
Understanding AdSense account suspensions due to invalid traffic - diminish
https://adsense.googleblog.com/2017/03/understanding-account-suspensions-due.html
======
dfabulich
We were banned from AdSense in 2010 with no explanation.
[https://www.choiceofgames.com/2010/08/were-banned-from-
googl...](https://www.choiceofgames.com/2010/08/were-banned-from-google-
adsense/)

Over the years, Google has published posts like these, little FAQs that tell
you nothing useful.

Just once I wish they'd answer the only question anybody really has: what do I
do if I'm innocent? What if Google made a mistake? There's a clear path
forward for organizations who admit wrongdoing and promise to change, but no
one can help you if you've done nothing wrong.

~~~
clessg
This blog post is a slap in the face. Google should be ashamed.

We had been using AdSense for 10 years and had our account disabled after a
competitor used a bot to click on the ads 10k+ times. This particular
individual messaged me after doing so and bragged about how our account would
be banned.

We forwarded the message to Google, asked them to remove those clicks, and
told them we took measures to prevent this individual from doing it again. The
next month, we were banned by Google on pay day. We appealed and got an
automated denial. When we tried to get information from our Google contacts,
we were told to make sure our family wasn't clicking on the ads.

Fortunately, we weren't reliant on AdSense, but it was insulting to be treated
like children by this company. I'm glad that I won't have to deal with such an
unethical company again, at least until they randomly disable my Google
account.

So, to sum up this blog post: your competitors can spend a couple bucks to
shut you down permanently, and Google will treat you like a child.

~~~
BorisMelnik
I won't generalize here and say all Google support sucks, Google support for
both Adwords and AdSense sucks so incredibly bad.

I don't understand how their CORE money making products can be staffed by
untrained and in my experience uneducated foreign workers.

I've been an AdWords customer for probably 10 years, I won't say how much
money I've spent (on behalf of clients) because it would sound like bragging
but you would think with that much I'd get some sort of concierge treatment,
or at least some sort of "direct line."

Even basic questions and support tickets don't get answered correctly, or in a
timely manner.

The sad part is their marketing is so on point. I get clients that get coupons
in the mail all the time looking to sign up, and end up not signing up because
they arent willing to deal with a non-English speaking person reading from a
"conditional logic support script."

~~~
theWatcher37
Can anyone here provide an example of "good" support from google?

~~~
Buge
Depending on what you mean by support, when one of my youtube videos was
falsely copyright claimed, I disputed it and the claim was removed. When
another video was falsely flagged as violating a rule, I disputed it and the
flag was removed. When someone started repeatedly stealing my videos and
uploading them to their own channels, I reported them for copyright
infringement, and the first time it took 1 day to be taken down, subsequent
claims only took 30 minutes for the takedown.

~~~
tehwebguy
Exactly, they handle things they are legally required to.

~~~
Buge
I'm pretty sure they were not legally required to unflag either of my videos.

------
de_cat
"We have found that there are two types of publishers who may have invalid
traffic issues with their accounts. The first are publishers who may
unintentionally send invalid traffic to their accounts, typically by testing
on live ads. For those, we hope that increased transparency into our policies
and processes can decrease these unintentional violations and help our
publishers play by the rules. The second are publishers who intentionally
bypass our rules, ending up with a variety of invalid traffic issues in order
to artificially inflate their ad revenue. That’s why we work hard to maintain
a policy compliant ecosystem for our publishers, advertisers, and users. In
short, if you play by the rules, AdSense is here to help you grow your
business."

I feel that this a slap in the face to any people who face malicious adsense
abuse traffic in an effort to attack their site. Google has once again just
brushed this by.

~~~
revelation
This is how you know it's an authentic Google publication. Written as if to
address kids and juveniles, it's all your fault and we're not telling you why.

The ultimate insult are the "helpful tips" like "don't ask friends and family
to click ads".

~~~
lloydde
"We recommend learning how to segment your traffic to help you best
understand, monitor, and evaluate the traffic to your site. This may also help
you identify sources of invalid traffic."

May, might, could... Google is happy to continue to encourage a whole industry
of SEO and Adsense snake oil salesmen.

~~~
vesrah
Of course, see AMP for another blatant example.

------
omarchowdhury
I lost $100K+ on AdSense due to what I believe is a nasty competitor seeking
to get my account disabled. After making the case to Google, they said they
would reinstate the account and pay me what was owed. I then suggested
measures that we were going to take on our end to prevent competitors from
doing that again, and lo and behold, 24 hours later the Google rep tells me
I'm not getting paid. No lawyer was willing to take the case, because it's
Google.

I literally lost $100,000 because I suggested to Google that we would take
proactive measures to prevent fraud. As if having the knowledge to do so meant
we were committing fraud.

~~~
Silhouette
_No lawyer was willing to take the case, because it 's Google._

That seems bizarre. The last account I read of an actual legal action against
Google was a small claims procedure for a few thousand, and IIRC the
conclusion was that Google basically didn't show up on court day and lost by
default. I could understand not working on contingency if a lawyer feels the
case isn't clear-cut, but no-one taking a six-figure case? Surely they must
have had more than just "It's Google" to put them off if everyone was saying
no?

~~~
ballenf
Seriously. I'm a lawyer and I'll take the case. Since no one else wants it,
let's do it on a contingency basis. (I am a lawyer, but that was not an actual
offer -- just an offer to discuss.)

Another would be to file a claim in small claims court for the max allowed
there -- say $10k or whatever and see what happens. You could even represent
yourself there after doing a few hours research. Judges will practically let
you write your briefs in crayon in some jurisdictions.

~~~
throwawayhv
_I 'm a lawyer and I'll take the case._

(Throwaway account because I'm afraid of retribution by Google...)

How would a prospective client get in touch with you?

(Edit: I am not the person you replied to...)

------
tehwebguy
AdSense team has zero credibility until a proper response and solution is
offered to Fark.com

Edit: Fark's post about the incident:
[https://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter-
Goo...](https://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter-Google-
farked-us-over)

~~~
tomjen3
Never heard of the case, and I don't think most other people who have used
google adsense have either, so they probably have plenty left.

~~~
lnanek2
Hadn't heard of it either, but it does sounds like the typical Google
incorrect algorithm ban followed up by atrocious customer service:
[http://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter-
Goog...](http://www.fark.com/comments/blog673/Fark-NotNewsletter-Google-
farked-us-over)

I've definitely talked to other people who tried to monetize with Google, had
their ads shut off with no clue why, and were looking for new solutions. So it
isn't a rare story. Google is sort of the PayPal of ads in terms of incorrect
account freezes and bans that never get resolved.

I don't even bother with their advertising solutions in my mobile apps any
more since competitors generally offer better pay for the same clicks with
less hassle.

~~~
graeme
Sounds worse. I think you can usually resolve paypal freezes.

------
nikanj
Based on this, it should be easy to get your competitors' accounts suspended.
And as always with Google, there's no appeal process - you just gotta hope
your story makes it to the front page of reddit/HN/other.

~~~
prodmerc
When I did SEO, it was extremely easy to drop a page or entire website off the
first page by buying a ton of trash links to them. Even disavowing links in
Google's Webmaster tools (a feature they introduced to combat that) did little
to restore them. I imagine PPC is even easier (just buy tons of views/clicks)
and harder to fix. It's basically a DDoS on your revenue accounts.

------
yeldarb
Much like many of the other commenters in this thread we had our account
banned and were never told why. We were not doing anything against the terms
of service (and they never accused us of doing so). We didn't have "invalid
traffic". We had millions of users and an account rep at Google.

Details:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3803568](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3803568)

Since then we've transitioned completely away from ad based revenue which in
my opinion is much better anyway because it aligns our interests better with
our users (they are now our customers not our product).

------
21
I find this suggestion very funny: "Additionally, YouTube publishers should
skip ads when viewing their own videos to avoid artificially inflating
advertiser costs."

Maybe they should recommend installing an ad-blocker :)

~~~
tehwebguy
It's incredible that there isn't just the most basic "same logged in account"
debug mode feature.

~~~
jeffmould
They somewhat do have a tool (although I don't think it works with YouTube
ads). The Google Publisher Toolbar works decent for testing ads on your page
(you can click and doesn't count), block ads, and reporting ads.

[https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2411951?hl=en&ref_...](https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/2411951?hl=en&ref_topic=2414281)

------
SCHiM
For a long time now cybercriminals can and will target the ads of
people/groups/companies they don't like to make Google flag your account as
suspicious and get it closed.

~~~
tehwebguy
Same with YouTube accounts

------
gesman
Google dominates this space and needs to boost their bottom line.

Account suspensions, especially _soon before the payouts are due_ [1] helps.

Valid or invalid traffic is irrelevant and is not a cause, it's an excuse.

That's why there are no appeals and no answers on specific questions.

Expensive lessons for some to bet their business on someone else's platform.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7672910)

------
20years
We had a site that was banned with little explanation. We eventually got it
reactivated but never got a good answer as to why. My guess is because the ads
did really well and CTRs were crazy good. We had an Adwords account banned at
one point too. Totally different site but also really good CTRs and we were
able to optimize things to achieve really low CPCs. I think if your Google
Adsense/Adwords accounts do well in these areas to an extreme that doesn't
appear normal, their automated system bans you. Problem is then getting in
touch with someone who can get you unbanned. The run-around is crazy and it
can take months and cost you a ton of money.

------
redm
It's a testament to Google's dominance that Adsense can be so opaque and
frustrating related to abuse or suspensions and still be mostly unchallenged
after a decade. I'd love to see an alternative, but I've seen nothing on the
horizon.

~~~
throwawayhv
_I 'd love to see an alternative, but I've seen nothing on the horizon._

I switched from AdSense to another ad network and my revenue doubled
overnight.

~~~
kirchhoff
Which network?

~~~
jdalgetty
Please let us know!

~~~
throwawayhv
See my response to kirchhoff.

------
diminish
"One or more users repeatedly clicking your ads: Don't encourage or ask your
friends, family, co-workers, or general users to click on your ad"

Actually it makes sense to use Adsense only if your daily traffic is above a
certain level, which will make "friendly" clicks negligible.

------
taormina
Given all of the people in this thread complaining about Google stealing their
money and these same sorts of stories I've constantly heard over the years,
has anyone seriously considered joining forces in a class-action suit against
Google?

I personally don't have a dog in this fight, but it also seems like this keeps
happening because they haven't been punished for doing it.

~~~
Filligree
So it turns out that people lie, and a large number of the people who complain
probably do have an idea of why they got banned.

They won't say that, of course.

------
rebootthesystem
I've written about this in a recent thread. Google truly needs to face a
massive class action lawsuit regarding this.

I hate that sort of thing but they are large enough not to care and the only
way they will care (well, at least fake forced care) is if they kicked in the
balls very, very hard. The only way for this to happen is a massive class
action lawsuit.

It is beyond obvious they have caused untold damage to thousands of businesses
who, after deciding to trust their products to create a revenue stream, get
cutoff summarily for reasons beyond their control.

This thread has enough people with stories of real (and very unfair) damage
that attorneys frequenting HN should take notice.

------
charonn0
Years ago I put Google's ads on my website. Just before the revenue reached
the payout threshold they disabled my account and withheld all the money I had
earned up to that point. No detailed explanation, no appeal. While I can't
prove anything I was left with the distinct feeling that I was being scammed.

------
Grollicus
I always click ads of companies I don't like. Am I invalid traffic?

Also, would it be possible to hurt a website - eg breitbart - by simply spam
clicking their ads? Thats incredibly dangerous :o

------
jedberg
In 2004, shortly after Google launched Gmail, I put some ads on a friend's
website that had about 10 monthly visitors, using my gmail account. The ads
didn't really bring in any money, and then we got a notice about "fraudulent
clicks" where they took away the $2 we had earned. So we took them down.

12 years later, my account is still blocked from signing up for Google ads.

------
Silhouette
We once spent a small amount of money advertising with Google, just to try it
out for a new business.

The referring page with the most "visitors" was literally a bunch of buzzwords
in something like 6pt grey on slightly darker grey text. It was like some sort
of spoof stereotype of an ad-abusing landing page, which any crude detection
algorithm I could imagine would have red-flagged. Various other pages were
similarly obviously deceptive.

We wrote off the small amount of money since it wasn't worth legal action to
recover it, called it a lesson learned, and none of my businesses has ever
given Google a penny in ad spend in the years since.

------
tuxidomasx
I was also banned from AdSense a few years ago. They kept $30k that I had
earned and I got no response. Still banned to this day.

~~~
tehwebguy
Are there any class actions you can join?

------
tn13
Screw Adsense. I mean it. Google's policies over these matter are more opaque
than functioning of NSA and their responses or FAQs are worse than the well
rehearsed statements of scandalous politicians.

We found moving to native ads to be significantly more profitable when you
have a website that has lot of genuine content. For me adsense = spammy ads.

We were blocked twice by adsense in past (two different companies owning two
different web properties) for perfectly legitimate traffic giving no excuse
what so ever.

------
mohsinr
This post and comments bring back too many bad memories and horrible
experience I had with Google Adsense banning my account, with automated
responses. I better build my own product or services , I learnt years ago.

In this post they say, if a user clicks again and again... so don't ask your
friend to-do so, what kind of bs is this, how they know if the user was our
competitor or some ex friend doing to hurt.... they just go ahead and
suspend...

------
malchow
Or you could use a performant, standards-based ad exchange with malvertising
mitigation and human account managers, like Publir.

~~~
lmb
You should let people know that you have skin in the game. You are one of the
founders of the company according to your profile.

~~~
DanBC
> You should let people know [...] according to your profile.

They did let people know.

~~~
Macha
I think it should be much closer to where they're plugging their site

------
wiradikusuma
is it possible (as in, allowed) to have dedicated Google Account just for
AdSense? it's very risky to tie this to account where you have Play Developer,
GSuite and Cloud attached to it.

------
ploggingdev
I hope someone at Google reads this thread and shares it with the relevant
team. They really need to provide proper customer service for products where
money is involved.

~~~
clessg
Unfortunately, Google has long been aware of the issue, and presumably chooses
to do nothing about it. I have suspicions as to why this is, as I'm sure
others do. When it comes to HN discussions about AdSense, Google typically
gets their resident HN employee to flag threads, talk condescendingly, and
accuse others of lying.

------
jwatte
Or the third source of bad traffic: Third parties you have no control over
heating clicks because of free registration spam, comment spam, generating
"legitimate looking" accounts for later credit card fraud, or plain ddos
reasons.

And there's no human being to discuss this with, or even get details from.

Note that this blog itself has dozens of suspicious or obvious bot spam
comments. If Google can't filter this out, how am I supposed to?

------
vijayr
Are there any reasonable alternatives to adsense?

------
keithnoizu
Oh adsense. I had my account blocked after spending a few thousand for ad
generating sites on flippa. No transparency on there end, no ability to
appeal, life time block.

On a side note it seems like a good racket, sell people ad generating sites
then click on adds a few times after the sale and buy it back at a discount.

------
fantiago
My situation:

[https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer#!msg/adsense/npy8YP3tOhY/1XD2-c_MDgAJ)

------
tlow
Around 2004/2005 about a year after Adsense launched some friends and I from
Stanford made a fake company and blogged about high CPC adwords content, then
made a couple hundred bucks clicking our own links... received payment, never
got shut down.

~~~
tedivm
Yet in the same time period I ran a website that was legit, made a few hundred
bucks, and then when I tried to withdraw that money had my account closed for
click fraud. It was only a few hundred bucks but as a poor college student it
really sucks for google to essentially mug me.

------
jgalt212
So Google seems to err on the side of assuming too much traffic is bots, but
from what I read in the general ad tech media it seems all other players err
on the side of assuming to much traffic is human.

In short, what drives the different approaches?

