program.
Then, I got this email a few days after I had been banned:
Thank you for your email regarding your Adsense account.
As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click activity very seriously. We have reviewed your circumstances and determined that you are not responsible for the most recent activity. We have reinstated your account, effective immediately. However, there will be a delay before ads start running on your web site. It may take up to 48 hours before all of our servers are informed of the change.
Thank you for clarifying your situation. We appreciate your patience, and apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this email.
Sincerely,
The Google Adsense Team
WOW!!!
I was amazed and delighted. Kudos to Google for actually looking into the matter and making the right decision! It restored my faith in Google, which had been shaken with the events of the prior week or two. All I can hope now is that they have a way to catch whoever would do something like this.
Many times in the past I've read posts on other forums where people complained they had been banned unfairly. I have seen many posts regarding things of this nature, and never found one to indicate anyone was ever reinstated. To be honest and frank, I generally figured them to be BS. Kids trying to outsmart the system or something of the sort. I have a new appreciation now.
I was lucky. Somehow I caught the right ear at Google and was reinstated. People who do things like this threaten the whole contextual advertising system. It costs Ad Words advertisers money, and causes publishers a means of support. To me, this kind of click fraud is the worst of all. Its malicious and intended to cost someone their livelihood. I see sites all the time that say "Help us by clicking the ads" and that's wrong too. But I suspect its usually done by people who don't know better. What happened to me, was an attempt to cause me harm. Luckily, Google didn't ignore my pleas, and saw the right thing to do.
-
