Dirty Tricks to Harm Your Competitors

[Aminka Ozmun]

Someone I know with a $ucce$$ful network of Adsense sites (not link farm, though; just a wide variety of MFA-type sites) just got kicked out by Google for "fraudulent click activity."

Thing is, this guy doesn't try to game the system at all. His sites are all highly ranked for highly competitive keywords in a range of industries...so could it be possible for his competitors to sabotage his efforts? How??

I mean, is it as simple as just going on your competitors' sites and super-clicking the ads, thus showing up as "fraudulent click activity" to Google??

This guy just lost something that took him years to build -- overnight. And it's a big mystery as to how "fraudulent click activity" could have happened! He's telling me that someone sabotaged him by just going to his sites and super-clicking the ads...but Google can't be that dumb, can they????

Thoughts, please, as getting kicked out of Adsense is something like a Mark of Cain and you'll never be able to do business with Google again, and it's scary to think that Google is so easily manipulated....

[chadcharlie]

Google changes often, and although many believe that Google is smart enough to recognize malicious click attacks, I'm sure there are glitches...it's a computer trying to regulate an economy run by human emotion (mainly greed and fear).

HOWEVER, this is the number 1 reason I'm not a huge advocate of basing any Internet strategy on the build niche site, monetize with Adsense model. Your livelihood becomes hinged on a computer algorithm and what Google giveth, it can taketh away.

Obviously Google is the lion's share of Internet traffic, but that's a lot of eggs in one basket that can fall. I still prefer the networking approach, with an aim to build a following that is retained through emails, Twitter, or message boards like this for instance. Then one night if Google's algo turns against you for some reason, you have 1.2 million contacts in your personal data base that will allow you to a.) sell a different way, or b.) establish a new site much quicker!

I'm sorry to hear about your friend's frustrations.

R/
Chad.

[learnalifetime]

That's the reason you should never have a single income stream. It's the same with a 9to5 job.. One day you have it, the other day you're fired.
It's really sad to here these things, but at the end your friends will probably learn a lot from it.

I've heard that a ban from Google Adsense can be temporary, who knows more about this?

[Curtis2011]

I've seen at least one recent topic in the SBI forums about someone getting banned then re-instated into Adsense.

I just skimmed it so I don't have the details though.

[rawxstasy]

People can do "click-bombing" but as far as I know, Google knows the difference. I think Google is cracking down on MFA-type sites. There could be any number of reasons for the ban. Maybe he used his keywords too many times. Did his sites have informative helpful content? Probably the best thing he can do is make his sites as informative as possible. Become an expert on the topics. There are other income streams besides Adsense - Amazon, Clickbank etc. He could write an e-book and sell it on his sites.

[Aminka Ozmun]

Chad, this person I know claims that he read on the Warrior Forums that everybody says Google's too dumb to know -- though since they're all internet marketers there maybe they just tend to take a very cynical view of Google....

learnalifetime, this person (a colleague, you can say) tells me that everything he's read says to forget about it, that Google never reinstates anyone -- he's exploring other options now, such as adBrite, but he says no one's as good as Google....

Curtis, are the SBI! forums free, or do you have to be a member? I've heard good things about them (aside from the cult-stuff -- LOL).

rawxstasy, this person I know hates reading and doesn't like writing much, either (which is why he only does MFA sites!), but Google's problem with him is "invalid click activity" and nothing else (according to Google, he claims).