Invalid Clicks

[Teddy]

Has anyone else been ban for invalid clicks by the Google adsense monster?

Was it unjustified? Did you actually have invalid clicks? Did they not give you a chance to explain or not take the possible reasons for the high click through rate?

I'm trying to see if my problem has occurred to many others or was it isolated. Please do respond because I might take legal action, I just need to see if others have had the same problem.

 

[dc1pop]

legal action against google....you crazy?

 

[Teddy]

No, very far from it. It seems to me like it would be a good class action suit.

I have started discussions with my lawyer and they agree. I need to understand just how many people have had this happen to them.

Furthermore it is worth it in my case as we have lost thousands and almost gone broke from it. If I only sue because of my case it will be worth it.

 

[xtremest]

Good luck, man!

 

[drifta]

what did they say when you contacted them about it? did you ask them to explain how they were invalid? class action lawsuit is going to be tricky you will need all information for each person at hand. doesnt really seem worth it to me.. unless you had 50k worth of revenue with them..

 

[Teddy]

Well, we had over 10k that was taken.

And the stories with people loosing money are all over the place. Even if its just $200 that they lost, 200 people losing 200$ is 40,000USD that Google is saving by just banning them unjustly. That’s so wrong.

 

[downloadfreak]

Hello,

It is a problem and Googles TOS state they can close your account without any reason, this is totally unjustified.

I have been banned from google and lost a total of around $650 as some idiot(s) decided to mass click the ads.

It happens to thousands of people and really does suck.

 

[Momo]

As stated in the Google Adsense TOS:

Google may at any time, in its sole discretion, terminate all or part of the Program, terminate this Agreement, or suspend or terminate the participation of any Site in all or part of the Program for any reason.

You agreed to it when you sign up, so I don't think you can sue them for banning your account.

 

[drifta]

Well, we had over 10k that was taken.

And the stories with people loosing money are all over the place. Even if its just $200 that they lost, 200 people losing 200$ is 40,000USD that Google is saving by just banning them unjustly. That’s so wrong.

10k.. so it was a pretty big site you had the ads on?
i feel your not telling us something (please dont take offense) they didnt explain how they were invalid clicks? or how many invalid clicks there were?
most ppc affiliates are pretty leniant when it comes to invalid clicks

you didnt ask or offer incentives to people clicksing your google ads right?
or click yourself?

 

[Teddy]

No, I did not click the ads at all. We did ask them many times to explain and questioned them to the max to no avail. Google as many people have say ban with out reasons given but the "invalid clicks". Me and my partners site was huge, we where receiving over 15k uniques a day alone to it(one website we own) . I have nothing to hide from google or else I would not be thinking about filing a law suit :p

Momo, sometimes contracts are not correctly written and often when on the web are very and i mean very questionable. I will be discussing it with my lawyer, and if anyone would like to participate I will start collecting names, addresses and losses via a website i am setting up now in order to file the class action suit (possibly once me and my lawyer go into it in depth).

downloadfreak, in response to you, i agree. It happens everyday to tons of people. That’s why it needs to be made a big deal out of it. You see Google with their boast to technology does I believe have the power to fix the problem of people being able to go and just click over and over again to get ban. Their ips can be ban from being credited to the account and the persons ip could be ban from even letting the ad even show up. To say the least Google does not have to ban everyone for this problem in their system, it should be fixed and it has to be fixed. To me it just seems like they are doing it and saying "Oh well now we get to keep your income"

 

[BillyConnite]

Well it happened to me, and not one of the clicks were mine ! I only had about $100 in there, and the only explanation was "invalid clicks" I emailed them some time later with a very nicely thought out email asking if my account could be re-activated, and also explaining that I would not use google ads on the sites that so-called "invalid clicks" were coming from just incase invalid clicks really were coming from other people.
They said, "sorry, we have certain policies.. bla bla bla."Yes it happens everyday to a damn lot of people, and I can't believe that if someone was making $10,000 on adsense that google wouldn't investiage the matter a little closer, as that means they're losing a substantial amount of money from your clicks.

IMO Google AdSense is going down hill. Hopefully Yahoo Publisher will be better, im waiting on it now lol

Best of luck!!!

Regards, Rhett.

 

[-MGS-]

Taking legal action with google will be a big thing! Google will win! they can pay for the best! Just watch out for yourself!!!

Good Luck!

 

[riyasenindia]

even if you lost your money google must have billed the ads for which false clicks were generated ...

so i guess google this way will make a lots of money even from false clicks

googles going to be great in some time ....

 

[Gene]

Whether or not it's possible to win such a lawsuit, the most important thing you can do is draw a lot of media attention to the lawsuit. Try to make it snowball into something that will make Google explain itself to the public.

 

[Fewski]

Your going to file a law suit against one of the biggest companies on the internet, all because you got banned from using there ads??? First off, read the TOS... I'm sure it states that they have the right to ban any site for any reason.

Also, your only 18 years old, you barely have any life experiences with this stuff, would not be smart to go to court with them unless you can throw some money out the window.

 

[-MGS-]

The TOS i love them!! always put in get out claws in!!!

 

[BillyConnite]

Your going to file a law suit against one of the biggest companies on the internet, all because you got banned from using there ads??? First off, read the TOS... I'm sure it states that they have the right to ban any site for any reason.

Also, your only 18 years old, you barely have any life experiences with this stuff, would not be smart to go to court with them unless you can throw some money out the window.

True that it's a very slim chance of winning.

I don't think that he is complaining about his account being taken away... it's more than that.

A class action may help if he is acting on morals and principals, if he suggests that Google is allowing people to earn money, then taking their earned money and giving them the "invalid clicks" treatment.. Who know what goes on over there!!! If you kick up a big enough stink and get the media interested, and outline that it is very possible that this is going on, who knows, Google might even change their TOS to include that they must state proof before at least dealing yor money back to the advertiser.

Google has taken his $10,000 first off, and secondly, Google has somewhat grown to have a responsibility providing the internet with services like searching, AdSense and AdWords which the website industry has worked for and integrated into their websites. Google AdSense is a huge Ad Marketing program which has been embedded into a damn lot of websites. It is almost required by a lot of people to have Google AdSense as it is the only real way to have quick and easy ads on your websites (Until Yahoo Publisher that is, other PPC are too small).

So losing his account with Google is also a huge loss for him not just the $10,000 but in future he will be finding it much harder to Market Ads on his websites (Until Yahoo is out of beta that is ).

Well that's my 2 cents, im sure ive made a damn lot of mistakes and made a few people disagree with me lol :D.

 

[Fewski]

First off, thats a great site making $10,000 a year just on adsense (He's only 18, almost 19, so the adsense could have only been placed on his site for less than 2 years.)

Your right about the media, but think about it... Who are the people going to believe? A multi-billion dollar company where $10,000 is chump change, or a 18 year old?

If you do take it on, Good Luck.

 

[drifta]

even if you lost your money google must have billed the ads for which false clicks were generated ...

so i guess google this way will make a lots of money even from false clicks

googles going to be great in some time ....

actually... google credits advetisers back for false/invalid clicks

 

[-MGS-]

Yes, i have had this when they just add it back to your account! At first i thought google were giving me money! But i asked and they told me

 

[IAmAllanShore]

actually... google credits advetisers back for false/invalid clicks

Supposedly. But as an avid adwordser, I don't see nearly enough back considering all the folks here that have been banned (Also, I've even reported -obvious- fraud and haven't seen a dime returned to my account).

</semi off topic>


Ok, back to the original issue.

I would like to speak to the lawyer who told you to go ahead on this one; I can't imagine anyone still practicing would be encouraging this (Unless they are 1 specific breed... heck, just give us the firm name and I'll dig ).

Second: they took $10,000 from you? Doubtful that something incredibly dirty wasn't going on. Google can close hundreds of accounts of kids with blogs because they are tiny publishers. What they can't do is start to scare those with signif earnings. $10,000 would be the record that I have heard of if what you are saying is even 1/2 way legit.

If you want to talk more about this, "schoolsux", feel free to PM me.

-Allan

 

[BillyConnite]

actually... google credits advetisers back for false/invalid clicks

Yes, appanetly, as IAmAllanShore said. Bit who really knows what goes on there!?!?!... I know I don't just take a multibillion dollar company's word for it.
I doubt that even 300 people clicking on your ads could produce 100% false clicks as after a certain amount of clicks from the same IP they start blocking it APARENTLY!. SO IMO it could certainly be something dirty going on. This is what happens in our day and age unfortunately.

I'm not saying that GOOGLE is dirty, but its certainly VERY possible that some people working at Google are, VERY possible!

THey should at least have sent you a portion of that money, and credited the "invalid" clicks back to the appropriate Advertisers, which I highly doubt that they will.

I was banned when I had my ads on about 10 different sites, all were getting clicks, and none of the sites linked to each other and none of my friends etc knew that these sites were all mine.... SO this definately leads me to believe that perhaps some were invalid clicks, but I am still entitled to the clicks that were valid...

My opnion: someone/ a couple of people at Google ARE dirty. Statistics probably (lol!) show that a certain % of people are scammers, scumbags, dirty, whatever you want to call it. So yep, its very possible and probably likely that someone is doing the wrong thing in Google.

BUT thats my opinion.

 

[Teddy]

Oh Allan! I work with someone on the forum who is respected and in fact very nice. You all know him, but he will remain nameless (unless he wants to post who he is). Nothing dirty was going on... and i can assure you of that.

As to the lawyer... we just threw the idea out there and we will be examining it more closely. Heck if apple can get sued because of an iPod that scratches too easily, then why can't we bring a case to the table that actually makes sense?

 

[vimkar]

Taking legal action with google will be a big thing! Google will win! they can pay for the best! Just watch out for yourself!!!

Good Luck!

well i disagree with that ...
why don't we understand that little people actions changed the world....
always ....

so if you feel that you have a chance to win , go for it ....
google is big .... but the history tell us that not always the big ones win ....

 

[unholy1]

Remember with Google invalid clicks does not necessarily mean you clicking on your own ads.
It can mean any violation of the TOS such AD clicks from non-content-based pages, clicks from pages with excessive advertising, even clicks form pages where the other ads on the page are advertise alchohol, beer, replicas or imitation products,etc...the list goes on..as listed in their TOS.
An Example would be placing the google ads on the same page where there is another ad for poker or gambling...any click on the google ads from this type of page would be considered an invalid click...
It would be wise to check your sites, if it has any of violation of their TOS.