a week ago i started my first blog. usually i was getting 100-200 hits and no adsense clicks. but some of my posts have been posted on frontpage of 2-3 social bookmarking sites. yesterday i got 16000+ hits and enormous adsense clicks. i'm worrying about my adsense account. should i mail google and tell them the reason of spike?
Good question. Do you know what this "social bookmarking sites" are? If it's like Digg then you don't have to worry, as long as there are referrals.
yes. digg.com and shoutwire.com. i know they can see the referrer info, but as we all know, they're banning people for no reason nowadays. is my account at stake?
If it's Digg, etc, I wouldn't worry about it. Just gather up all your logs and have it handy should trouble arises, so you can file an appeal with all the referral logs as evidence. If EVERYONE got banned for Digg spikes, no one would want to get dug. Don't listen to the noobs.
When I joined adsense I was shortly after featured on a large site and went from an average $15/day to almost $500 on that single day. Google never complained, so what you're saying is complete nonsense.
no one has EVER gotten banned for spikes in traffic as long as there were no associated fraudulent clicks.
Yes!!! And yes, people have posted about being banned after geting a massive increase from being in Digg. Include a URL to the Digg page.
i just did a search on DP and could not find ONE single provable case of people getting banned for increases in traffic. post the thread to support the argument. I only found 2 threads, one of which turns out the guy was breaking the TOS and on the other, there was a mention of 'people i know' getting banned but no details.
Spikes like that are not uncommon if you are submitting to digg, etc. I've had spikes like that with no problems. But, you never know with google. I suppose you could email them and let them know.
Think about the millions of emails Google would get if people emailed them everytime somebody got a "spike." As long as you are not clicking the ads you should be ok. If your site is in your sig or posted on mesage board, some people just click to try to get you into trouble which Google should know is not you clicking. Emailing Google does not prove you are innocent. They are going to look at their data anyway. Just keep your data as a backup.
Seriously. Do you think any of the customer service reps processing the hundred of thousands of emails, care at ALL about all of the emails from people saying, "I know I made more money today, but I swear it's not fraud!". There is such a thing as being overly cautious. If you are an honest publisher you don't have to send silly emails to Google. For example, if you accidentally clicked your own ad, GOOGLE ALREADY KNOWS, you don't have to send them a full confession.
I suggest, it is no harm sending a Mail. Sudden spikes will certainly raise a flag, and it is possible that they might block by mistake also... And since a mail won't cost you anything, what is the Harm Better mail than not.
My account got banned because a site went from 200 visitors a day to 2000. Your spike is much higher than mine. I think you should contact Google immediately. Because even if you get banned and is reinstated on appeal, it will take several days and you would have lost the earnings during that time. It is quite possible they will not read your e-mail and still ban you anyway, but at least they have a prior record of your sincere correspondance.