Thread: Warning Letter

Just got this letter, puzzled by it. I do not use any method of fake traffic generation, yet they claim I am. Earnings have gone from $30 or more a day down to a few bucks if I'm lucky. Today I have not even made a buck yet!

Hello,

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s) through users of third-party programs paid or provided with other incentives to visit your site. Such programs include, but are not limited to auto-surf, pay-to-surf, pay-to-read, or pay-to-click sites.

Please bear in mind that if we continue to detect invalid clicks or impressions from these services on your ads, we may disable your account to protect our advertisers. In addition, we may adjust your future payments for any days during which invalid clicks occurred in order to properly credit advertisers for any invalid activity.

We understand that you may wish to receive specific information regarding the invalid activity we observed on your account. However, due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what specifics we found on your account.

As a reminder, any method of generating invalid clicks or impressions is strictly prohibited by our Terms and Conditions and program policies:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your account in good standing by visiting our Help Center at https://www.google.com/support/adsen...23921&hl=en_US.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Sounds an awful lot like their standard account termination letter... no details, no help.


Sorry dude, but I think your best bet is to e-mail them and ask them to at least tell you the domain the clicks were detected on so that you can disable the ads on that domain. Tell them that you are doing nothing wrong and that you want to correct the situation and that disabling the ads on that entire domain is the only solution you can think of, in light of the lack of information they are willing to provide and you want to ensure that this activity does not continue.

First shot by google to start the process of ending your adsense account.

Hopefully they will tell you the domain, as they would not tell me which of my domains got click bombed.

I know they must deal with over a dozen accounts :P but I think it's retarded that they do less than nothing in a situation like this, especially in a case where you have done nothing wrong.

That is insane! Totally ridiculous that they can just make claims and your account can be possible terminated without any info. I hope it gets worked out for you.

Google: You're screwed
You: Why?
Google: na-na-na-na-na-na

Best way to get ahold of them?

Originally Posted by Grim

Best way to get ahold of them?

Reply to the e-mail they sent you. They may take a couple of days to respond.
But, if you let them know that you've done nothing wrong and you are willing to take steps to correct the situation, that will work in your favour. They must also believe (at least, partially) that you are not at fault, or you probably would have gotten "the other e-mail". You know... the one that says you are a crook. Goodbye!

Don't even mention lawyers or lawsuits, either, because then your e-mail goes into a permanent frozen state, waiting for a letter from your lawyer before any movement is made on your case.

Contacted them, I then logged into my account and now see my payments are on hold. It says I need to follow a link to resolve an issue, the link goes to a contact form and nothing more. WTF

They owe me about $800, sure I'll never see a dime of that.

Originally Posted by Grim

Contacted them, I then logged into my account and now see my payments are on hold. It says I need to follow a link to resolve an issue, the link goes to a contact form and nothing more. WTF

They owe me about $800, sure I'll never see a dime of that.

oy, how "convenient" would that be of them!

Yes it is, already changing over to a few backup programs.

Originally Posted by Grim

Yes it is, already changing over to a few backup programs.

that sucks dude. that's a lot of protein bars down the shidder :evil:

You could start @ thread @ *P...and be enlightened

Replies 1-88: SUCK! Did you contact them? I'd contact them.

I'd try to resolve it, kissing their ass the whole time. $800 is nothing to sneeze at.
You could get it by trying for it, but you'll never get it if you give up and you earned it.
They didn't outright cancel your account, so that shows that there's still some hope.

Grim.. If you are reading it..
Dont Panic.. It is most probably any of your customer/Competitor/enemy Gone berserk and clicked the ads too much..
Most likely it is you some sick, ill minded, asshole competitor trying to get you kicked out.

I have gotten this kind of letter twice and I survived.
Steps to do:

1. Write to Google Tell them that you have not Participated in any kind of pay to surf/ auto surf program. You are as concerned about it as they are.. you are looking for the trouble maker so that you can take steps to get rid on it. and any kind of information would be helpful from them (Ask for the Domain name/ or channel..).

2. Look into your Adsense stats. use you channel data to see if there is any* unusual jump in impressions/clicks for any specific channel

3. Look into your website stats (better to use something even better than Awstats to get Customized analysis report, Weblog expert is the best out there) look for any supected URL/IP/Activity.. Compare last 3-4 months stats. Usually Top hosts are same or one up and one down for all the month. see if there any *new* IP is/was giving you enormous (in thousands) hits for just a period of time.

use DNS lookup tool and Reverse domain tools to investigate these IPs.. Probably you will get the answer.
and if you find anything provide the info to google at once to prove your innocence.

For Google it is like 'Guilty until proved Innocent'

I did almost exactly what you suggested before you suggested it webby

There is one channel that is / was getting a huge amount of impressions that my website stats do not match.

I removed adsense from the vast majority of my sites, replaced with other programs. Other programs have me wondering if they are even tracking clicks at times though.

Still have yet to hear back from them, payment is still on hold.

Adsense got back to me, basically no help at all. It's my job to know my traffic, they also took back over $700 of what they owed me, trying to say it's all invalid clicks. I now owe them money according to them!!! mg:

OY! :evil:

That is insane. Totally ridiculous that they can take your money back and charge you more on top of that, totally f'd up! Sorry man.

Originally Posted by Grim

Adsense got back to me, basically no help at all. It's my job to know my traffic, they also took back over $700 of what they owed me, trying to say it's all invalid clicks. I now owe them money according to them!!! mg:

That sucks...big time.

Did they close your account or just took the money off??

Google is being crazy off late.. I sense Death..anyone else??

they better not die! at this rate I won't reach my first check until 2011

They didn't close the account, just stole my $$$.
I don't participate in any BS programs, the sites get traffic direct from my own sites, google themselves and one popular listing site.

ERR, what a bunch of BS.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Grim.


It's a good thing I only make 4 or 5 cents a day. I won't miss it when Google decides to f*ck me over.

Originally Posted by Grim

They didn't close the account, just stole my $$$.
I don't participate in any BS programs, the sites get traffic direct from my own sites, google themselves and one popular listing site.

ERR, what a bunch of BS.

That really really suck..
Though some people would find it great as you still have the Account..

If you get Good amount of US traffic switch to YPN.. they pay better..

^ thats what I was thinking, plus if google says u still owe them money and you keep making money with adsense, whats to stop them from taking your money daily?

ypn has not approved me

I am running a few other programs, one has gotten some clicks. Made a whopping 6 cents so far!

When adsene was in it's spot it would have been $25 or more by now for those ad boxes. Err until I had to pay it all back.

what type of sites were you displaying adsense on?

Grim et al ... I would suggest if not already incorporated that you install a program like "adsense gold" (http://www.adsensegold.com/) that can monitor which of your adsense/ypn ads get clicked and from what IP. It a great little program for seeing how people get to your site and what they click. You can monitor unlimited number of sites BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY you can substantiate and claims that folks like google may have against you. I know many people who have being able to supply these stats to G and prove their innocence. There is also http://www.OPENADS.ORG (free) which can also be configured to prevent an IP from seeing a specific ad after X many clicks or views.

Good Luck!

Variety of sites, newest sites though were proxies. Blocking multiple clicks would do not good as the reason google claims is where the traffic is coming from, not amount of clicks. Plus they wont help in anyway so I have ditched them. Rather not make several hundred more dollars just to have them send a BS excuse not to pay me again.

At least GRIM you are better than me, the only email I receive from Adsense was a banning email, no chance.

They called me a thief and canceled my account almost 2 years ago. I thought it sucked at the time, but the fact that I did not have to feel like the sentiment is this thread the last two years was a relief.

It's not easy to replace the revenue, but it can be done.

p.s. when I appealed, they basically called me a liar and a thief.

p.p.s maybe now you see why I send people to "other" search links.

Good luck

Originally Posted by GRIM

Variety of sites, newest sites though were proxies.

Just the fact that they are proxies might be enough for Google to want to terminate your account.

Proxies tend to get a high level of foreign traffic (china). Traffic that is useless to most advertisers.

I'm surprised Google has not yet revised the TOS to say "No Porn, Gambling , or Proxies"

Because there is nothing inherently "immoral" about proxy sites they don't make a blanket statement like they do with poker and porn. So maybe they just filter out the ones that fall below a certain traffic quality threshold.

So, you may even be shit out of luck in trying to explain that your not doing anything wrong on your end. If it were any other type of site they might listen to you.

Thats all conjecture on my part but seems reasonable. If I was Google its what I would do.

If you think the proxies are the problem then may tell Google you will remove ads from those sites and would like to be allowed to keep ads on non-proxy sites.

"oh hai G,

after some thought and some research on various forums I think that the proxies might be delivering too much poor quality foreign traffic and may have been the cause of the 'invalid clicks'. I will remove all Adsense code from those sites. But I do have other sites in my account in which I am certain there are no 'invalid click' issues. I would like to be able to keep those Adsense chanels in good standing.

Kthxbai"

Oh yeah. And In my experience. Threads like this never bode well for those of us that comment.

Even though we are not "evil".

Originally Posted by noppid

Oh yeah. And In my experience. Threads like this never bode well for those of us that comment.

Meaning?

I don't rely on adsense at all thankgod.

I got a shock when I saw this in my CP, I thought that the Administrator Grim is giving me a warning for something

Originally Posted by geekonetwothree

I got a shock when I saw this in my CP, I thought that the Administrator Grim is giving me a warning for something

if you ask nicely he might give you an infraction

Is there any value for me to put adsense on my directory website?

Grim, did you actually have to pay them back the money they said you owe them?

$800! You should take out everytime it reaches $100, never leave it there. If someone hated you and do a few invalid clicks your money is Good Bye

Originally Posted by DesertRose702

Is there any value for me to put adsense on my directory website?

IMHO not really, but it doesn't hurt.

Originally Posted by DesertRose702

Grim, did you actually have to pay them back the money they said you owe them?

They took it all from current and future earnings.

Originally Posted by geekonetwothree

$800! You should take out everytime it reaches $100, never leave it there. If someone hated you and do a few invalid clicks your money is Good Bye

I do have it monthly, you can not just take it out as soon as you hit $100

Time for the Troll Horde yet GRIM?