Yes, vBulletin Webmaster was maliciously targeted. Someone generated hundreds of adsense clicks on the site and nearly caused my Google Adsense Account to be permanently banned. We were in fact banned by adsense. But was reinstated a few days later after explaining we were not culpable. The whole story is here: Banned from Ad Sense I just want to comment more philosophically here. This is also in my Blog Ok - thats my rant. For those of you who may have had this problem, you have a chance. the people at adsense do sometimes listen.
Really? I nearly lost a good chunk of my income for something I had no control over. What did the "mad clicker' get? Think about that. What stops him from doing it again? Maybe to your site? Why should I have to go through what I just did? Why should I be threatened with loss of income? I agree with a hard stance on click fraud, but go after the guy who causes the click. There need to be some consequences and accountability for those who play these games. I bet you wouldnt have made that statement if the mad clicker visited your site and you got that email.
Good to hear that you were able to fight this through. Seems like you did just the right thing in your reaction to both increase in CTR and the ban and I'm glad it worked. Kudos to Google as well for listening.
I can't see why doesn't google offer a way to block specific IPs from clicking your ads.. and a list of IPs that have clicked too much. If they don't want to disclosure the full IP address, they could disclose just part of it (like 192.124.543.xxx), at least for the ones that are clicking too much. That would be a solution i think
I dont see why they cant trace where the clicks came from and chase the guy who did it. If more of the people who actually generate the clicks were dealt with, this kinda thing would stop.
I've had this two of those dumb clickers before, I had 4000% more clicks than normal in a 24 hour period. I emailed Google as soon as I noticed and was stressed for a day or so waiting for their reply. The reply was a standard thanks for letting us know, I actually blogged about my second Idiotic Adsense Fraud Clicker and again informed Google. Just another of those time consuming monitoring jobs you need to do. I'm pleased you got your account back in the end, I think I'd of crapped my pants in your position.
Yes. I lost a few days since I was off adsense that long, and had to recode all my sites twice. Other then that I am good.
As I have mentioned in another post As things are progressing I think we need a kind of "global internet community constitution". We can't endure monkey-freedom any longer. As I'm aware that this is going to take a long time, so why not start with a poll? Can somemone on this thread create a polling station about this?
I mean we need it in general as a protection for everyone, whether an online entrepreneur, consumer, customer and even the big players online.
I don't understand why you need protection from Google. They are the ones paying you. If you didn't want to be subject to them for your PPC then you could go with someone else.
Its hard to make profitable forum if there are people who doesnt like somebody. The more visitors the more possible it is. There could be even anarchist groups who doesnt like google and they can make this things...
well, google and you are working on the same goal (making money) and whoever is working to get you in trouble is hurting both you and google. so, it would be in google's interest to at least try to "protect" you, its affiliate from being set up.
"anarchist groups " no way. I am sticking with the conspiracy of vodoo alien midgets on crack. I am glad google takes care of fraud so quickly, it really hurt the publisher and advertiser communities. Shame when it is your site, but it needs to be done.
It's not about protection from Google. It's about protection from scammers, spammers and so on. It's about international guidelines of good conduct which should be legally binding. Something that protects all, entrepreneurs, consumer, customers and even the big players. Are we not all vulnerable of attacks of some sort?
Of course we are but laws don't stop attacks on their own. As far as this example, it would be ridiculous to expect lawmakers to pass a law saying you can't click on links on someone elses website. Its up to Google to stop click fraud.