My balance was around $600 dollars by end of the month, and over $480 came from referral, regular CPR was lower than 1% and pays out very little. for one of my referral program I generated over 5000 hits for them, not many conversions but enough to hit my deal.... oh well
They do this often if you convert poorly, its been happening to a lot of people the last couple of months. If your clicks dont convert it does no good to the advertiser and eventually he will close his campaign costing google money. Its just business.
Sure they'll ban you if you convert poorly for the advertiser. (The publisher's conversion rate doesn't matter, though, if what little conversion THEY have converts for the advertisers.) Of the people that click an ad out of interest for that ad, there is an average expected conversion rate at the advertiser's end. If site A sends a LOT of visitors to the advertisers site (large traffic making the conversion rate statistically more accurate) and the conversion rate of those visitors is a lot lower than the advertiser gets from other sites, it tells google something about the quality of site A as a publisher. What does it say? Maybe people are just clicking to help the site owner (in other words - fraud)? Maybe the clicks are accidental, due to the publishers attempt to hide the fact that an ad is an ad? In any case, google has to ask themselves: why aren't the people from site A behaving "normally" in terms of conversion for that advertiser? I can't count how many articles I've seen where people are advising publishers to "do this and that to hide your ads - the visitors will never know they're clicking an ad". Now that's just shooting yourself in the leg. Make ads availabe for your visitors to click - if they want to - and when they do, they are more likely to convert for the advertiser. The advertiser earns money, google earns money, you earn money. Win, win, win. It's all seems pretty logical to me. It's the nature of any business deal. If one part is losing money on the deal, they'll want to end that deal. Publishers should not just think about CTR, but also about being a quality publisher for their advertisers. My guess is google awards such publishers well. They could give people a warning, though. Maybe an email that says "increase conversion for the advertiser or you're out of here". People do make mistakes, that's human.
Viking--- That is what smart pricing is for (poor conversion on advertisers' end). I've never heard anyone claim that G will ban an account for this.
Sure, but if you're losing money smart pricing isn't really that smart. Of course, there's always the possibility that someone broke the rules. Nyceane didn't seem too upset about getting banned.
Nyceane, you do have one shot for an appeal however the money that's currently in your account will be forfeited even if you are re-instated. If you decide to go the appeal route, just be sure to keep your email to them as simple as possible and don't overdo it. If you were truly not violating the TOS chances are you can get re-instated. Otherwise, getting banned by Adsense is a badge of honour amongst publishers and marketers. Most people, when faced with Google's horrible actions, usually find new ways to earn online with other affiliate programs or from selling advertising directly. As the the old saying goes "When the going gets tough, the tough get going".