The AdSense trap
A few days ago I tried putting Google AdSense ads on my site again, and I quickly realized that it would be an easy way to cover the hosting costs in the future and still get a good amount money over every month. The same day, a few hours after I added the ads, a website visitor e-mailed me through my contact form and told me that many of the AdSense links led to completely unrelated sites which contained nothing but new AdSense links. A few examples were listed, and it looked really bad. The e-mail suggested that I would review the ad links and then use the competitive filter to remove them, because they are not only fooling Google of money - they are crap in every other way as well. I thought that it was a good idea, so I followed the instructions in the e-mail without realizing that it would cause trouble…
I logged in to my AdSense account to make it make it obvious that the clicks were my own so they wouldn't be counted, and then I went through the different pages of my site and clicked the links. Many advertising sites were really interesting, and I even signed up at some of them just to get more information about products that appeared to be interesting. But I also got a big list of completely crappy ad-sites which would soon be filtered out to give room for real advertisers. Everything looked great. But a few days after I had reviewed the advertisers, Google closed my AdSense account because of "invalid clicking activities", refering to a limitation in the terms that says that a site owner may not click any of the links on his own site - which I of course knew very well. And they did this without giving me any kind of warning or any chance to explain myself, which is something I find incredibly stupid and extremely disrespectful. It feels like a personal insult to be pointed out as a cheater when my intention was to secure the quality of the ads on my site. And the fact that Google will also keep the $250 that I had earned this month (with the day I clicked my links excluded) makes it even more stupid!
I realize now that the e-mail I got was an ugly trap, a form of economical sabotage that I should have discovered and not paid any attention to. But like all good traps, it made perfect sense in every way - until it was too late. I made a big bummer, no doubt about that. But I'm sure that I'm not the only person who has been tricked this way, and since I think that I don't deserve to be completely kicked out because of this I have sent an e-mail to the AdSense support at Google, telling them that I can explain every single click I made that day. I have formally requested to get the account opened again, or that I should atleast get the money that I have earned paid out to me (except for the amount made at the day of my clicks of course). It would make most sense to me, really.
I have always seen Google as good-guys that actually care for their users (unlike many other major companies) so it will be very interesting to see if they care about this at all or if they have grown too big to listen to a single user. Depending on their move now, I will either become an even greater fan of Google - or I will lose all respect for a company that I have admired for so many years.
I will find out soon, and I will make sure to let you know what happens.
Edit: I have posted a follow-up entry that explains how it all ended. Please read it as well before posting comments to this entry, thanks!
Comments
Comment from Brainchemicals
Time: May 17, 2006, 6:52 pm
Sorry, wrong URL. That was for my adwords account when I suspected fraudulent clicks.
Comment from jim
Time: May 17, 2006, 7:35 pm
Hey, they made a wordpress theme for nautica5, heres the link.
sorry about that aha.
Comment from gmd
Time: May 17, 2006, 8:56 pm
Actually, Google did have instructions on how to view the websites of ads that appear on your site (although I cannot find them now) it involves right-clicking on the link and copy the URL, paste it into your browser's address bar and delete the first part of the URL upto and incluging "&adurl=" (the google tracking part) the rest is just a url that won't be counted by Google as a click.
They also have a preview tool.
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=160
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 17, 2006, 8:56 pm
jim: Well, that means that I'll back off. While the current Nautica05 theme is far away from what I was working on (both in quality and in features), I will not spent hours of work on building a theme that is already out there - no matter the quality. I did what I could, including getting Studio7Designs to announce that I was working on the theme. I'm not sorry, as I can spend that time on something else now. But it is a bit sad for those who wanted to see Nautica05 with all the features that the template offered - and the features WordPress offer. I hope that the theme author will take on the responsibility of adding widgets, localization, multiple layouts and better plugin support in future versions…
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 17, 2006, 9:04 pm
gmd: If it wasn't for the fact that I trusted the instructions in the e-mail, I would probably have found that sooner or later. But now I didn't.
An appeal has been sent to Google, explaining the whole thing in detail. Back to "wait and see" mode.
Comment from dandyna
Time: May 18, 2006, 3:25 am
OT: I didn't intend to offend anyone nor I want lawers here cause there's really no need for such a stupid little thing, I just thought the nautica version was Open Source andwhile leaving all the credit I could just be fine porting it with wordpress. I am sorry for the layout isn't that good, as I told, it is my first attempt so excuse me if I did something wrong with the law, I wasnot meant to do that, for real. I will take Nautica down and remove it at once, it is not big problem, in the end, I just wasted one night of work that I did with passion,however, even yet not as professional and good as Andreas. I hope you'll understand me. I thought it was open source. I awas not trying to surpass Andreas' work. I think there's so much better time for us to enjoy the internet and wordpress and webdesign together, isn't there? so, peace everybody, k? :) I'm removing it. I still love and admire you all ^_^
Comment from Daniel Benoy
Time: May 18, 2006, 8:56 pm
Are you saying you make $250 a month with google ads? O.O I had no idea it was so lucerative.
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 18, 2006, 9:00 pm
No, that was the amount I had in my account at the time. The total amount per month would have been higher.
Comment from Tim O'Brien
Time: May 19, 2006, 10:01 am
That's just totally rude on Google's part.
If they actually know the clicks are from you, why not just pay 0 cents for all suspected clicks from the site owner?
Would they shut down your account if you had gone down to the local library and used a PC there? What if someone maliciously starts clicking all the links repeatedly on your site repeatedly, would that get you banned?
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 19, 2006, 10:41 am
Google are probably used to this situation, and killing user accounts without any warning is probably the easiest way to reduce the amount of time needed to deal with cheaters. But I agree that it is rude, knowing that I did wrong - but had good intentions.
I have sent an appeal now, explaining everything i detail. They will read it, and if they are humans, they will atleast consider the option of letting me in again. If they don't let me in, atleast I have been given a chance to explain myself. But that would make no sense to me.
Comment from yugnats
Time: May 20, 2006, 11:26 am
i agree it was rude but they did nothing wrong considering you violated their rules that you agreed to. maybe contacting them before going through the links would have been better:)
i suppose hindsight is always 20-20
Comment from monkey
Time: May 21, 2006, 1:28 am
it's a sad policy considering that so many things can get a person kicked out and it's easy to make the mistake. They really do need to protect their interests and their advertisers interests by avoiding fraudulent clicks, however, in this case they could easily void the clicks and give you at least a warning/second chance. I think the real fraudulent clicks will get though unnoticed because the cheaters would be more careful to cover their tracks.
it's unfortunate and google has apparently taken a very strict enforcement stance on this policy. At the least they should really have an active education program to teach people what to expect and make it easier to test the ads without risk.
Comment from Frank
Time: May 21, 2006, 11:59 pm
Hej Andreas,
I'm sorry to hear about what happened. I hope you'll get your account reinstated.
I'm a seasoned affiliate/Internet marketer, and hearing the word 'Adsense' is like breathing oxygen for me, and I've read about such issues multiple times. I know how you feel, but that's exactly how Google operates. No matter what your excuse is, fraudulent click activities are not tolerated at all, no matter what your reason may be.
Not only that: EVEN IF you don't click your own ads, you could still get banned for no reason. (Yes, unbelievable!!!! But it's true, trust me.)
When you ask for an explanation, they will not explain, (especially if you're a "low earner"). Their reason? To "protect the integrity of our tracking system."
I've got a friend who wanted to follow my affiliate business, and off he went signing up for an Adsense account. I told him from the very beginning *****NOT***** to click any of the ads for any reasons whatsoever. Yet he still clicked his ads just to make a couple dollars. He told me that he only clicked a few times, expecting that Google would not notice. Lo and behold…..a couple days later he got that dreaded email from Google, stating that his account had been terminated for fraudulent clicks.
Lesson learnt: under NO circumstances should we click our Adsense ad. If you're lucky you won't get banned, but if not, you'll get banned, sometimes with a warning, and sometimes without. We never know how exactly Google thinks….there's always that sense of mystery about them.
Oh another thing: never ever share the details about your Adsense account with others (CTR, eCPM, etc). Sharing your earning is ok (as stated in the Google Adsense TOS), but not the other stuff.
Now that you got your account banned, there's not much you can do except to hope, but should you get another account in the future (be it from having a business name, getting your old one reinstated, etc), you should try and properly track all your click activities. Don't rely solely on Google's internal Adsense stats as they don't provide sufficiently detailed information. Rather, invest some money in a third party tracker such as Adsense Gold (www.adsensegold.com) It's a very sophisticated script used and highly recommended by professionals, and it can certainly help you defend yourself.
Have a nice day!
(To Daniel Benoy (post #8), $250/month with Adsense is nothing, really. If you know what you're doing (i.e: providing keyword rich sites with good contents, with enough backlinks, well researched keywords, proper Adsense placements, highly unique site, etc etc), you can easily make 100 times that amount; I'm not kidding. Just to give you an idea of the income potential of Adsense: go to http://www.plentyoffish.com and guess what? That site makes 10,000$/DAY (yes, PER DAY). How, you might ask? Well it's very simple: they provide a completely free dating service. Lots of people need companion, they want love….and most dating sites charge for their service, but this site implements an incredibly simple concept: solve a daunting problem and offer the solution completely free. Good luck!)
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 22, 2006, 12:24 am
Frank: Thanks, lots of interesting info there! No matter what Google does now, I will most likely hire a professional to handle the advertising for my site. With the statistics that I'm seeing for this site now, it would make a major difference…
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Time: May 22, 2006, 11:22 am
[…] Une ressource possible est aussi Google Adds. Mais attention a votre utilisation, un utilisateur explique en anglais, en effet ses deboires avec Google Adds, lies a un e-mail recu lui expliquant que ses liens sur googleAds n'amener qu'a d'autres liens publicitaires. Il a donc essaye pour verifier… et son compte a ete bloque par Google Ads car il est interdit de cliquer sur les pubs de son propre site. […]
Comment from Peter
Time: May 22, 2006, 7:59 pm
I think you should have expected this. Google, a large company, is currently being threatened with having to pay back literally billions of US dollars to advertisers in Fraud clicks. You had good intentions, though, but as said, you should have contacted them first and found a way to check the links.
But for you to say "I will lose all respect for a company that I have admired for so many years" is just silly. YOU broke the rules, regardless of your intentions. Probably only a few employees of Google will deal with your account. I'm sure those few employees don't wish to risk Google's already threatened integrity and their own job to reinstate an admittad fraudulant clicker. But even if they don't reinstate you, how can you lose repect for the company, which is enormous and does many good things, for this one little incident?
It seems paradoxical, to me, to think that you will lose respect for a company that is trying to do the right thing by catching click-fraud because they caught you. Not only are they trying to do the right thing, but their adSense service has greatly helped support web designers, companies, and clients. I personally love seeing relevant ads on websites.
Obviously you weren't clicking on the ads for money, but you did violate the user agreement. Understand that that violation calls for termination.
And if they don't reinstate you, understand that it isn't a company, as a whole, trying to be evil. It is a few people reviewing and assessing your situation. And they are trying to help Google adSense, not hinder it.
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 22, 2006, 8:37 pm
Losing my respect for Google was not about me being kicked out or not. It was about Google giving me a chance to talk or not. I could explain that feeling with very strong arguments, but it doesn't matter now. Google has given me a chance to give my version of it all, and I know that my explaination will be considered before they make their final decision - so I'm happy whatever they do.
But the idea of being convicted by a multinational company (maybe the most powerful in the world) without any trial and without any chance to defend myself, that is nothing but scary.
Comment from The Dude
Time: May 23, 2006, 12:07 am
You clicked on your own links. Your motives were not fraudalent, but the outcome is still the same.
Comment from Xanuby
Time: May 23, 2006, 3:32 am
Sorry to hear that andreas. Like you, google did similiar thing to my account. They closed my account for invalid clicks, but i never clicked any of my ads. I tryed many contacts with google explaining my situation, but never got an answer, and my account never was reopened. I WAS a big fun of google….WAS, but not now, cannot be a fun of a company that treat persons like garbadge.
Comment from Jitesh Ghushe
Time: May 23, 2006, 4:28 am
Hi
Even I was kicked out for clicking on ads on my own website. But then it was 2 years ago. I was new to adsense and was just interested in making money and never read the policy and terms of service. Now that I have learnt the lesson, I will never repeat the mistake. I now have adsense on my websites and I never even check the adsense account not even I visit my own website. I am now earning more than ever. The website is growing in natural way.
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Time: May 23, 2006, 5:40 pm
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Comment from Matt
Time: May 23, 2006, 6:37 pm
Hi,
I'm sorry to say that but you'll probably never get your Adsense account again… It happened to me a few weeks ago : apparently some fool clicked like crazy on the ads displayed on my site, resulting in Google suspending the account for fraudulent clicks. I tried to appeal, to no avail. Its ridiculous. I'm using FF with Adblock, I didn't even see those ads. :-/
Details of the story.
Comment from Andreas
Time: May 23, 2006, 6:51 pm
I did get my account back. There is a follow-up post with the title "Google respect" if you want to know more. I will probably also use adblock to make sure that I won't see them and that I will not accidentally click them at any time. Just need to make sure that I'm not breaking any other rule by doing that…
Comment from TourPro
Time: May 23, 2006, 8:20 pm
Now that click fraud is being perpetrated by hijacked computers, it will be even harder to enforce for Google. The untold story is the demise of contextual advertising due to this hole in the model.
The ultimate irony is using AdBlock to prevent yourself from accidentally doing something that might be construed as fraud. I do the same thing myself, but stopped because I want to see my site as other do and I want to be able to click the ads on other people's sites. Isn't there some kind of blocking cookie solution to this? If we all start using AdBlock, then this whole exercise is pointless.
Comment from James
Time: May 23, 2006, 8:43 pm
At least you didn't have your account revoked for negative press published on your site.
I posted an article about my distaste for their association with China and within 15 min I received a cancellation email telling me that for "unspecified reasons" my account was closed.
I contacted them and it took me a full 7 days to convince them that I have the freedom to speak my mind and still do business at the same time. I can bitch and moan about a stupid policy @ a store and still shop there.
They finally reinstated my account.
Comment from Catnabbit
Time: May 24, 2006, 12:33 am
If you go through the help section on Google's Adsense site, there is an article about how to get the links to the sites while still clicking on them WITHOUT getting in trobule… it requires installing a plugin to internet explorer and you'd have to use internet explorer to click your ads. When you use the special plugin it doesn't count your ads when you click them.
Comment from ceejayoz
Time: May 24, 2006, 3:47 pm
There's an easier way than Catnabbit's method - just right click the link and copy the URL. The URL for the ad is part of the link's query string.
Comment from Paul Mitchell
Time: May 24, 2006, 6:51 pm
I got caught by this trap too. http://www.libertini.net/libertus/2006/04/21/coincidence-google/
D'oh! I'll know better next time.
Comment from moe
Time: May 29, 2006, 11:03 am
"I have always seen Google as good-guys that actually care for their users (unlike many other major companies) so it will be very interesting to see if they care about this at all or if they have grown too big to listen to a single user"
Not likely. My adsense account got nuked just 1 dollar shy of payout without any further explanation beyond "your account was related to another account which was closed due to illegal clicks". Since I have only ever had one AdSense account I have no idea what this means.
My pleas and requests for more info were all ignored by google.
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Time: May 29, 2006, 3:40 pm
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Comment from Static Brain
Time: May 30, 2006, 4:34 pm
I keep thinking about running ads on my site, then I hear horror stories like this. Makes me leery of running ads on my site.
Comment from Brainchemicals
Time: May 17, 2006, 6:50 pm
I had the same problem AV. They had me go to this URL and input the data (defense) and it 3 days it was resolved.
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/request.py?hl=en.