My Google Adsense Account Has Been Suspended - A Confession!
I have a confession to make: I’ve had my Google Adsense account suspended. I feel guilty about what I’ve done wrong to incur the wrath of Google and would like to share this with you so that you can avoid the same mistake; only they’ve not told me!
The first I knew was when I went to log into my Adsense account and couldn’t. It said that you’ve been disapproved and refer to the email we’ve sent you. That would have been good but I had received no such email.
I used the ‘contact us’ form (spookily enough) to contact Google. I’ve tried twice. Nothing. Boy, I must have done something pretty bad. Should I hand myself in and my local police station? I don’t know what I would say. “I’ve been found guilty by Google of violating their terms and conditions but no-one’s told me what this was, I don’t know what I’ve done and when I ask them I don’t get a reply”.
Now, apart from the annoyance, this is really no great deal. In fact, I read more and more that webmasters are removing Adsense and sacrificing the pennies they may have earned in order to focus more on the real purpose of their site.
For me though, it’s the frustration at not knowing why; I have respect for the Adsense program and wouldn’t try to cheat it (as my income would testify!). Having someone click on your Google site search to then be greeted by ‘this site has been suspended due to violating our terms and conditions’ to me is getting along the way of defamation of character. Ouch.
——————————
23rd August 2006
As a PS to the above, I appealed to Google based on the fact that I have been with the program for almost 3 years and do not engage in any fraudulent activities.
This is the robotic response I got:
Thank you for your appeal.
After receiving your response, we re-reviewed your account data
thoroughly. We have reconfirmed that invalid clicks were generated on the
ads on your site in violation of our Terms and Conditions and programme
policies.
https://www.google.com/adsense/terms
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies
We have implemented these policies to help ensure the effectiveness of
Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers. According to our
policy on this matter, we are unable to reinstate you into the programme.
Please bear in mind that subsequent or duplicate appeals may not be
considered and you may not receive any further communication from us. We
appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
So, I go back through the policies and can see there’s lots of potential pit falls. However, I’m still no nearer to finding out what it is I have done.
Luckily, my AdSense revenue was so low that it won’t be missed but it’s this continual feeling that Google is somehow finding you guilty of something without actually telling you what you’ve done. It seems that there’s no room for error on their part or the fact someone else could have done something to cause this. Thanks for the last 3 years of revenue sharing but now you’re out.
Comment by Paul H
Adrian, I feel for you and am as frustrated at this “Google” Beast as some others. I guess it just boils down to the fact that “Google” is pretty much a robot and trying to “talk” to a real person there is harder than trying to talk to a real person at a tele-bank etc. I think we’ve got to start getting used to this level of customer service from businesses founded because of the internet. Mind you, that opens up a potential for some good revenue generation via person to person referral affiliate deals of which I hope we see more and more over the coming years.
Comment by Adrian
I’ve since emailed Google and submitted a second appeal but I’ve not had a response to either. To be fair, they did say in the email copied above they I may not get a response but it’s so frustrating being found guilty of breaking the terms of the Adsense program without knowing what I’ve done, or meant to have done. If only they’d be a little more professional and provide the domain in question and specifics about which policy has been infringed. How to win friends…
Comment by bradlee
Adsense Buster Idea
This is TRUE if we avoid this same IP ADDRESS access probably there will be no reason for GOOGLE injustice.
Im thinking of writing a script if coming from same ip address DONT display adsense or ADSENSE BUSTED as what I said.
Coy wrote:
> If Google is going by IP address, that may be part of the problem
> there. A large number of internet providers use shared and/or dynamic
> IP addresses for their customers. For example, I use a popular
> satellite service to access the internet. Every time I connect to
> their central hub, they give me a different IP address. I have no
> control over what IP address I am given, and have no idea what other
> users of my IP may or may not have done. If I have the unfortunate
> luck to get an IP that has been banned (which has happened before
> while visiting websites), I have no way of proving I am a “different
> person” than whomever got that particular IP banned (most likely for
> good reason… but I can’t control that).
>
> Therefore, just as a suggestion, you might want to find out if your
> internet provider assigns the same IP to different customers (chances
> are, they do, because this is a very common occurrence). If that is
> the case, you may have run afoul of someone else using the same IP
> address to break Google’s AdSense TOS.
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Comment by Rick
Hmmm, I too was banned from google for supposed invalid clicks. I also tried to appeal, and would you belive it, I got the same exact answer (word for word). That tells me that all appeals are answered by a computer, and not by a human. You looked into my account? Yeah, right. You didn’t look into anything. A computer got my email, processed it, and sent out it’s standard pat answer, with no human element involved.
Rick
Comment by Derek
I have been banned from Google in the same way and as you, earned mere pennies - but the feeling of being accused of cheating really got to me - and I was told that my pennies were returned to the advertisers. All automated mail/response to my objections.
I had even written a review about Google adsense on my site. I was so mad I stripped every reference to google from my site and found another similar program called Clicksor.
Derek
Comment by Dave
I too have been banned and do admit to clicking my own links. Google was freezing up on my site, plus my click $ was suddenly at $0.00 per day, down from nearly $5.00 (not big money) so I knew something was wrong.
I tried to click on my ads, but the click wouldn’t pop up the page. So I tried right click and open in new window. This method worked.
So I changed the script figuring something might have been wrong with the orig one on my site. Yep again I tested, still the same problem.
So I contact Google and tell them my stupid story. I get about 5 emails from a guy there letting me know the steps to make sure I stay in good standing. They thanked me for my honesty blah blah blah.
At one point they misunderstood what I meant by “changing the code” they read more into it by thinking I was altering the code. I had to say, no no no, I changed it by regenerating a new code in my adsense account.
I get another email thanking me for the clarification and telling me to set up ad channels to help me in the future. Also within the email were the links to the help forum.
That was yesterday and I figured the issue was settled, they tested my code, things were ok according to them.
Tonight I get an email telling me I had invalid clicks and my account was disabled and the usual we will return any money on your account to the advertiser. I didn’t have but a few bucks on my account, but very worried that somehow Google will take back the deposit they made to my bank acct 2 days ago. (my first payment, finally after almost 2 yrs)
In my appeal I said surely to goodness if I were a fraud I wouldn’t ask for help…Hey google come look at me and my fraudulent clicks. It was ignorance on my part to even try to click the link from my site.
I appealed it but not because I want to put the ads back on my site. I honestly do not want to see them again, I am left with a sour taste. I just don’t like feeling like some thief that stole a few pennies
Comment by Darcy
I am having the same problem. I have emailed and appealed every day to Google. Nothing.
Yes, I got the exact same email as you both did. I found out that my friends were trying to help me and that’s probably what got me banned.
I like how I am banned for life. No appeal, no parole. I had only been with them THREE WEEKS.
Maybe someday I’ll get an answer from them.
Darcy
Comment by Dave
I doubt that they will respond, they have a case of the “bigger than anyone” and we can do as we please.
Even if I win my appeal I do not plan on adding their code back onto any of my sites. I only wish to win the appeal to gain back the pride that Google knocked out of me.
Comment by Ron
Sorry to here about this trend. I too had my account disabled for supposed invalid clicks and received the exact same message after appealing it.
However, I never clicked my own ads or told anyone else to do so. I also never used any type of bot or click network. I spent thousands of dollars advertising my sites on ADWORDS!
And AdSense owes me several thousand dollars, not just a few bucks. So I’m VERY upset about being called a cheat by their robots and their lack of support. I’ve wrote them nearly every day for the last week and no one ever replies. Meanwhile, a friend who also uses AdSense can write them and ask little questions and he gets a reply within 24 hours every time.
I hate the thought of hiring an attorney to try to get my legitimate earnings from Google. To me, it is theft and fraud that THEY are doing unto me. I had seriously hoped it was just a precaution and they would see they made a mistake and reinstate my account, but they won’t even contact me, let alone let me back in to my account.
After all of the stories I’ve read on this topic, why isn’t there some type of class action lawsuit against Google on behalf of the publishers who were wrongly banned and had their earning stolen?
This is not just some little inconvenience. They have me totally stressed out for the past week and are damaging my honest business. I’ve tried to remain calm and patient while they realize their mistake. But with every passing day I lose more and more hope and am on the verge of reporting this to their Attorney General, BBB and the FTC.
Innocent people shouldn’t have to suffer because GOOGLE can’t come up with a way to accurately monitor click fraud and stay on top of it! And I’m referring to both advertisers and publishers suffering. They make millions of dollars and can’t implement a simple system to monitor traffic quality? Come on now.
Filtering out multiple clicks from same IPs is simple stuff. They need to get more serious about the problem and start rating traffic quality by monitoring everything from the referrer to the click to the conversion. A few extra measures might need to be taken by both publishers and advertisers, but if it means stomping out click fraud, I don’t think anyone would mind.
1. They should make it mandatory for advertisers to add the conversion code to their pages. Not only is it helpful to advertisers to watch their conversions and costs closer, but Google could also use it to monitor publishers’ traffic quality.
2. They should give all publishers a click monitoring program, similar to AdSense Tracker, that will automatically notify and report potential bad clicks to Google, as well as, allow the publishers to report multiple clicks from one IP as a good faith gesture. Good faith gestures also add to the rating score of the publishers and builds their credibility. Again, all automated. Possible reward publishers with higher traffic quality and rating scores with higher paying ad blocks and higher earnings per click, while giving publishers who score low, much lower earnings per click until they build their ratings.
3. Using these two tools and policing your pages should be added to their TOS. You don’t do it, you get the boot.
4. They should report where all AdSense impressions are coming from in the publishers’ control panels and allow publishers to block and report unauthorized use of their ID. This will stop malicious people who are out to purposely get their competitors booted from the AdSense program.
Since Google doesn’t require all new sites from current publishers to be approved before adding their code, it would be nothing for someone to run your ID on a site that is against their TOS or for them to sit there and click ads with your ID on some remote site and get your account disabled.
I’m sure there is more they could do, but these would be one heck of a start if they want to get serious about the problem.
Sorry for the long rant, but it really irritates me to see Google bragging about their billions and whining about how their genius engineers can’t do something to protect the people who are making them rich. And I’m not about to let them use that nonsense to swindle me out of hard-earned commissions and call me a fraud.
If any attorneys are up for the challenge, I’m sure they could make millions from a class action lawsuit. Get the court to request all of Google’s past and present AdSense publishers’ info and send out a mailing to see how many were wrongly banned from their affiliate program and not paid what they were owed. I guarantee you’ll be shocked and make headlines. I wouldn’t doubt if most of that money was never returned to advertisers.
Ron
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Comment by ziffgone
Hey, I too had my account suspended with the same result as all of you. However, I did do a bit of an investigation myself, and I found within my web sites stats that an affiliate of mine was showing a page of mine with Adsnese ads on it in an autosurf program. Adsense strictly prohibits this. So, in my case, I guess their TOS was broken, but to no fault of my own. I immediately added frame breaker codes to any of my pages containing adsense ads, but to no avail. My account is gone forever.
I recently talked to Adrian in an email, telling him about a new Adsense/Adwords alternative that is specifically designed to be more fair to it’s members, and he suggested I share it here.
It’s funny that Ron should mention more advanced click fraud tracking, because this is a major issue this new company is focusing on. In fact, if you click on your own ad, it’s no big deal because they use an advanced geoip tracking that will simply cancel out your click!
The new Advertiser/Publisher program is from Kevin Lam, NetWorkersDebut.com.
He is just now launching this program: FairAdsNetwork.com.
He’s not slouching about how big he wants it to become either as he is now finalizing a deal with one of eBay’s biggest competitors, uBid.com.
For all intents and purposes, I think we may just see the best Adsense/Adwords alternative to date in FairAdsNetwork.com.
Perry Wolf.
SalesPageMonitor.com