Ok,
So over a year ago I signed up for Google’s Adsense and was making a few bucks a month. Nothing to write home about but enough to pay some hosting costs. A couple of months ago, I took on some more sites to host and in exchange asked them to display my google ads. The clickthroughs were nice and it seemed as if these sites were very targetted to the types of ads the advertisers wanted to show…
Then I get the email from Google saying invalid clicks had been generated and my account was cancelled. Just before they were to pay me some decent money. The sad thing is that all of the page clicks were valid clicks from people going to the sites and I have the server logs to back it up.
I sense a bit more of a conspiracy here. Google got paid for all those clickthroughs from the advertiser, and because my rates jumped so quickly, google assumed they had to be fraudulent or didn’t want to pay so they just canceled my account. From a simple google search, it doesn’t look like I’m alone. Optimize your site for Google Adsense and increase your clickthroughs and google will cancel your account…
There is something worse though in Google’s model… The deliberate social hack to get someone else’s google adsense account banned. Simple email to them, a robot script to click links repeatedly, or worst and you can cancel someones main income stream instantly. But google doesn’t suffer, because they must be collecting from the advertiser.
It seems that Google feels the need to screw the little guy but not disclose the the advertiser that they paid for “fraudulent” clicks. If they were truely fradulent, wouldn’t google give you a chance to refute the claim??? Or notify the advertiser? Seems like the real story here is google wants to weed out the high click through sites and maximize their profitability.
The bottom line is Google gives you no chance to reactivate your account, and after further investigation, I won’t go back to adsense nor display an adsense ad ever again on any of my sites. Anyone that doesn’t back up their claims of fraudulent clicks shouldn’t be trusted.
That is so true ! Google is screwing people big time. But rejoice because an international search engine is coming up early 2006 and first of all this new search engine will have a system that will stop click fraud.
The affiates will know exactly how much they are going to get and the percentage is very high.
I believe Google is going to loose a lot of money in 2006.
Did you know that Click Defense Inc is suing Google for clcik fraud for more than 5 millions dollars ?
Jenny
Join the fight against Google Adsense http://www.Google-Adsense-Sucks.com
the exact same thing happend to me. we set it up, got a bunch of clicks, and when they were supposed to make the first payment they cancelled with no reasoning. shady.
Google screwed my site over too, I invested some money in advertising and got way more traffic, google disabled my account and took the money that I earned. they said I was clicking my own banners over and over, when I tried to contact them and explain to them that I didn’t cheat..no response…
Subject: Petition to get our money from Google going well – PLEASE JOIN US!
We are having great success with out petition to either get our
Adsense accounts back online, or to get enough names to present a
petition to Google to stop its poor business practices.
Please go to:
http://www.noodleware.com/adsense/
and sign the petition. As of today over 700 former Adsense affiliates
have signed on – and this is only in a few weeks!
– If you are still playing click exchanges with someone, you will lose
your Adsense account. Or if it’s just been shut down with no
explaination, then it’s time to take action.
Peace!
—
Thank you,
Rick Horvath
President – Noodleware Software Co.
Custom Designed Web Sites to fit any budget
E-Commerce Solutions
http://www.noodleware.com
Same thing happend to me, right before my first $100 payment was to be sent out. Obviously I am not going to cheat, its google, they know your ip address, their not stupid, why would I be?
My account just got cancelled for invalid clicks. I’ve never clicked on my own ads, and none of my friends know about my website, so how is this possible?
IMHO Google are crooks.
Mine is closed to.
Afther a year
Last months i didn’t get a payout. I didnt know why…
Afther 3 months i’m getting a letter my account is cancelled.
Why they waited 3 months? Just to rease my money and then to shut down?
Adsense sucks
http://www.google-adsense-sucks.com/
“Your AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously
disabled for invalid click activity and we have therefore disabled your
account.” .. is what Google told me as reason for stealing USD 170. Read well: Its not even ME clicking on my Ads, my account is “related” to somebody formerly doing fraud with Adsense! They didn’t tell me if they are talking about my grandma, my neighbours cat or father christmas. Was exactly in the moment when they had to send the fist check.
The same story you can find all over the the web. Thousands of 100-200 USD frauds by Google Adsense. They don’t bother to answer your mails. As I am no US citizen I can’t sew them. But I complained online at silcon Valleys Better Business Buero:
http://www.bbbsilicon.org/gccomplaint.html
There are lots of files already about google, you should do this too!
We have a medium size customer base in Mexico and started enabling adsense in several websites last year. Some of them were sponsored with the hope to pay expenses form Google adsense. 5 days ago just before my first payment above 100 USD I received a cancelation for my Adsense account and removed it. I think this company sucks they dont even answer the emails.. they are crooks, how in the world they presume to be so valuable in NASDAQ with a poor business model and customer service.. Google stink
Hi, Both my wife and I came across google adsense only in the last week of feb 2006. We purchased some extra targeted traffic for our sites and there was a fantastic response.
We had both our adsense a/cs closed in the last 24 hours. I had $162 in mine and $111 in my wifes.
Very annoying.
I have emailed them and will call and write if no reply received.
Rgds,
Niall
Yes, it happened to me too.
After I was almost ready to receive my first payment they just closed my account for invalid clicks.
No invitation to click on the banner was on my site. Maybe it was just because I have a community of volleyball players and they are used to click on new things to discover what’s going on?
I had over 3000 impressions a day.
When I was earning 76 dollars (3 dollars a day, so not so much money) they just closed it!!!
And it happen to a collegue of mine too. Without any reason.
I tried the adsense (nonsense) thing.
My travel site can be found in the top 10 results of every search engine out there.
I decided it was time to advertise since my site gets over 30,000 hits per day.
1. I made a lot of money after 1 month exactly.
2. I received a notice in my P.O. box with the PIN number required to receive my money.
3. The very next day after I entered my PIN number I received the same auto e-mail that I was disabled for invalid clicks.
4. I wrote many letters. No response from them, no phone to contact, and no money.
I wonder how many of all clicks on my site were considered valid by Google?
Even though I don’t have time to click my own links due to site development They say they will give it all back to advertisers.
If they could actually track invalid clicks then they should be able to track valid clicks.
I should at least receive my portion of ‘so – called valid clicks’ and Google get’s their portion of valid clicks also.
Wouldn’t you think that?
How much do you want to bet where the money really went?
I now refer to them as Google ‘NonSense’.
I’d like to hear more about this international search engine that is going to stop click fraud.
it happened to us to. We had traffic coming in from adbrite.com and ADVERTISEMENT was clearly stated on our websites. Yet 1100.00 dollar later and $700.00 pending google claimed we clicked our own ads.
The letter came. Googles oh so Holier than thou reply of “we know whats best for you” fraudulent clicks were made. It wasn’t true though. We thought alot of google before this happened and now they do not rate with us whatsoever.
I will say this, there are other sites better than google that have been around much longer Yahoo for one. We do not need google and never will.
Google are a bunch of SCUMBAGS and they need to be brought to their knees. They are basically another Paypal. You see it’s cheaper for Google to just keep signing up new people. This way they know they won’t have to pay a new person for like 3 months. They know that’s how long it will take to generate any revenue. Google will also use tactics such as not delivering your check. When this happens, you have to wait a whole other month to have it delivered. They have one massive offshore account they dump the money into so it collects interest. When and if a person does start to make any revenue from this joke of of a plan, Google will cancel their account, using some utter bullshit excuse, saying “invalid clicks” were found on your ads. Oh yeah…show me the proof! They will cancel a person’s account and then they will not pay you the revenue that YOU generated for them by GRACIOUSLY allowing them to keep their ads on your website. Websites that you pay the bandwith for. Websites that you market and look after. The blogging community needs to stick together and spread the word that these SCUMBAGS Google ARE NOT to be trusted. And i don’t care how good their search engine is. To tell you the truth it ain’t all that. I think Yahoo.com and Clusty.com are much better.
I think a formal class action should be filed and all us little people who they screwed should get our money. I do not care if it is $30 or $3000. I also feel this should be given to the media, CNBC, Neal Kavuto, Bloomberg. Nothing like some bad press to whip a bully into shape!
The first time Google Adsense people banned my website for saying there were invalid clicks which weren’t. No detailed reasons mentioned.Then I thought of coming with another website and then again signed for Adsense. I wanted to see how good and ethical Google is. I received an email saying ‘Congratulations ! you may not display Google ads’. So my new site started displaying Google ads. When I had almost made $100 and they were to pay me then again I got a mail saying ‘your account is found linked with an account previously banned….’ So they got money from advertisers from ads on my site plus they also snatched my earnings. Google is a fraud.Boycott Google. Instead use better search engines and use their ad service. Support Yahoo.com, Microsoft’s Live.com,
Mamma.com, Ask.com etc.
Ain’t Google just wonderful. When you get a letter from them about them seeing invalid clicks, they won’t give you ANY information about the suspect clicks, such as their IP address, or the date and time they were observed.
However, they WILL tell you that you need to alert them to any invalid clicks, even though their policies prevent you from using any technique to monitor those same clicks.
If there is a problem, Google won’t take your phone calls. When you write them, you are not likely to get a response. When they do respond, they will only give you a first name, and there is no way to talk to a supervisor.
I used to run Google AdSense ads on several of my sites. I was doing something called keyword-arbitrage, where I bought inexpensive Google Adwords, Yahoo and MSN ads to send people to my sites for topics related to their searches.
The pages that they landed on were then written about very specific topics that are related to expensive keyword ads. They would get to my pages, read, see the ads, click on them, and I would make money.
This works because alot of people don’t really know what to search for. If you cast a wide net on a topic, you can take people to a page that is about what they are really looking for. I used to also run ads for my own products on those same sites. Many of the visitors would click through and buy my products, so I know that they were real people.
I was spending around $1,000 per month on advertising, and was grossing around $3,000 per month in AdSense revenue – so, $2,000 per month profit. Google loved me so much that they sent a great Christmas present. It was one of those digital photo frames. Google loved me because – if Google pays 5% in commissions, they were grossing roughly $720,000 per year off of my efforts.
THEN ONE DAY I GET THAT LETTER.
I know better than to click on my own ads. I spent alot of time setting up all of those sites. They wouldn’t give me any evidence whatsoever.
So I have to shut down the sites… But I still have two checks in the queue from them. I get January’s $3,000 check. Then, February was going to be less because it was for only a partial month. Guess what, they docked me more than $400.
I wrote them a long letter, but trashed it. What’s the point. In this business, they are the police, judge and jury. They hold a secret trial for you and don’t let you see the evidence.
I hear that Yahoo is going to offer a similar system soon. Competition will be good for Google.
What I don’t understand is why there doesn’t seem to be an independant company that does something like what AdSense is supposed to be. I’ve seen other firms out there, but they don’t want to talk to you if you don’t have 10 million hits per month. My sites were getting alot of traffic – around 50-100K per month, but that was still too little to get setup with those firms.
I think that the whole PPC think is just to open to fraud. As an advertiser, I’m must more trusting of CPM. I also want to be able to completely control which sites my ads appear on. I’ve been on the receiving end of click fraud a few times, and it’s always some
fake search engine that’s an affiliate of a larger search engine, and that site is always a PR-0 site.
I will say this. At least you can get a human on the phone at Yahoo. If you’re click frauded, you still aren’t likely to get a refund from them, but at least the person on the phone appears to be concerned.
Sign me –
Looking for another ad source.
Google ripped me off too! I have a great webstore and ebay business, I drive alot of traffic to my webstore with op-in repeat customer email, so after 18 months building my google income, almost $500.00 monthly I get banned, just the same canned email everyone else gets for invalid clicks, they
got me for over $700.00 total earnings that where cancelled.
I already have a good income from my online sales, glad I didnt have to have the money, the F@@kers at google can keep the Money, legit online marketers beware of adsense,dont waste your time!
May/2007
I had the same experience with Google. They are crooks. I think they systematically select their victims randomly to make some extra cash.
I’ve posted about my experiences here:
http://lighterside.shijaz.com/2008/02/why-google-adsense-sucks.html
Well yes adsense is still doing the same thing. And yes as Shijaz said they are crooks.
My account was suspended a weak ago for invalid clicks, there wasn’t much money in there, just about 14$. I requested an appeal but they never responded. Just yesterday my brothers account was also disabled and the amount of money in it was also around 14$.
Now 14$ doesn’t sound much but when you check the detailed report you’ll see that 14$ converts to over 500$ that goes to Google’s account. And with so many accounts being disabled I guess that Google are making bug bucks but rest assured that this will change sooner or later as many people already knows about the Google scam.
I have recently switched to Adbrite and to tell ya the truth I’m not happy with there service as my balance has reached 0.07$ in like a week. Not very efficient so now I’m confused about what Ad service should I join to make big money.
Yes, they are crooks..
they especially scam indians who work very hard.
Hey Patrick, have you tried Chitika? Over the last year I compiled some statistics of my earnings and I actually earned twice as much with Chitika compared to AdSense. For those of you considering Chitika – try it! You can check out this Chitika review for more info and some cool screenshots.
well, we seriously have to wait to see what microsoft has to offer, I can’t believe it takes microsoft 2 years and we still havn’t seen any microsoft adsense yet
Happened to me too… If you want to get even with them there are adsense bypass add-ons for Firefox and IE. They block google ads from showing in google searches and on any site that is displaying ads from Google. Start offering them for download on your site. Before you know it everyone will be blocking Google ads 🙂
You guys should really try adbrite to make money. They’re even better than adsense and they do send you your money. you can make about 200$ a day if you really work on it and have a good strategy.
http://webcashier.blogspot.com
My account was disable too…I was angry with Google now…when the day I recieved the PIN letter from google and was happy…but when I try to login my adsense account and they disable my account.The PIN arrived and account disable at the same day…
I post their letter in my blog and tell the world that google no longer belived..and the pioneer of google seems poor still ripped off ppl earning.
The letter said “finacialy damage to their advertiser”
I think how can a publisher can simply “damage” the advertiser…hahaha
Now I relized Google realy cheat…
samething happened with me too, feelin reallt pity for all ya above and offcourse for me too though I am not regret of what happened as Google Adsense sucks long time, no invalid clicks though the fired me blaming Invalid clicks, ass f**** blame! By acting god, they’re actually shitting on public domain …. bastards in disguise!
pure and simple that really wierd seach engine call gaggle really sucks ass
Have you guys tried http://www.contentxn.com ? They have various models to work with, they are simply against googles practises and seems like they are as pissed of at google ppc model as we are.
Try it, though its still early days i see hope in this one. A lot more of such networks should come! To hell with google!
i had this one great website using yahoo ads i was getting normal money but i had a small account in google i was like let me try goolgle adsense insteat of yahoo well they say they were going to ingestigate because very fast i was getting alot of clicks so fuck those mother fuckers google adsense sucks.
My account has also been disabled. I am a married mother of 4 children who has worked endless hours on my website as well as 3 other websites. I have never, will never click on my own ads, ask anyone to click on my ads, or participate in any program that encourages the clicking of my own ads. My one website was generating $20 per day, then I added a second site, then a third, then a fourth. My revenue jumped to $55 per day with 4 sites. Seemed like a logical increase to me. Is there some type of college course for invalid click detection I should take to learn how to monitor what are invalid clicks. I have submitted all my weblogs to Google via the appeal form and am waiting for a response. There is nothing in the weblogs to suggest any invalid click activity. However, I understand that Google doesn’t have to care because they can just disable the account and move on. I also understand that there are other ad campaigns I can join and that I don’t have to participate with Google. That’s not the issue. It’s about attacking my character and accusing me of invalid click activity that I did not participate in. I know, some of the responders on this forum have told others that it doesn’t matter if I personally clicked or if I am a victim of click attack. All that matters to Google is that they determine it is happening so you present a threat. This seems like backward thinking. Why doesn’t Google try to identify who is doing the invalid clicking and shut them down so that they can’t interfere with other people’s lives in such a damaging way? Why do I have to pay for someone else’s disgusting behavior? Yeah, I know, life isn’t fair. Had I known that I need to sit around on pins and needles waiting every day to see if Google would disable my account, I would have paid more attention to my account. I just assumed that what was happening was normal. Of, course I know what ASSUME stands for and that is exactly what Google made out of me when they disabled my account with no prior warning. Furthermore, why can’t a separate account be set up for each website I own. That way, it is easier to track which website might be a cause for concern. Instead, Google won’t allow that and wants you to keep all websites under one account. So, I have no idea of knowing which website or websites are the source of the problem despite setting up a channel for each and every code. Another way that Google makes this whole process completely inefficient and publisher unfriendly.
As I have heard over and over and over on this forum and elsewhere, my account has been suspended 1 week before I would receive my first paycheck. When everyone else was complaining about this same issue, I scoffed at them thinking they must be involved in some way or they were just venting. Now, I’m one of those people and this is unbelievably infuriating. Not only to be accused of wrongdoing, but then to have no recourse but to fill out an online appeal form to submit to someone that may or may not decide to care about my situation. I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and will continue to pursue this further. Google has every right to protect their business as do I. I am just shocked at how little concern Google demonstrates for their customers. They want to protect the advertisers, but what about the publishers. WidgetBucks has a very clear Terms of Conditions and FAQ section that clearly states that they advise the publishers to take precaution against click attacks to avoid having accounts needlessly disabled. If this is such a rampant problem, why does Google not encourage the same. Well, I’m sure I can answer that question. I mean nothing to them when they have millions of websites to monitor. I feel the need to warn everyone about this. I had hopes and expectations that have been flushed down the toilet. Chalk it up to inexperience, but I now know that you cannot count on Google AdSense for income. I spent hours upon hours inserting Google ad codes and search codes on each and every page because my site is done through a blockbuilder program and does not pop up on every page. I have to add the code on each individual page. I was careful about placement, the number of ads on each page, and never messed with the code, just copy then paste. Should be a very simple process right, sit back and watch the page impressions and clicks with the revenue rolling in. Then, just when you think you are making something of yourself, the rug is pulled out from under you with no warning whatsoever.
I am shocked that Google actually directs its customers who are concerned about their accounts to this Help Forum. What help is provided here, only people providing doomsday answers with no real advice. No offense intended, but this is not what I call help. The Site Build It! Forum is incredible. I can post a question and within minutes there are several meaningful replies with all kinds of advice and support. And, if I need further support, I can email a real person, receive a response within a guaranteed 24 hours, and that support person maintains contact with me until my problem is resolved. Talk about customer service. Google, give Site Build It! a call. You could benefit from their customer service model. It’s not that hard to treat people like human beings, give them the time of day, then follow-up with action, not pre-worded emails. I know, it does nothing good to complain here because no one really cares about little me and my little website with my $900 that I will never see that I earned over the last 3 months.
But I will continue to bring attention about this matter to the public, to Google’s support staff, to Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google), to any forum I can post on, to the Better Business Bureau, and to news agencies especially the ones that actually recommend Google AdSense as a great way to make extra money (Tory Johnson at ABC News). I encourage others who have had their accounts wrongfully disabled to do the same. Also, check out http://www.patrickstuart.com/archives/2005/11/05/how-google-adsense-sucks/ and you will see that we are not alone. It seems highly unlikely that thousands of people who have had their accounts disabled due to invalid click activity have been sitting at home willingly and knowingly clicking on their own ads. I only wish I had the luxury of having such time to waste, but between 4 children, homework, a child care business, 4 websites, soccer practice, football practice, and other sport activities, I just can’t seem to find the time to sit around clicking on my own stupid Google ads. I do have plenty of time though to complain, complain, complain, complain, until I am heard and until the message gets across that this is an unfair business practice.
I know I should just move on and I have moved on to other ad campaigns because I’m not just going to sit around and let things fall apart that I have worked so hard for; however, this issue is too big to let go. There is too much injustice in this business practice and others may not mind losing money, but I refuse to let Google steal my integrity just because it is too much trouble to take the time to work this out with a little thing called customer service, not email exchange.
Good luck to everyone………
As of late it appears that Google is now also not paying anything for clicks that it even registers on it’s site. I had 5 days worth of clicks, all listed in my report, all counting for $0.00.
There are many alternatives now so it’s no worry, but I wish I’d been aware of this before ever even starting with adsense.
What are the CEO’s going to do with all that money, buy things to try to assuage the guilt they must feel for ruining so many peoples’ finances? Some people’s logic is beyond understanding, what a bunch of morons the people at Google are.
Eventually their business will sink, even if they are a behemoth.
One more victom from Google Adsense. My account was also disable the same day I recieved the PIN Also received the same letter from google that “finacialy damage to their advertiser”
Google is a big scam…I dont use it anymore period.
Written by Amit Agarwal on March 6, 2009 Text Size
Banned AdSense Publisher Gets His Money Back from Google
It’s not uncommon to hear stories of disgruntled AdSense publishers whose accounts have been permanently banned by Google either due to "non-compliance with AdSense policies" or for "posing a significant risk to AdWords advertisers."
The compliance issue is almost always related to content. For instance, if any particular website is centered around banned topics (like gambling or pornography), Google can disable AdSense serving for that website.
The next issue is more serious as it relates to "click fraud". No one obviously has a clear understanding of how Google determines "invalid clicks" but such an activity can invite an AdSense ban for life. There’s an appeal process at Google but again it doesn’t guarantee that your AdSense account will be reinstated even if you provide all the required details (like web server logs).
Aaron Greenspan was another happy AdSense user until he received an email from Google saying that his account has been cancelled.
While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your AdSense account.
Aaron writes in Huffington Post that his AdSense account was disabled without warning and he literally ran from pillar to post at Google trying to reach everyone from the AdSense Customer Service to the Legal Team to Google forums but with no success.
If an AdSense publisher’s account is disabled for invalid clicks, he is not entitled to any further payment from Google and all the current earnings are returned to the corresponding AdWords advertisers. The same happened to Aaron as he had made around $721 from AdSense but the payment was stopped after the account was disabled.
With literally no options left, Aaron made a final attempt and filed a civil lawsuit for $721.00 (the amount Google owed to him) saying that Google could not prove any wrongdoing and that Google’s fraud detection algorithm was imperfect. All he had to pay was $40 as the court fees for this lawsuit.
The AdSense account was disabled on December 9, 2008, he filed the lawsuit against Google on January 15, 2009 and on March 2, 2009, the judge delivered the following verdict:
I don’t think I have the power here in Palo Alto small claims court to make you reinstate his account, but I think you owe this young man $721. I think there might be money in Google’s treasury for that.
Google paid him all the "due" AdSense earnings along with the court fees though his account still stands cancelled.
I think a big reason why Google lost this case is because their lawyer couldn’t convince the judge about how "click fraud" was detected in first place. Google has good reasons to not disclose their fraud detection algorithms in public court cases but the fact that this decision went against Google could probably convince many more ex-AdSense users to follow the footsteps of Aaron
I too was blindsided just before my first check from Adsense of over $200. I also received the "substantial risk to our advertisers" bulk email from Adsense. Funny thing is I never expected this from Google. Greedy business practices. It wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many people accusing them of the same thing (disabling accounts just before a first payment). If Google are so advanced and so sure of the alleged fraudulent activity why dont they just dock users for the "fraudulent" clicks? Since I did not click on any ads myself Google is obviously accusing me of something I didn’t do. I think all their boasting of being so advanced is CRAP. If Google were so advanced we wouldn’t be having this problem now would we? We’ve been BamGoogled!
Ok I am joining the club now. Got my cookie cutter email and response from Adsense. Anyone able to name some competitors I can take a look at?