since i am reading a lot of useful stuff in this board i am not clicking my own ads any longer because i know what can happen. when i was young *g* i clicked my own banners but only if i was really interested in the ads ... i dont think that this is a problem if you click your own banners twice in a month because you are interested in something the ad is showing. now i get the url from the statusbar and do not click on the banner .. you'll never know. don't get it wrong. it is not for cheating or getting more money it is just because of interest. but how i said before it was before i red all the terrible things about accounts which has been disabled cheers
I average $2/day. One day this week, I had $6. Perhaps that was the day that triggered my audit. I was suprized at the $6 day. But I never thought it could get me banned.
I find these two rules particulary amusing: # No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant. # Elements on a page must not obscure any portion of the ads, and the ad colors must be such that any ad elements, including text and URL, are visible. The first one here, basiclly says google is allow to ban you for absolutely ANYTHING. How can you prove that you didnt do your page for the adsense income? Most likely, JoelFan.com is made with that intention. Hence - bannable. The other rule, which, doh, is quite obvious - kinda rules out that the images would be disallowed. The images are not obstructing the ad, they are just attention-markers.
Maybe it was someone repeatedly clicking your ads, causing it to go up to $6, which was the red flag that caused the audit.
Perhaps. But if that's the case, Google MUST put into effect fail-safes to prevent this. If not, we're all bannable at anyone's whim. Google should WARN, not BAN right out the box. If I'm in violation, I'm in violation unknowingly. I would like to have been told, so I can fix it.
This is becoming more and more the problem. Not that people get banned but because they don't really know why. Also as an adwords customer I have never seen money returned to me. I wonder if they really do give it back to the advertisers. I am also not a banned adwords user but I get more and more paranoid about it. It doesn't really change what I do but I have come to understand that one day I may be banned and for no apparent reason.
In a FAQ on the Google site, I read that payments may be withheld so the money from the fraudulent activity can be returned to the adversiters. I have about $150 in my account I may not see now.
It sounds like you got a catch-all ban. Since everyone who gets banned appears to get the same email, the actual reason may be something entirely different. If you don't get enough traffic, over months-long periods, you may get the boot. If you encourage visitors to click, you may get the boot. If you have objectionable content, you may get the boot. If you have pop-ups, spyware, and other stuff like that, you get the boot. However, everyone who gets the boot seems to get the same email. Find out what the real reason is and let us know.
There's one thing that came into my mind. I am not actually perticular if Adwords advertiser has their own panel to view and track clicks on their own ads displayed on different sites. But if they have, then, it would probably the adword advertisers complaint that get us banned sometimes. If advertisers complained on the clicks their ads received on particular page, Google will verify it and warns us immediately or in some cases, bans us.
I wonder about the Catch-22 of Warn first then Ban approach. If the clicks are invalid, and the publisher isn't doing it, why warn? If the warning goes out and the invalid clicks stopped, then the publisher was doing it. Saying you had nothing to do with it, and asking for a warning seems like a catch-22. Maybe that's why the ban instantly. Just strange how the ads are still their, maybe your portion of the click revenue has been disabled but they are willing to keep ads on your site for their 100% cut. Weirder things have happened, tom
But what if it's a design policy violation? Google should warn that the ads displayed aren't up to code. That would give the publisher a chance to fix the problem. If you look at my clicks (in the first post in this thread), I don't see any extreme clicking. I consistantly get about 30 clicks per day.
They do warn if you ads displayed aren't up to code. I've gotten two such emails. Both times they were very helpful in explaining why the ads were wrong, or the site was, and I fixed or removed them as requested. As for click violations, here's where I doom myself, I've never received such messages, and if they warn me I wouldn't know what to do. I mean, since I'm not clicking on my own ads the only option would be to remove the ads totally. So then I'm banning myself effectively. It's convoluted problem, and banning is seeming to be very common here. tom
okay, I realized something like this. If the ads continue but you said you are already banned, then there is a possibility that they are still considering your side and investigating on it. If it they finally decided that you are guilty of fraud, then they will stop sending ads on your site and banned you forever.
Well, I hope I'm cleared. I'm not purposely trying to abuse the system. Here's what I see when I log into my account:
This may be the reason: On this page I see four ad units. The one above the large photograph, the skyscraper ad down the right hand side, the two above where you rate the jeep, and then one more on the lower right hand side underneath the couple of buttons you have beneath the skyscraper ads: http://www.ratemyjeep.com/cgi-bin/freevf/freevf.cgi The terms of service say you're limited to just three on one page at a time, so if that's coupled with the fact you've accidently clicked on the ads that may have given them a technicality to terminate you. Ian
Actually, you are allowed three ad units AND one link unit per page. So if you use three "regular" add units and one link unit you are still okay. Since the ads above the large photo is a link unit it looks like the page complies to me.
Isn't it the case if you have too many adsense codes in your HTML, the "extras" just won't display? I once accidentaly had 4 adwords hotspots, and the 4th just didn't show up. When I realized the problem, I removed the 4th javascript code. I think you can have 3 adwords hotspots, and 1 adlinks, right?
My bad. I guess I was incorrect. It's too bad that happened to you, I think your Jeep site is cool. I've just spent the last 10 minutes rating some of the pictures. Ian