Being banned on adsense

[coulls]

This was originally a spin-off of another thread, but to keep stories separate, I thought I'd create a new thread.

To bring anyone up to date, the story is this:
I have a blog, and the idea was it would make money using adsense, by talking about adsense (simple snowball effect). It has been going 44 days (started June 1st) and today Google banned me for reasons unknown. Rather than just whinge about the situation, I'm in the appeals process pointing out what I've extolled on my website, and trying to draw Google's attention to the facts, which seem to not be a factor in their decision to ban me.

I'd like to share my experience's on this thread.

So far, I've written a very cool-headed letter to the appeals panel, pointing out anything I can think of being a factor - including the fact that in 2 years of blogging, I'd be wary of the fact that since June 1st, I've racked up 3 times more revenue than all the time previously - but there is an obvious reason for this.

I've also directed them to the blog at hand (see the millionaire blog in my tagline), pointing out that I actually blog about click-fraud and why you shouldn't do it. Right now, I've no idea if its the rapid rise in CTR or any type of percieved Click-Fraud, but it makes for an interesting story!

[JimOfferman]

Did they tell you why you were banned or are you just guessing here? I'd carefully read their list of policies, if I were you, to find out if you aren't trampling any of them...

One thing to check would be if they actually allow you to use the word 'AdSense' in your blog's title. With AdWords, at least, you are not allowed to do anything that suggests a Google affiliation.

It's been my experience that Google errs on the side of caution when executing their policies (and rightly so, I think).

[coulls]

Yes, I got the "Your account has been disabled" page, plus the email telling me so.

I've not made any representations that suggest I am part of Google (because I'm not) and I checked about the adsense in the title, and there's nothing I can see about that.

I agree that Google needs to err on the side of caution. I also understand that by giving out the reasons for being banned it would allow people to cheat the system - but it's quite the exercise in frustration when I'm sure I've not done anything naughty and even blogged about what you should not do.

Anyway, I'm at the 24 hour mark and still waiting to hear back. I understand that they probably aren't rushing to process appeals, so I'm waiting another day to see if anything comes back.

[Roman Budzowski]

Well, you can take your time and look for other ad networks that pay per mile or day instead of click. Having multiple sources of income makes it safer for you I know you want to become a millionaire with Adsense, but that will be extremely difficult (have you done the math on how many page views/ click you need to reach that goal?).

cheers
Roman

[xelanoimis]

Me got banned too a while ago

I wasn't making too much - in fact I had not even reached the payment level.
The invoked cause was "invalid clicks" - well, who knows!? I didn't click them myself, nor I requested anyone to do so. The only thing I could think of was that some enthusiast clicked too many times, and since there weren't too many clicks anyway...

I contested it, they checked it and replied in a few days or a perhaps a week, saying that it was no mistake. So that was it!

I posted the story on a few occasions, mentioning that I would've appreciate a prior warning from them, before disabling the account forever. I think it would've been only decent from them to say: "your website produces too many invalid clicks - do something about it, or we'll close your account." I would've dropped the adds, since they where not the purpose of that particular website of mine.

As for the "invalid clicks" reason, here's a little (dark) humor. One friend of mine, who worked as a fireman, told me that most of the time when they don't know why the fire started, they put the blame on an "electric failure" - since nobody else can check it anyway

[karinalynn]

I'm an internet marketing consultant and I've seen this happen most often because of click fraud concerns. This may (or may not) have been something that you caused. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it...once Google bans you, they usually mean business.

Another thing may have been an SEO issue. Were you doing any SEO type postings? Sometimes their system picks up on highly SEO'd blogs and punishes them to avoid spam...it's because their system is highly automated.
If this is the case, you'll want to watch your keyword concentration from now on.

[coulls]

It really could've been anything... As I said, I'm not whinging about it - it's actually turning into an interesting lesson.

@Roman - The math was actually easier than I expected. Basically, I was around 6 cents per visit, and given the people I was targetting, that was pretty easy (people who want riches immediately come to the blog and then don't want to read what I have to say, so they click out). So, the million is $2,739.73 per day, which at an average of 6 cents per visit, translates into about 45.5K people a day.

@Karinalynn - Yes, this could be it, but I don't know for sure. I was pretty highly SEO in keywords, content (blogging about page rankings, etc). I'm not writing off the appeals process just yet. I'll play the game and see what happens.

[Brutha]

It probably rather easy to program a bot that clicks on Adsense ads enough to get a new competitor banned Especially if you want to enter a niche where people are into doing a lot of technique building.

[coulls]

Ok - Update time.

Went through the appeals process. Several weeks went by and Google responded with something along the lines of "We looked into this, and you're still banned".

At the same time, my partner was just getting into adsense with her blog on local tourism ideas in Toronto, and about 3 weeks into using Adsense she got banned as well. So, now we're going to start the appeals process on her account.

In the meantime, I've done some digging about. Not wanting to let this little set-back kill my blogging income ideas, I have decided to give AdBrite a shot.

Hope to have everything up and running again in 48 hours or so.

[Brutha]

At the same time, my partner was just getting into adsense with her blog on local tourism ideas in Toronto, and about 3 weeks into using Adsense she got banned as well. So, now we're going to start the appeals process on her account.

Does your partner use the same computer/internet connection as you do?
If so, it probably that they banned your partner because of it.

[o0thirteen0o]

Originally Posted by coulls

At the same time, my partner was just getting into adsense with her blog on local tourism ideas in Toronto, and about 3 weeks into using Adsense she got banned as well. So, now we're going to start the appeals process on her account.

Ah, Google.. They have closed my AdSense accounts too many times to count.. I don't violate the terms so I call and I email and sometimes even have a little cry in the corner.. Once, after they disabled my account they canceled my sisters a week later.. Why? Well, we had the same phone number..

I was at a conference and I cornered a "Google-Guy" who reactivated my account and my sisters with two new verifiable phone numbers.. 1 year later, we're both still running..

[ar81]

I have known of dirty tricks in the net. If you are at the top of a search list, and your site is not protected against robots (do not ask me how for I do not know), someone could make a robot to submit your site to Google multiple times, so it is considered spam and that brings you to the bottom of the search list or to a ban.

My website was once victim of that, according to an IT guy I met once.
Fortunately that site was more like a hobby, so I do not care.

[moonrambler]

I've been hoping you'd update the situation on the blog, as it looks like you abandoned it.

I've found that blog to be very valuable, except there's one thing -- you don't take into account the people who have very limited experience with web design, html, and so on.

For instance, this:
Hidden in my source code are keywords telling Google what this blog covers. If you right-click the page you are looking at currently (Mac OSX users can go to View->Source Code), you will see this big pile of words at the beginning of each page.

I can't find anywhere in your tutorial that tells me how to insert the meta tags into my blog. I can call up the Notepad source, but it doesn't save what I type in.

[rjani]

Originally Posted by moonrambler

I've been hoping you'd update the situation on the blog, as it looks like you abandoned it.

I've found that blog to be very valuable, except there's one thing -- you don't take into account the people who have very limited experience with web design, html, and so on.

For instance, this:
Hidden in my source code are keywords telling Google what this blog covers. If you right-click the page you are looking at currently (Mac OSX users can go to View->Source Code), you will see this big pile of words at the beginning of each page.

I can't find anywhere in your tutorial that tells me how to insert the meta tags into my blog. I can call up the Notepad source, but it doesn't save what I type in.

Moonrambler, I suppose you use Blogger, then go to Layout/ Edit HTML, and insert the code there. Hope this helps.

[moonrambler]

Originally Posted by rjani

Moonrambler, I suppose you use Blogger, then go to Layout/ Edit HTML, and insert the code there. Hope this helps.

Thank you!!

[rjani]

No problem
Anyway, Jason, I hope you don't planning on abandoning your blog, even if Adbrite doeesn't work out.
What a pity would that be! Don't do it. I personally found your blog very useful, and I'm sure it'll help a lot when I launch my blog (in a week or so).
The posts and ideas I value the most were about traffic generating, and the fact that you showed us, that it's possible to earn some money in a very short time. Thanks for that. Try other ads (Chitika for example, though I dunno whats that ) or anything, just keep it up!

[moonrambler]

I've also found the blog very useful . . . I've learned a TON of stuff from it! It's also well-written and you make what could be a dry subject (essentially statistics) be interesting and entertaining with plenty of moments of humor.

[moonrambler]

My blog hadn't shown up in Google at all until I added the keywords yesterday morning, and now this morning I stumbled upon it while doing a search for "meaningful coincidence" (without quotes) -- debuting at #7. That was startling and thrilling to see!

[rjani]

Congrats Moonrambler!

[rjani]

Hey Coulls, at least let us know you're still alive or something, and do you plan on continuiing the blog or not, please.
Though I hope you're on a vacation or somthing...