You must have the stickiest site on the Net:-)

There are many many website on the internet that have more than 30 page views per visit. Think... youtube, webmasterworld, bebo, profileheaven, bbc news etc etc.

All that being said his story does sound odd.

75% of same users clicking on ads on a daily basis mmmmmm I would imagine alarm bells would ring at Big G. Normally, return visitors tend to stay on the page they have arrived at - seems kind of strange that they are frequently leaving via an ad. I guess we are all assuming that this is a genuine dating site, not just a site to move people elsewhere? If the later is the case, I would imagine that is where the problem arises.

that have more than 30 page views per visit.

I'm specifically referring to the return visitors.

There must be some desperate people out there...</ducks>

There must be some desperate people out there...</ducks>

They could just be really picky :)

it's all genuine and they are all loyal, many have paid money to become full members of the service.

I'm not saying day by day 75% of my traffic is the same traffic as yesterday, we're talking about analytics here it goes by what it's seen before and what it has not.

I've decided that If i have to suffer with a bad 10-20$ day then I'm going to have to make 10 million page hits day to start recovering , maybe google will buy me if they are nice.

they are all loyal

Maybe a bit too loyal? Quite simply if the same people/users continue to click on AdSense day after day..it's only a matter of time before your accounts are suspended IMHO.

I agree that the 75% return visitors are probably a large part of your problem, first causing the smart pricing hit (advertisers want new visitors), now causing the review.

Rather than working on making your site MORE sticky, I'd definitely be working on finding more new visitors. I use Google Analytics too, and although I do have a lot of regulars, the percentage of return visitors it reports is in the 10 to 20% range.

Out of interest, do you see the same advertisers appearing on your site all the time - or are they constantly changing. If they are nearly always the same advertisers, and a lot of your return visitors are clickin on these adverts - perhaps they see it as a genuine means of arriving at that advertisers page. Maybe a link to the site - or making the adverts less blended might work. I know that sounds a**e about face to the normal advice, but I think your problem lies in too many repeat visits from the same person.

IMO these speculations are just red herrings (non-useful paths of inquiry). There are lots of sites that have repeat visitors and a relatively large number of pageviews per session. This in itself has never been a reason for Google to ban a publisher (or put the account on hold, since GP apparently still hasn't gotten the Invalid Clicks email).

The things I would look at are:

the extremely low CTR (0.04%, as quoted in another thread)

the possibility of adult content on the site

whatever geographic region accounts for the bulk of the traffic

Even assuming all GP's websites on all his accounts conform to the AdSense terms and have had no monkey business (and I'm sorry but your screen name "Greedy Player" still makes me to wonder about that), it may just be that this site generates such a firehose of unconvertable impressions and clicks that Google can't make a profit from it (or simply doesn't want to require its customers to pay for such traffic).

Well put jomaxx, I completely agree.

GP - one thing that has puzzled me, ever since your "smartpricing crashed my income" threads of months ago ... is what are you actively doing to make sure your clicks convert better for your advertisers? I can't recall seeing anything ...

The formula for smartpricing is supposedly quite simple -- if your clicks convert well for the advertisers, you will (in theory) get decent revenue. If your clicks convert very poorly, you will experience a significant cut. It sounds like you are sending lousy traffic through to the AdWords advertisers. You may think that's not your problem - that traffic is traffic - but it seems as though Google would disagree with you on this. So, the first question I would ask myself if I were in your shoes -- "what can I do to only send click traffic through that has a better chance of converting?"

There may not be an answer to that question, given your niche.

The second question -- and this is Business 101 -- is your business plan, and why you are allowing one client (AdSense) to account for so much of your revenue stream. It sounds like you have a paid membership model, so at least we know you aren't going broke ... but if you look at the receivables for any healthy business you'll note that no single client typically makes up a large portion of the revenue stream, for exactly the reasons you are seeing now. Sounds like you may need to rotate in other banners, CPC's, CPA's, etc. in addition to AdSense to spread out the risk.

Many of us here would be happy for even 1 month's worth of your the stats you've had...

yes,

and with PVs like that you could clean up with tribal fusion or another banner cpm network.

Ann

It didnt!

Anyway lets get back on topic!

You must have the stickiest site on the Net:-)

Considering it's a dating site, that goes without saying, at least for the keyboards...

With that volume of traffic I'd be monetizing that site REAL fast with other things besides AdSense just so you're not losing revenue waiting for Google to respond.

Ever consider lingerie ads? :)

Guys help me, how will i make money from it :) alternatively to adsense after all smartpricing contradicts what google say it does, meant to help me get more money? balls

1. Identify the ten most successful sites that are substantially comparable to yours.

2. Make a note of the sponsors, ad networks and affiliate programs each is using.

GP

What is your actual evidence that Smart Pricing is affecting you?

How do you distinguish Spart Pricing from just poor performance or your site going stale?

Maybe your site and others in your niche (whatever it may be) have just grown and exhuasted all the source advertising revenue available.

It seems to me that some "publishers" are just too willing to blame G or Smart Pricing for all the negative variations on their site. Whilst, of course, all the positive variations are down to changing Ad position, colour etc.

its instant cpc reduction and its big reductions at a time when it occours trust me.

[edited by: jatar_k at 3:53 pm (utc) on Oct. 20, 2006]

Now there is some very good advice hidden in this thread GP:

incrediBILL 1. With that volume of traffic I'd be monetizing that site REAL fast with other things besides AdSense.

jomaxx 2. Identify the ten most successful sites that are substantially comparable to yours.

jomaxx 3. Make a note of the sponsors, ad networks and affiliate programs each is using.

ann 4.PVs like that you could clean up with tribal fusion or another banner cpm network.

hunderdown 5. Rather than working on making your site MORE sticky, I'd definitely be working on finding more new visitors.

[edited by: jatar_k at 3:55 pm (utc) on Oct. 20, 2006]

Thanks for the help guys, google sent me a e-mail today, apparantly invalid clicks have been generated on google ads on my web pages, they are currently conducting a thorough review of my account data, and will withhold payment for my account until the investigation has been complete. if they continue my account will be disabled. (better than instant kick ban but scary)

To aid them they requested to detail the sources of the traffic, lucky for me I have google analytics, so i told them the top traffic makers, google, aol, msn, and some large other sites that seem to get me hits from people putting my site in their website address links.

Direct traffic is at 73% for 1 weeks worth of data, that just explains the stickyness of it all.

Anyway, hopefuly If im not banned tonight I'll be a lucky star in the next few days, if I am banned, watch me lose all of the last two months of earnings, of all mounted up to many thousands of dollars.

- Regards,
GP

To aid them they requested to detail the sources of the traffic,

Short answer: The internet.

Long Answer: Unless you click your own ads, direct your users to click, spam to generate traffic or intetionally violate TOS, G should not withold your funds. If it simply turns out that you are a target for click attacks or that they just dont like your traffic... then they have every right to stop serving you ads and terminate the agreement. However, I don't think they should not pay you what they owe. I know we all agreed to this when we signed up but it still doesn't make it right.

Your site (dating service) seems to be a perfectly legitimate site to put adsense on. If you have done nothing against TOS and they decide they don't want your business anymore then its their loss. If they don't pay you for previous clicks then shame on them.

Your best revenge will be to make milions with other ad companies in their place.

PS: Seeing that your site if a FREE Dating site... you think maybe G owns or has an interest in another dating site? Online Dating is BIG business....

GP
What is your actual evidence that Smart Pricing is affecting you?

How do you distinguish Smart Pricing from just poor performance or your site going stale?

Maybe your site and others in your niche (whatever it may be) have just grown and exhuasted all the source advertising revenue available.

It seems to me that some "publishers" are just too willing to blame G or Smart Pricing for all the negative variations on their site. Whilst, of course, all the positive variations are down to changing Ad position, colour etc.

A breath of reason in a sea of superstition :)

I agree. Adsense should exist outside our ego where we are either controlling the situation or victims of a plot against us.

The sun set yesterday because it hates me, it rose again this morning because of something I did all night.

I think your points about exhausting available revenue are often ignored and it should be assumed that generally increases in traffic will result in lower average CPC and that inflating the number of people clicking ads might force some advertisers over budget and out of the market. Fishing in a lake is a good analogy to me, if you drag the entire lake with a net one day don't be surprised that dragging again another day will result in less fish.

Then also we have to consider all the new people every day who jump on the free money wagon that dilute the free money available to us. So a sinking revenue should be implied for any site.

Hmm, that looks kinda like a rant :) IMHO

However, I don't think they should not pay you what they owe. I know we all agreed to this when we signed up but it still doesn't make it right.

Then it would be our fault for knowingly entering into an unfair agreement. But it is a compensated concession our part and therefore legal and I would argue perfectly right.

I think I have a different outlook from many publishers in that I see AS as an opportunity and not so much as an entitlement.

One more thing occurred to me... If the site has a high proportion of returning visitors who don't use search engines to get to it, there will be no initial referrer specified for most user sessions.

This kind of traffic could be fairly difficult to distinguish from invalid traffic generated via spam or software applications. Or it could appear that the original source of the traffic had been disguised via so-called "sneaky redirects".

I'm just commenting on how it may appear to Google, and why they're asking where the traffic comes from when we know that Google can, and most likely does, keep records of browser referrer info.

Thanks for the advise peeps, it's great to hear support on the matter.

One thing though, youtube + myspace both tried and seem not to be using adsense ads, they soon disapeared, I now understand one reason why, if your visitors enter the domain in the path then it's simply a direct source of traffic, if google doesn ot favour this type of traffic then it may be that they are only in support of "spammy sites" that use refferal urls to get visitors, but surely a direct source of traffic so large in number must be a very good and very interesting web-site! and if google doesn't like that, then I'll make it so you can only access my god damn site via GOOGLE.com search engine huh? (if refferal is google.com lets party if not, "you must type it in google to enter my site bitach").

:) you see the irony?

I think this is not smart pricing but pricing with invalid clicks.

I think this is not smart pricing but pricing with invalid clicks.

I think we're probably talking about two entirely separate issues here:

1) The initial sharp reduction in earnings, which easily could be the result of smart pricing; and...

2) The audit and possible ban, which are related to invalid clicks.

europeforvisitors, thats the case, as this suddenly appeared just recently when traffic has started to pick up over 500k+ daily mark without problems, and this must of triggered some manual review, I have also got troublesome competition that spam my site with their url's trying to steal members for their own Adsense income.

[edited by: jatar_k at 3:56 pm (utc) on Oct. 21, 2006]

well greedy player, with the amount of traffic you have, I might suggest seeking out ever greedier players that can show you how to make a boatload of money from your site with or without AdSense.

I made money before AdSense came along and I'm sure I'll make money it if goes POOF! tomorrow, as a matter of fact, it's just a percentage of my overall monthly income so it's possible to replace if you're clever.

Heck, based on your claims of traffic my site, based on current CTR rates, would make about $10K/day and you seem to be much lower.

You need to find some willing to split the profits and maximize your potential.

Don't sticky me, I'm up to my ass in busy work already ;)

I think we're probably talking about two entirely separate issues here:

1) The initial sharp reduction in earnings, which easily could be the result of smart pricing; and...

2) The audit and possible ban, which are related to invalid clicks.

3) Rapidly growing site spreading essentially a fixed amount of real advertising income thinner.

a competitor is launching robots that connect to hundreds of proxies and clicks your ads.