Google knows "Click Fraud"

No one cares if you guys start threads to expose these people, but if you use live links and the webmaster is there 30 seconds after you start the thread what kind of discussion is possible.

I guess nothing but an insult fest and members here attacking each other.

Do you think this is good for Digital Point or not

Google has already told Shawn they do not want us contacting publishers on their behalf, this is a way of doing that and does not reflect well upon this forum.

 

In this case you arent going to see that webmaster in this thread (unless someone pretends to be them). They are a whole different class thenn the naive webmaster having a "Please support us by clicking our ads" sign.

I have done my best to help any newbies or newcomers since the initial thread with Josh

After that initial thread, I have no intention of contacting anybody on Googles behalf


We will ignore the fact that I wasn't even the one that originally posted about that site.

 

I remember somewhere google mentioning something about being penalized for linking to bad neighborhoods...

Now, I don't know what constitutes such a neighborhood (be it cloaking and other black hat tactics, defrauding Google's adsense program, etc) and how/when such a site becomes one, and what said ramifications could be in doing so for a forum (since you cannot police a large forum to such an extent by editing all the links posted by members without using the nofollow tag). But in general, when a link is posted by a site to another site, you are either directly or indirectly, in the eyes of a SE, signifying some benefit to said site. You can call it voting, call it whatever you want. By not live linking, you prevent any benefit whatsoever to the site.

There's obviously more to this than us simply discussing Click Fraud in this thread. Some people are still a bit peeved about the Josh incident that spanned pages and pages of junk (for lack of a better term). But honestly, if we start posting new threads of every adsense cheater out there with live links to each one, I don't see how that really can benefit anyone of us. If you want, isolate the cheaters to this thread, or make a new one since this one has gone a bit off topic.

 

I would like to get back to the original subject, I asked the members not to post links to "ADSENSE Cheaters" but they felt the need to do so.

Now can we get back to discussing what Google and Y$ & M$ are doing now and what they can do in the future to fight back against this trend

This article is a starting point and I welcome any others that members can contribute on the subject of "what the SEARCH ENGINES ARE DOING TO STOP CLICK FRAUD", not what we are doing.

http://news.com.com/Google+gets+gruff+over+click+fraud/2100-1024_3-5463243.html?tag=html.alert

 

posting live links is the very essence of the concept "web"
google cannot and will not lay down the law as to who you can link to in a discussion thread, e-mailing the person and informing them that their scam is spotted is something a webmaster can do WITHOUT asking googles permission.you are free to e-mail anyone you want to, about anything you want to...at any time.
if webmasters want to scam google thats up to them to run that risk.
if someone finds a scam, and wants to let us all see it..... good for them.

and besides.....
I would rather see threads about scammers than robert plant
if i wanted a forum about crap musicians...i would find one.
but as an adsense publisher i am glad to find out what scams are being run, so i can recognise them, avoid them...and the domains.

If shawn wants us to do something different, he will say so.

 

Read my last post over GEM, that is not what this thread is about.

If you want to start Google Police threads go right ahead as I mentioned to TOPS, Homer and all the rest.

I guess you are just not seeing the point of this, posting live links then drawing the webmaster in to the very thread where we are discussing the fraud, then it turns into a shit slinging thread with members attacking the webmaster and each other.

Again, that is one of the aspects of this thread to discuss if it is correct for us to do this, but not the main point of this thread.

 

i dont see it that way...they come here...
and then they remove their fraudulent ads.<period>
100% record so far, there's no shit slinging.....

they are commiting fraud...thats it...
they are stealing money from advertisers.....thats theft !
too bad for them...they should go to jail<period>

lucky for them its just a thread on a forum, and not the hand of the law.

 

So in your opinion Digital Point should become a clearing house for members to go out and find the thousands of TOS violators across the internet by doing searches on Google, then post live links on everyone they find so the Google police here on the forum can act as judge, jury and executioner on each of these cases and at the same time say that we are not acting on behalf of Google but doing it all because we care so much.

We do have members that have done exactly that GEM and they will continue doing it if it is allowed.

 

no....dont go trying to put words into my posts
it doesn't cut it with me.

a search for 'click on my ads' will probably find a few hundred.
No one (yet) has posted a huge list of offenders.
however..i am sure they will now that you mentioned it though Anthony.

~sigh~..... *sits and waits...............*

 

5 out of 12,802 threads have been about this... Digital Point isn't becoming anything because of this.

"We" have 5 threads out of 12,802 and you have thousands of posts that people don't like. I wonder what has done more good to the forums...

 

TOPS, do you want to discuss the topic of the thread or not

That topic is about what the SEARCH ENGINES are doing about click fraud with the side topic of: is it good that we conduct our own Google Police department investigations here at Digital Point?

 

Not to mention they would account for .00001% of the total if Anthony didn't feel the need to reply to each and every one pushing his own beliefs on everyone else.

I remember the good old days when you had to travel to General Chat to get into it with Anthony

Anthony - Do you advertise with Adwords?

 

Well to get this forum a bit on topic, aside from members "attacking" each other. Here's my opinion.

As an Adsense publisher I want to help guarantee the quality of the network I belong to, so it will be more attractive to advertisers, and so advertisers get a return on their investments.

If I come across a site that is in blatant violation of the ToS I will take the time to let Google know about it. Then it's up to them to handle it from there.
Providing live links to the sites only causes them to get more traffic, and might ensue in some nastiness from the webmaster. However if you post a non-live link, I have no problem with it seeing as the more people that complain to Google, the more likely they'll be to take notice.

 

You don't have to believe or do anything that you don't want to do "Y", like I said run wild and do your own thing on forum, just don't be shocked when someone calls your hand

Yes how would I know anything about the program if I did not buy ADWORDS and what does that have to do with the subject matter that I asked you and TOPS to comment on

PS: Thanks for the comments Crusader, all I have been asking these guys is to think about what they are doing before they do it and they seem to resent that.

 

Why do you always threaten that Shawn will ban me or send me this "Warning PM". It seems to me its you that has been warned on several occasions

It matters because if you are an Adwords customer, it is very easy to spot how fraud affects your conversion rates.

Also, the link provided in this thread was an example of a clicking network, not an individual webmaster asking people to click on ads. It isn't a case of "Google Police" (of which I am not a member) but instead provides an example of the manipulation going on when it comes to content ads.

I would be more than happy to contribute more to the "topic" of the post but the problem is that you can't have a normal conversation about it. The link is important to the topic (even though I didn't originally post it) because how can you talk about what Google is doing about the widespread fraud without giving an eye-opening example.

 

YFS.........
yeh...didnt mean to drag you into this...merely to point out that it had become live via a 'quote'..... which seems to offend Anthony so much.
Since when was Anthony allowed to venture out of general chat anyway?



Its all this web"master" stuff going to his head

 

Who said anything about Shawn doing anything?

I am talking about other members that will counter crazy conduct on the forum.

So in posting that live link, now that webmaster will be in on this thread, I guess that is hard for you to grasp somehow. You do know how the internet works, right?

The questions are all there in each of my posts if you want to read the articles and comment on them, it would be great if you could focus on that because we need to get out of being the Google police because you know that they have been watching this forum.

 

and besides....
there are webmasters on this very forum who are in breech of googles TOS,
although not for "click my ads".......

lets hope we find one soon

 

Guys I think Anthony has a point. Posting a live link seems like a bad idea to me too. It would be very easy for the fraudster to come to this forum, find the person that posted the link, and then launch a vendetta of some sort against that person.

This might take the form of perhaps clicking on that person's adsense ads to try to get them banned, or even hacking that person's site etc.

I don't think Anthony is complaining about bringing fraudsters to light, but the fact that you should post live links. Would it be so hard to just post a link "www link title dot com" or some such instead of a live link?

 

So are you saying that criminals shouldn't be made aware what their victims think of their crimes and themselves? Are you so scared of criminals that you rather let them go about their daily criminal routine instead of standing up to them?

If everybody was so scared of criminals and afraid of retribution then this world would be an evil place.

Sounds like a weak person's argument to me.

I'll make an attempt at an on-topic post...

What the SE's can do to prevent fraud? They're already making good efforts but they're not doing enough. They've had successful lawsuits against fraudsters but that didn't get the message across yet. I think the fraudsters need to be made aware they're not just breaking a company's rules; they're breaking international law and purposefully hurt advertisers.

Like they're going after illegal file swappers BIGtime, they should go after every Joe Blogs who runs a click scam. That will get the message out when poor Kid Billie's parents get fined $30,000 because of their son's malicious behaviour. We've seen it work in the mp3 world, it can work here as well.

Again and again we see that the fraudster doesn't seem to be aware of their 'mistake'. They might be telling the truth so you have to look deeper and realize that it's simply something that hasn't crossed people's minds yet.

Solution then is to actively get every criminal and spread the word about it.

PS I'd be interested to see some true global stats on the effectiveness of AdSense as a marketing tool for advertisers. It now appears to be working just for the publishers and Google themselves, with the advertiser being left out in the cold with a hole in their budget, no 'sorry', no charge back, no real traffic, no conversions and no faith in the content network.