What is Digg?152 Comments
- cdf12345, on 10/12/2007, -4/+34I had the exact same experience, I had made maybe $50 in 2-3 months and I got the invalid clicks notice, then I was denied on appeal and give no basis as to how the clicks were occuring. I suppose if you really didnt like someone you could sabbotage them by "illegally clicking" on their google ads.
- chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+36Google gets evil. Seriously, it sounds like that even though they will deny payment to Adsense users for click fraud, they apparently have no problem collecting from the advertisers for those fraudulent clicks. If nothing else, this deserves an investigation of some sort - perhaps a class action suit by those that have been denied payment for unsubstantiated click fraud.
- noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -6/+35Unfortunately, the problem here *is* Google's opaqueness with respect to the process. Maybe someone in the office *did* click the adverts; maybe the guy sanctioned this. But maybe he didn't, in which case Google aren't helping things out.
The problem is that there seem to be rather a lot of these stories, and whilst some scepticism is healthy, it's ultimately Google's responsibility to put their side of the story across- which they never seem to do.
Whilst I'm not going to portray Google as the devil incarnate (because they're not), in the case of Adsense, they seem to be strongly tending towards the the faceless, uncontactable, potted-auto-reply corporation. Behaviour that would see other companies *not* given the benefit of the doubt to the same extent. - GuineaPig, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27It would be tough to have Adsense as one's primary income. Google can yank it for no reason with no appeal.
There's really a business opportunity here to develop an open advertising platform with transparent logs and algorithms. - vvaduva, on 10/12/2007, -2/+26The exact same thing happened to me. Google sent me a check for $100 for the first month then they cancelled my program for "click fraud" - which is a bogus charge. I hardly have enough visitors to create such a problem, nor do I have the technical expertise to write software to take advantage of Google....and of course, have no motivation to do such a thing.
I gave up on convincing Google of anything after emails went unanswered and nobody offered to help. - elnerdo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+25If you didn't advertise your own site at the end of your comment, you probably wouldn't be buried as fast.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24Why not beleive them? Because it is Google? Digg is so quick to beleive other INDIVIDUALS with no proof when they have a problem with, say, Best Buy, or Dell, etc. Not only do they beleive them, they start publishing e-mail address and phone numbers of the person at the company responsible and say "Let's GIT 'em!" So where are the contact inforamtion for the Google people responsible. Let's GIT 'em!
- Peturbed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+19Not only did I have the same experience, I also got the exact same, word for word emails. When I replied asking for a personal repy, not an auto generated response, I got another automated one saying that it was from a real person.
This is not new - I've seen lots of sites talking about this. - allthewhile, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Google is facsist when it comes to the adsense program. I had the VERY same thing happen to me. I didn't click, there was no fraud. I'm sure they're okay with losing a percentage of legitimate content providers who are in the low range, just to make sure they don't have any cheaters. The problem is that their algorythms are OBVIOUSLY not perfect.
- kolbsoft, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17I agree with this. I just today moved away from Google Adsense. While I think Google comes up with some great stuff, Im a little ticked that I dont receive any revenue from people who click on the ads that are displayed on any of my sites. Their own reporting shows Clicks = XX, revenue = $0.00.
- slackor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16The best firm is FastClick/Valueclick but they won't deal with you until you have traffic first. Too many people try to apply to a ton of ad agencies with their "next big thing" site and get rejected because they have 0 hits. Get the traffic first and the money will follow...
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I had a situation with Google Adwords that is along the same lines.
I had ads out for my frugalname.com site, and was tracking ANY accessing of the main url.
I had Zero traffic other than my own, and previous customers (which I knew by ip (about 7 ppl)
Google charged me $170 for tens of thousands of clicks on my ad. Funny that Not one of those "clicks" actually made it to the url intended. I doubt everyone hit STOP on their browsers before the page loaded. I wrote and wrote and wrote, and got long canned replies back claiming they have sophisticated anti click fraud systems in place, and I am wrong. Not one page access from the ads, and not one sale. Had to pay them. - Zonkzor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14After reading all these comments I'm never going to use adsense. Word of mouth sure sucks doesn't it Google?
- romper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I'd sign up for that. Google suspended my AdWords account because my account was "related to an account previously canceled for invalid click activity." I appealed and upon investigating they re-instated my account, only to cancel it again a week later for the exact same reason (and refused to re-open it). I've only ever had one account, but never again.
Google really is becoming evil. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14My biggest problem with Adsense is that click fraud has seriously hurt legitimate ad publishers. We used to get paid quite well but now that everyone is using it (and abusing it) the payouts are nearly as good. I'm not implying that the writer of the article did anything wrong, I'm just saying that illegitimate clicks hurt publishers and advertisers both very severely.
- w0nt0n, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15Painful situation. I hope the nice folks over there take note that word can (and will) easily spread.
- romper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12@MrASSMAN I think you're over-estimating the new Google. They're not the nice, friendly Google we used to love. It feels like they've become so big that they don't care.
"i believe that if google determined that he used click fraud then they must have had a good reason to."
They don't need a good reason at all.
It's true that defeating click fraud is an important thing to them (and all advertisers), but their approach is carpet-bombing everyone with no chance for appeal. They need to start treating their customers like, well, customers instead of criminals (hello RIAA/MPAA?). - chaosmachine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9How to kill your competitors revenue stream: set up a bot to 'click' their adsense 100 times an hour. Even more effective: have your bot running through a couple proxies.. especially non-anonymous ones. Google will have no choice but to shut down their adsense account. Scary, but true.
- romper, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10Try Yahoo! Publisher Network for context ads. That's who I switched to after AdWords and so far they're pretty good.
http://publisher.yahoo.com/ - shreky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Same problem here. Google terminated my account and still has not replied to my email. I am considering a lawsuit since not only was there no click fraud on my part but they took money that in part was not theirs. We went into an agreement where I display ads on my site and we both get compensated. Now I would like to see them prove there was click fraud on my site. If users clicked the ads too much, then that is not my fault and advertisers should be more concerned that google does not have the ability to block users from clicking the ads too much.
- RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I know someone who routinely "invalid click bombs" sites that he hates. Then he reports the sites to Google from a different IP.
Unless more people start realizing Google is shady, and has NO appeal process, Google will continue to be this way. - JohnBooty, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10-----------
click-fraud also constitutes giving incentives to viewers to click ads (such as "please click these ads to support this site") which is illegal according to the TOS. other things such as clicking your own ads and tricking people to thinking that ads are part of your navigation system are also illegal.
------------
What you said about the TOS is correct.
However, try reading the article again (or perhaps the first time) and you'll see that he stated that he didn't do those things either. - chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10From the article, Google is ambivalent at best:
>This left a number of questions in need of answers. Such as whether the money earned by
>PinkNews.co.uk was returned to the advertisers concerned. On this, Google was, at best,
>ambivalent: "Unfortunately, due to our confidentiality restrictions", ah, those again, "we cannot
>provide you with a written declaration that the remaining earnings of your account will be returned
>to the affected advertisers.“However, please be assured that the affected advertisers will be
>properly refunded in this way." Hardly reassuring at all, really. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8My Google checks are just as small. My Adsense account was also disabled and I got the same form letter in email. In my case, there *were* invalid clicks generated because I had been testing an Adsense plugin for Mint. The dollar amount in question is very small but they didn'tlike it. I politely replied to Google asking for their appeal process and was immediately given an email address where I could explain the situation and the type of traffic my web site involves. A week later I had my account back and have not had a problem since.
I was informed that the money that was considered "invalid" did indeed go back to the advertisers, but I could keep the remainder that was not involved in the period of the "invalid" clicks.
That said, they are unconfortably secretive about the details, and a switch to Yahoo's service is not a bad idea. - Kazrog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7More bad press for Google. They are quickly becoming the new Microsoft. So much for "do no evil."
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I've been using Fastclick/Valueclick for years. And Adreporting too for some products, payout is high, clickthrough is good. Some months it pays the bills! AND I still haven't hit $100 on AdSense yet :)
- superfriend, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Right on diggstar... I have a friend who is really happy working with AdBrite. Everything with AdBrite is transparent. Nothing is hidden, clicks, earnings, impressions - pretty cool - he showed me how he was approving ads before they ran on his site seemed user friendly and he has a live account contact. If he has a question it gets answered within an hour usually. He even runs both AdSense and AdBrite on his pages and it's cool.
- Ninjamonk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I think people are gonna end up sueing them for accusing them of fraud soon if they are not careful. I don't think I will bother using them for my sites. Adbrite gets my vote they seem nice people.
- Moocat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9They aren't google ads smartass, he clearly stated he was continuing to use ads as well.
- Sortaburnt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It really appears that this is an overwhelming problem for webmasters who are using AdSense. Has anyone considered contacting a lawyer? It seems like if so many of you have had an identical problem, it might be possible to file a class-action lawsuit against Google for deceptive businesss practices. I'm sure there would be plenty of business lawyers chomping at the bit to go after the tech giant. I haven't read the AdSense TOS statement. Does it seem as though it would be tight enough to hold up in any court?
- tastycheese, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Click fraud is a HUGE problem for google, and everyone else. Behind closed doors, they are all talking about it, and nobody knows what to do. Frankly, I think google is just randomly shutting some accounts down, just so that they can say to the big ad companies and investors that they are actively fighting click fraud. But it's nonsense. They will never shut down the big companies, they are just going after the little guys enough to make it look like they are doing something.
- Haplo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6An important question, one I asked to Google:
Is Google able to detect the difference between an AdSense user clicking on his/her own advertisements, and someone who doesn't like this user doing the same?
In short: can one just click "away" the AdSense ads on someone else's site?
I am afraid the answer is: yes.
On a side note I am also amazed that many of the spam pages in Google somehow don't seem to have problems with AdSense. But maybe that's just me. - Moocat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7You might want to be clear on whether you actually did or did not create invalid clicks. Apologizing makes it seem like yes you were guilty, in which case everyone here will probably string you up by your intestines if they found you.
- corduroy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7My account was also banned by them. I emailed them and asked to work with them in order to find out the problem. They were of no help. They didn't even tell me what exactly the problem was. I cleaned up code, re-did placement and did as much as I could. I followed their TOS to a tee. They were of no help. They pretty much said; too bad, you're still banned.
I was more than courteous and they simply don't care. The way I see it, they had an adsense lawsuit and the more people they could ban, the better they would look. I communicated with them via 6-8 emails. All I received were automated responses and responses that showed that they didn't read any of the previous conversation.
My revenue jumped from the normal 6$ a month to nearly 50$ a month. That's what tipped them. I tried to work with them and do whatever but they didn't care. I'm hoping that they'll take the last month's check back of some 50$ because I don't want it. - Zonkzor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6What does that website have to do with your comment? Looks like spam to me.
- optikburn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I have an internet cafe and set my site as the homepage for all the computers.. Google accused me of invalid traffics/clicks.. I wrote to Google saying that my site is the homepage for 30 computers.. and of course it would register a single external IP number.. but they never let me back in Adsense nor did they paid me my remaining balance.. so I completely implemented Yahoo Publisher Network to all my pages, and they do pay a lot higher compared to Adsense... for me Adsense is good riddance comapared to higher paying YPN.. the only thing Adsense is good is the Ad formats and Ad targeting.. but Yahoo is catching up fast..
- vvaduva, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Wanna get something going? :)
- saumanahaii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I disagree. I believe that, just like linux, an open advertising system could compete with the closed competition.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+12advertise.
- Juansito, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I got Ad-sense on my site i made about 120usd from my first like 5 months not that much traffic but now i got tons of traffic and I'm making like 300usd a month and they tried to hit me with a stop making people click the ads but they didn't lock my account they said they stopped serving my site.
I just pulled the ads and awaiting my money then I'm going to adbrite or something thanks to this story! - mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6obviously you were apologizing because you know you did something against the adsense TOS. it clearly states that if you are caught breaking a rule that your account will be terminated and you won't recieve payment. i'm sure they get a million emails apologizing, they're not going to give everyone second chances after they don't abide by simple terms.
edit: moocat got to it before me. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7whatever you do, don't use yahoo/overture/revenue science. higher payouts then google because it's exclusive but horrible click-through rates.
- HaltingPoint, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4My problem is that I just don't get clicks...plenty of views though. Can anybody suggest any ad programs that offer better CPM rates than Adsense?
- n3il89, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The exact same thing happened to me. I tried to sign up again but got denied. I decided to go over to Yahoo ads instead and so far has been pretty good, but I'm not getting the relevant ads that I once got with Google. After reading this, I'm going to apply again. Hope it works
- mrASSMAN, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8OK his definition of click-fraud was very limited. click-fraud is not just "robot clickers", he must have not read the TOS very thoroughly (which is probably the most clear and easy-to-read TOS i have ever seen used by a big company).
click-fraud also constitutes giving incentives to viewers to click ads (such as "please click these ads to support this site") which is illegal according to the TOS. other things such as clicking your own ads and tricking people to thinking that ads are part of your navigation system are also illegal.
note that google does not benefit from shutting users off who use click-fraud. google has been under fire recently for not going after click-fraud suspects strongly enough. google is investing a huge amount of time and money to protect their advertisers' investment in adsense. - Potato, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4HaltingPoint, clicksor pays for views. It is like 30 views = 0.01 cents though.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You should be aware that it violates the Google ToS to display adsense on the same page as YPN
- Potato, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@romper, yes. clicksor does pay for views. i use them.
- saumanahaii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4As any of my friends would tell you, I am often Google's biggest fanboy. Sadly though, I have had the exact same experience as all the rest of you. When I asked about what had caused the (ambuguous) click violation, they refused to tell me. I can tell you that I, the administrator of my site, had clicked on a ad at most 3 times. Something interesting to note. It is easy to sign up for adsense and put up the ads, but once they got you down for click fraud, the appeals process it 10x more arduous.
Sadly, I decided to set up adsense on day one of my site, before it had any major traffic. Now, as our traffic increases, we cannot use Adsense.
We were in no way violating the terms of agreement. I read them just to check to make sure of that. Yet they still cancelled the account. We never even got one check... Which we deserved, by the contract we made. And theres nothing I can do it. - dasil003, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9Whoah! Where do you get the idea that they don't refund fraudalent click money to advertisers?
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