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Adsense Disabled (Invalid Activity) - 8 Year old account

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cocojambo

8:22 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Hello,

I was disabled for "Invalid Activity" on March 15th, 2012. Please know that I have had my Adsense account since early 2004, needless to say I have been a successful publisher for that long.

My original appeal I submitted on March 16th, 2012, I never received a confirmation from Adsense that they received it. They only received my follow up email from March 20th, 2012 where I didn't include all the facts I have gathered. Today I submitted 2 appeals and the 2nd one generated a confirmation, so I am relieved my facts and data went to them.

I told them 2 of my websites recently saw a surge in traffic from Google, Bing and Yahoo. I gave them a list of all referrers by State, City - a report generated from Google analytics. Also, list of all IPs and cities/states where traffic came from.

I received a rejection letter today from Adsense saying my account will not be reinstated. I have never clicked on my own ads, nor asked anybody to. If I was a fraud, you think I would have had an Adsense account for 8 years? I told them I am willing to work with them, provide them with analytics reports to detect any invalid activity.

What are my options? Seriously Adsense, we need a human being to talk to. I have been with you for over 8 years, since the beginning of Adsense. Because of a rise in traffic and subsequent rise in page impressions and CTR, you've booted me from your network. This traffic comes from Google, Bing and Yahoo. I have never bought paid traffic.

Thank you.

Sally Stitts

8:31 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

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"Heavy, heavy hangs over thy head."
The sword of Damocles - the nature of AdSense.
How many times have we heard this story?
Sent to Hell, with no explanation.
Some kind of "partnership", eh?
.

netmeg

8:42 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

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Well you'll probably need to go over to the Google Help forum and see if you can get someone's attention over there. I have heard of people being reinstated after they made enough noise, but you don't want to be nasty about it.

We don't have any Google people that visit here anymore.

Do you have *any* idea what might have caused your traffic surge? For example, one of my sites has been under a slow bot attack for the past month, and the first thing I did was remove the AdSense from it, because of just this kind of scenario.

Another thing you might try is to look and see if there's going to be one of these AdSense In Your City gatherings anywhere you can get to, where you can talk to a real live person face to face. Even if you have to travel a little distance to do it, it might be worth it to you if it resurrects an eight year old account.

cocojambo

8:43 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

It is really sad, they will have some bot email an 8 year old account to tell them they are banned for 'invalid activity.'

Well let me explain to you what this 'invalid activity' you are accusing me of might come from. I recently achieved #1 ranking for multiple keywords and am getting super-high Google and Bing traffic. Is this "invalid"?

cocojambo

8:49 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Yes there was an Adsense in my City (well 3 hours away from me) back in February, but I did not attend.

The traffic surge came from 1) Google ranked me #1 for a keyword. 2) Bing.com ranked me top 3 for one keyword but it only generated a high amount of traffic for one day, and the next it slowed down.

Guess what? I gathered all IP, referrer, city/state and computer logs for this day (Wednesday March 14th). I sent it over to them. I did not see any invalid activity.

cocojambo

9:12 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Yes I posted on Google groups and someone came back with a standard reply that Google would send you.

farmboy

9:34 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

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Did they tell you the reason other than just invalid activity? Any idea what caused this sudden surge in traffic from Google, Bing and Yahoo?

FarmBoy

Visi

10:01 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Would have to think that surge in traffic was not the reason.....but perhaps how this surge in traffic was achieved would be more likely reason.

cocojambo

10:03 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Did they tell you the reason other than just invalid activity? Any idea what caused this sudden surge in traffic from Google, Bing and Yahoo

No, risk of generating Invalid activity for advertisers was the only reason.

Traffic from Google: I got #1 ranking for a keyword and traffic spike. I am currently in #3 and getting similar traffic levels. Obviously when a high paying keyword ranks #3, won't your CTR and page views go higher?

Traffic from Bing: Temporary surge in 1 day. I inspected all IP referrers, city/state addresses and send them to Google. I didn't detect any 1 or 2 IPs trying to do funny stuff on my site. Even if there is someone who is trying to click-bomb my site, is this my fault? What should I do to protect myself?

cocojambo

10:04 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Visi, please see my answer above. I got #1 ranking for a nice paying keyword which caused the surge in organic google traffic.

The temporary surge from Bing, I have no idea how it happened. I sent the IP reports to Google. What am I doing wrong here?

Visi

10:21 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

My point was the method of achieving the number 1 ranking may be the issue to google, not the outcome of higher traffic.

cocojambo

10:31 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Good point. I have since pulled back to #3. How I achieved it? I put out a press release linking back to the URL which contains a very useful article on how to get free coupons for a particular restaurant. This has generated lots of "thank you" comments from visitors. What did I do wrong?

Slashus

11:14 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Sorry to hear. Pretty messed up. Can't you get another AdSense account and put on that site after awhile?

Windslide

11:21 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Cocojambo, just to be curious, did you advertise your site through Google Adwords? I witnessed an interesting conversation last year between a Google representative and a large site owner, who was told he should share the large profits from Adsense through Google Adwords. This cleary meant: "google considers you" this way.

cocojambo

11:35 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

No once you are banned from Adsense, I read it is for life!? This is really heart breaking. Especially when you have done NOTHING wrong.

You know what, some invalid activity could have come from the traffic surge from Bing. I supplied them with all IP, referrers data. What did I do wrong and why should I get punished?

cocojambo

11:36 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

No I have never advertised through Google Adwords. 90% of all traffic to my sites is through search engines mainly Google and Yahoo.

Slashus

11:43 pm on Mar 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Who does business like this? I mean really?

@cocojambo just form another company with a new ein number and contact details. How much were you earning per month on average? $X, $XX, $#*$!, $#*$!X, $XX,#*$!? Depending on how much I'd start a couple new companies to be safe.

cocojambo

12:01 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

I was earning $ZZZZ.00 :) Not the richest of publishers but definitely up there. Why should I sign up for a new account when I haven't done anything wrong?

If there is any invalid activity coming from those BING referrers, Google should let me know and I will take down the ads on that site, or block those IPs. But as I generated the report, it was over 65 visitors with different IPs, cities, States and hosts (e.g. Comcast or Verizon). What am I to make of this? :S

Sgt_Kickaxe

12:52 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

We don't have any Google people that visit here anymore.

Sure we do, but they don't post. I'm sure Brett sees IPs from the plex regularly that are not named googlebot.

Anyway, this type of thing has me worried because I am STILL getting one impression per day showing up in my adsense reports from domains that have not been online for a very long time and were not mine.

e.g. domains that are not registered to ANYONE are displaying my adsense? I use the domain filter and have not approved these but still...

No clicks, just one impression, enough to skew my overall stats by dividing figures by too many domains. I like clean reports so it irks me to no end. It's the type of thing an employee making a quick decision on something may overlook.

cocojambo

1:03 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

OK guys, I think I found where the invalid activity is coming from.

Wednesday March 14th, 2012 - 65 referrals from BING from 1 keyword with multiple IPs, State addresses.

Wednesday March 21st, 2012 - 135 referrals from BING from 1 keyword with multiple IPs, State addresses.

I think I am being click-bombed. But this is not my fault, this bot is using so many different IPs. I have generated a report and will send it to Google tonight.

Who in the world is doing this?

Lame_Wolf

1:07 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

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I do feel it for you cocojambo. It does irk me when they fail to respond to such questions.

I did a search for "Invalid Activity" and spotted this, and it pissed me off...

[support.google.com ]

Break down your traffic reports into meaningful segments using URL channels, custom channels, or even DFP ad units. This will help you gauge how changes to traffic sources or implementation can affect your ad traffic. (For example, how does moving this ad unit affect my RPM on this channel? How does buying traffic from AdWords affect my CTR on these channels?)

Surely, that was against their TOS to send traffic to pages with Adsense on.

I know it has nothing to do with you, but it had to be mentioned. Stupid Google.

Play_Bach

1:24 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

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(and people wonder why some of us chronically check our stats...)

Slashus

2:08 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Did those 65/135 referrals of those same keywords mass click ads or something? I've been click-bombed and they just don't credit you any of the revenue.

It's like they give you a torch to see in the darkness but douse you in gasoline.

cocojambo

2:17 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Ok before I get flamed for not checking stats, I do check my stats everyday. Here is how this could have happened.

On Thursday March 8th, I put a website for sale on Flippa. I had a user that gave me a very low ball offer, and I declined it. He was very rude and seemed mad.

On Wednesday March 14th, 2012, Bing sent me a surge in traffic from 1 keyword with multiple IPs - 65 to be exact. This is a small site that doesn't get more than 10 - 15 visitors a day.

On Wednesday March 21st, 2012, Bing sent me another surge in traffic from the same keyword with multiple IPs - 135 to be exact.

Isn't this click bombing? Now my account was disabled on Thursday March 15th, 2012. Do you see a correlation here?

I'm firing this off to Google. Can anybody tell me if I'm on the right track? 1 day is NOT enough for me to tell if the massive Bing surge traffic is fraud or not - however it took Google 1 day to ban me! :(:(

cocojambo

2:20 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Slashus, yes there was a massive surge in CTR when I last checked on that day. That was for that site only.

incrediBILL

2:20 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

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And people wonder why some of us chronically check our stats...

We don't wonder, we know OCD when we see it. :)

Doesn't matter how many times you check your stats, when they close your account it gets closed.

However, I seriously doubt that 2 incidents of Bing referrals is to blame, unless they can be tied directly to IPs that would tend to generate false clicks. I get more worrisome traffic from Google itself than anywhere else but you can't trust the referrer, it's just text, and it doesn't conclusively mean anything except the referrer field was filled in by someone/thing that visited the site.

The only thing you can rely upon 99.9999% of the time is the actual IP address which itself could be forged, just not easily. Forged addresses cannot connect to anything like AdSense as the forged IP address bounces elsewhere when the data is returned, not to the sender.The only variation on this theme is a proxy IP which isn't exactly forged but a private proxy can conceal the source of the original IP.

Where I would be looking, assuming the OP can still login to the AdSense account, is if there are any sources clicks outside of your domain generating clicks.

cocojambo

2:24 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

incrediBill, why is the surge happening on Wednesday only? Plus my site actually ranks on bottom Page 2 in Bing, how do I get so many referrals on bottom page 2?

cocojambo

2:30 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member

Below is the message I received from Google. Now when you get a huge surge in traffic from bottom Page 2 in Bing, am I to blame? I am sure someone is trying to get banned now.

How do I prevent this from happening? I can put domain privacy protection on all my domains, take Adsense off this site, what else?

Incredibill, I have been with Adsense since 2004. This is the first time this is happening to me. Hint hint the Flippa site i put for sale.

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

Play_Bach

3:14 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

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Are you in the USA?

incrediBILL

6:32 am on Mar 22, 2012 (gmt 0)

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I would ask to them what the specific risk is, specify you have no part in it and you're willing to block it if possible, AND if YOU can block it, why can't THEY block it and protect their advertisers?

The whole thing is LAME with a capital L.

This 51 message thread spans 2 pages: 51

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