"Invalid clicks" letter from AdSense - WTF??

[creme]

Just got this letter...I have no idea what their talking about. I don't send people to my minisites, I don't advertise them, I don't even go to them. I've made $11.00 in about 10 months. I did notice that in the last 7 days I've received 111 impressions, which is about 1/8th of my all-time traffic. Don't know why, but if it's because of better search engine rankings or something, then wtf???


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 may include, but are not limited to auto-surf,
pay-to-surf, pay-to-read, or pay-to-click sites.

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

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

If we continue to detect invalid clicks or impressions from these
services on your ads, we may disable your account to protect our
advertisers.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

 

[Fka200]

Got the same thing, don't really know why..... but I just shrugged it off.

Edit:

They also never replied to my e-mail asking them some questions.

 

[Mr Blockeel]

a while ago i read an articel about google being the most unfriendly company of the world, with the worst costumer care

but i guesse if you search that on google, it will be filtered out or censored :p

 

[abcde]

They just dont want you anymore. $11.00/ for ten months? They just dont want it.

 

[Sabre]

I recieved the same message a while back and wasn't doing anything against their TOS.

I presume it's simply a warning message they want to send out, to make sure you know the rules?

 

[bluearrow]

Think they are just try to keep remind us to stick with search engine traffic. few months ago i d bought traffic from a guy here and 2 days after i recieved the same mail from Google. they havent mentioned ppc programs but soon they might include those too.

 

[petrosc]

maybe someone wants to get back at you for some reason, and went to one of your pages and started clicking on your ads.

This is how my business partner lost his adsense account

 

[whitebark]

maybe someone wants to get back at you for some reason, and went to one of your pages and started clicking on your ads.

This is how my business partner lost his adsense account

Unfortunately this is starting to happen a lot. Business is a cut-throat place sometimes and I wouldn't put it past some people to try to sink their competitors by buying traffic for them, signing their website up to click and surf schemes etc. Google of course is no help in this regard - they just ban you without giving you little chance for defence.

It's their service and they can do what they want - publishers are of course at the mercy of both google and the competitors.

At DNF there was a great discussion on this topic. Someone mentioned even others who have been booted from adsense are taking out their frustrations on others by clicking their sites to piss off google.

Whatever your case may be - good luck.

 

[sufi]

Its possible that you bought cheap traffic which could be from autosurfs or similar programs?

 

[bojianh]

Google probably wants to kick small fry out of adsense . Not profitable to maintain their accts.

 

[bluearrow]

Google probably wants to kick small fry out of adsense . Not profitable to maintain their accts.

I don't agree with that , even among a small fry there are some which will become big fish and i don't think Google would bother to kick out people for nothing but they have no mercy that's for sure , do a tiny wrong thing they will ban you and wash their hands. no second chances in most cases.

 

[enlytend]

They don't send that letter out for no reason ... has nothing to do with how much or how little you make.

Think they are just try to keep remind us to stick with search engine traffic. few months ago i d bought traffic from a guy here and 2 days after i recieved the same mail from Google.

There are lots of legitimate traffic sources besides pure search results - you can buy advertising, you can have links on blogs, sites, directories, in articles, etc. It's when you offer incentives (money, merchandise, "points", etc.) to people to visit your site or to click on your ads that you get into trouble. Redirects are also a problem - read their TOS carefully, they really mean what they say and they will ban you for violations!

If you're sure you didn't do anything to artificially increase traffic, look at your logs and try to see where it's coming from so you can block the culprit from your site.

It doesn't hurt to reply to Google and ask if THEY can help you determine the source of the suspicious traffic -

 

[bluearrow]

yes they wouldnt send a mail without a reason.

I wonder how this goes with name points here at namepros , does adsense take it as a legitimate traffic sources ?