Do you report adsense TOS violators?

I was doing the rounds checking up on sites that I link to and I noticed something that bothered me. This one site has a leaderboard across the top of the site, under the header. Under the leaderboard there is an image with the text "click the ads. you're killing my bandwidth." (from memory, something very close to that).

I do not recall this text when I first linked to them.

I have never been the type to report people for whatever crime if it seemed like a victimless crime, but isn't quite that.

Opinions?

 

If you're going to do anything in cases like that, I'd suggest mailing the site owner explaining the breach in policy.

Personally, I mind my own business. It's not down to me to decide who'se breaching policy.

All I can do is build good sites, drive traffic to them and place AdSense on, and that's my fair share of helping Google, the advertisers and publishers out.

The number of publishers would be so vast, Google need to be developing and refining their own hot-shot systems for catching the crooks and informing the more 'innocent' parties.

For the time it takes one member of staff to read your 'report' of a policy breach, take a look at the site and take the appropriate action, they could of reviewed and brought down many more flagged sites with the right systems, no doubt.

Pete

 

I didn't expect such an even split. Small sample size...

I agree a systematic approach to determining TOS violation would be best. That is the Google way, scalability. However since I have been an AdWords client in the past, I would hope that webmasters would report people abusing my ad account!

In fact I have used a couple of ppc programs. One gave a dramatically better return than the other. Now I can't say for sure there was click fraud involved - but rest assured if that was my ad I saw at that site today I would be seriously pissed.

Wouldn't you?

 

I don't report anyone.
I don't agree with what they do, it's just that I'm not Google's watch dog.

 

I would unless Google me lol

 

I'll take the red ratings in the arse all day - keep 'em coming oh righteous ones. I count 2 since my posting in this thread. No suprise, really.

There's nothing more satisfying knowing you've spoken your mind, been honest, explained your point and there's pricks out there who judge this to be a bad thing. <grin>

Kiss my hairy sack, I love it.

Pete

 

Absolutely.

I have no problems with reporting to Google, but is always good to be nice first and inform the site owner. May be I'll check after a few days (if I remember) and if the breach is still there I will not hesitate to report it to Google.

And I do not think that by doing this I am being Google's watchdog

 

Any time I come across a violation I will drop an email to google. It takes less than 30 seconds and they appreciate it.. Not to mention it is good for publishers because people cheating the system are stealing money from everyone else.

As for e-mailing the site owner.. WHY? If they are too lazy to read the TOS, they are probably too lazy to read my e-mail. Not to mention now I have to follow up and wait for them to get back to me and then I have to e-mail Google? Why bother? Google doesn't insta-ban people who are in violation, they contact them and ask them to rectify the situation.

E-mailing Google first and only is entirely appropriate.

Ultimately it is Google's decision as to what is and is not a violation, contacting the site owner directly does nothing to clear that up. One of you is going to have to contact Google, regardless. That is of course unless the person is KNOWINGLY violating the rules, in which case I don't care to really do them any favors.

So all notifying the webmaster first is going to do is to create extra work or provide someone who is knowingly breaking the rules to get away with it.

Sorry, doesn't seem like a good plan to me at all.

 

You have your opinion, I have mine. Isn't the world great?

 

I never used to, but I did report a couple in the last two months or so. They were just so blatantly obvious and I can't stand that someone is cheating when I'm playing fair. It ticks me off to no end.

 

It seems to me in this case that the webmaster knew exactly what they were doing. Otherwise there was absolutly NO reason to have the "click the ads" msg as an image.

 

That's not necessarily true. I'm willing to bet 90% of all publishers didn't read the TOS when they signed up.

 

I never report and no plan to do so... I may send an email to the owner of the site about his violation it's up to him if he will fix it or wait until google find out.

But if google pay those people reporting violators I guess everyone will report all violators they will see.

 

I'd let the owner know first, if he doesn't do anything then I'd report him. AdWords ain't free...

 

I do report sites if it's a blatant breach of ToS.

My views on this has been discussed in another thread, so I won't post them here again. I'll just say that I feel obliged to ensure the quality of the advertising network I'm part of, seeing as it keeps my site running.

 

First I try to contact the webmaster of such violations if possible. Many times they didn't even know it was a policy violation and thank me for letting me know about it. Having said that this is a very small percentage out of all people who violate AdSense policy. Vast majority of policy violators know that they are cheating and they are out to make a quick buck until Google bans them and they'll move on to next scam.

I do believe that letting Google know about cheaters does help me and other websites who support themselves by AdSense. If I just leave them alone, there will be more and more cheaters and that affects my bottom line as well as others. After all we are all dipping from the same big pool of advertising dollars. Imagine if we can get rid of all cheaters. There would be a bigger pool of money and all of us benefit as result.

 

never reported those sites, it's google's work to find em, why should i waste my time? google do not pay me for this job...

 

Interesting comments. I can see both sides of the story.

In the end I ended up reporting the site.

1) There was no way to contact the webmaster.
2) They used an image to indicate that users should "Please click the ads!" where there was no reason not to have used plain text. Seemed like a deceptive way to hide the text from a bot scan or something?
3) They were hot linking images from other sites.
4) Site contained hidden text trying to claim some legal nonsense about not being responsible.

 

I'm someone who is concerned about the future of Adsense and whether it will survive. When people cheat like this and ask users to click their ads, it causes a loss in profitability for the Adsense program, so then there are fewer high-paying Adwords customers as a result.

I think it's the duty of every Adsense publisher to take action and at the very least inform the webmaster of their violation. Do something about it, rather than ignore it.

You are not just being Google's watchdog, you are protecting your own interest as a publisher by making the program and ads more profitable and more likely to continue working.

It would suck in 20 years from now to see Adsense and Pay-Per-Click Advertising as a small footnote in Internet history. A passing fad that didn't survive, because it was overly abused by the publishers and webmasters.