My dog has a website that experienced some click fraud over the past week. Yesterday, the very slow accumulation of money stopped, although it could have coincided with termination of fraudulent clicks. The question is how long until he can assume he's in the clear and continue on the straight and narrow?
Haha, very good! Firstly how does your dog know that fraudulent clicks were made (did his cheeky paws keep hitting the mouse or did he receive an email from google). Usually they stop showing the ads on the website pretty quickly (within three hours i think) I would get this dog to send an email to the adsense team asking for an explanation of what is going on. They are a fair bunch of people and should give your dog a straight answer (as long as your dog is straight with them). Hope the dog you know gets it sorted!! Cheers Notting
The question is simply this..... If google notices something funny is going on.... how much time elapses before they take action ? Edit : Thanks Notting.
I'm going to make the possibly inaccurate assumption that your dog's website is running your own Adsense ads Because you say that it's experienced some click fraud over the past week rather than had an extrordinary high rate of clicks or had some weird clicking patterns, I'm going to assume that you've determined that it is indeed click fraud, and were aware of this click fraud to a degree while it was happening, or figured it out after the fact. While I'd like to think the world is a wonderful place and there's no possible way that you could have played a role in this click fraud, if you did, you are probably screwed. At the very least, there will probably be a 'high risk' note placed in your Adsense file, so even if you don't get banned, you'll be hanging by a thread for the rest of your Adsense career. And of course, there is the chance that they'd wait until the timing is right (until your check is due), and then promptly inform you that your account's been banned. While it seems like a mean thing to do, one might hope that a few true clicks do slip by, and help to negate the fraud that does happen (since you wouldn't be paid for them). If you didn't play a hand in the clicks, but realized it was happening, the best thing would have been to contact Adsense right away. Yes, you'd probably get the cookie cutter response and afterwards think "did they even care", but the fact is, the few times fraudulent clicks slip by, I believe they do like to know. It can help them tweak their system, and if nothing else, show good intentions on your part. Since you didn't, you could be in a bit of a tough place, but if they determine that you didn't have anything to do with it, I'd imagine they'll clear things and let you carry on your merry way. Now the third real possibility I can think of is that you play by the Adsense rules, you didn't know about the clicks while they were happening, you logged in to Adsense at the end of the week, and wondered what was going on. After looking through the daily logs, you began to reconstruct the events of the week, namely weird click patterns which you took to be fraudulent clicks, followed by the income stopping. If this is the case, you could try contacting them, or you could wait and hope your name is cleared. If the click fraud was of your own doing (either you clicking or getting a person/service to do it for you), even if they don't nail you this time, they'll get you later. If they don't nail you this time, you've essentially been given a second chance, so make things right and don't do it again. On the other hand, if the click fraud wasn't of your own fault/doing, I wish you the best of luck and hope things get straightened out for you.
thanks for the info jdi, I am still hoping someone can provide me with a timeframe for how long the process of them noticing then notifying you, takes. Maybe someone who was contacted by google about fraudulent clicks can weigh in with how long it took them to receive their email.
Your Adsense account, sorry, your dog's Adsense account is reviewed during operation and again prior to your dog being paid, i.e. reaching the $100 mark. If anything gets flagged by the click-fraud algorithm then your account will be reviewed by a human. Bottom line is, it depends when you are due a payment.
Audit is usually done immediately prior to payment - either monthly or on reaching each successive $100
well, i just got an email notifying me of click-fraud... end of the month i think then, or a week or so after you've reached the 100$ mark, which i have done a week ago. Dont remember clicking my own add though.... maybe someone clickes them too much...?
I received a similar email from adsense as well. Kind of think that it's risky to rely on adsense for revenue isn't it? Sigh... Looking at other avenues...
Shouldn't have clicked on your own ads, dude. Now you're gonna get banned for life. Bad doggie. Bad doggie!