Invalid Adsense clicks

[mister_mojorisin]

Hi All,

I was recently advised by Google that my Adsense account had been terminated for invalid clicks. I did not make these clicks and I did not instruct anyone to do so. I appealed their decision to no avail.

This leads me to believe that a website with Google ads could be sabotaged resulting in a lifetime ban from future endeavors for actions which are out of the control of the publisher.

Has anyone else had this done to them? What recourse do I have, if any?

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[KevinG]

Originally Posted by mister_mojorisin

Hi All,

I was recently advised by Google that my Adsense account had been terminated for invalid clicks. I did not make these clicks and I did not instruct anyone to do so. I appealed their decision to no avail.

This leads me to believe that a website with Google ads could be sabotaged resulting in a lifetime ban from future endeavors for actions which are out of the control of the publisher.

Has anyone else had this done to them? What recourse do I have, if any?

Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I recently got a note from google saying that it had been determined that there were invalid clicks on my account. I accidentally clicked one of my ads (im serious, I was trying to close a pop up from another site and hit an ad on my page instead). They didn't ban my account but they threatened to if they saw more invalid clicks.

They are like advertising Nazi's. Lol.

[Simpleclicks]

My Google Adsense account is approaching $100 now and I am a bit nervous too. Many people got banned. I think it is not fair. We have been working hard and when we are about to reap the cash, the account is banned.

But do not dispaire. There are other alternative such as running an affiliate programs.

I recently joined AGLOCO and I am, like other people, very excited about it. They pay us while we surf the net. You dont have to post anything, you dont even need to have a blog. All you need is internet connection.

More info can be found on my signature.

[MartialDev]

Yes, the Adwords/Adsense system is gamed all the time (read up on "click fraud").

The fact that Google may cancel your account for accidentally clicking your own ad, when they could just as easily disregard the click, shows their less than altruistic intentions.

You can't fight city hall, and you cannot appeal Google's judgements. Fortunately, Adwords is not the only contextual ad system around.

[mister_mojorisin]

Originally Posted by MartialDev

The fact that Google may cancel your account for accidentally clicking your own ad, when they could just as easily disregard the click, shows their less than altruistic intentions.

I whole-heartedly agree. The knee jerk reaction of blaming the publisher without at least blacklisting the offending IP address gives the power to anyone who wants to sabotage a competitors attempt at generating income.

[birger]

If you've been ripped off by Google AdSense (ie: account terminated due to invalid clicks) I can only advise you to try to be firm and polite...
If it doesn't work, try AdBrite.


Not just click sabotage and accidental clicks can stop your ads though (small digression)...

A year back I ran a site which published the Mohammed cartoons (amongst other).

The site was doing quite well with Google ads, until a muslim fundementalist organisation e-mailed Google AdSense and managed to stop the ads. I don't know what they wrote, and probably never will. The reason I found out that it was this organisation, and not Google, wich was behind it was through an online muslim newspaper.

Google emailed me and told me that I had "content that infringed with their adsense terms." I politely asked them to point out what content they were referring to, and was only met by a few vague paragraphs from their T&C (further correspondence not returned).

Luckily, they just stopped showing the ads on the site and never cancelled my account. I also receieved my earnings for this and my other sites on schedule. I have been with them since, and used them on many other sites (far less popular and controversial though) and I'm happy with them, afterall.

Contextual ads are great, but Google totally lacks backbone!