It is a common practice by competitors to report other website...

How do you know that? I spend more time working on my own site than worrying about the competition.

...is there anyway we can track which pages are reported to Google...

No.

I don't look at my own pages, let alone anyone I might consider a competitor. Any competitor of mine has to be "Made for AdSense" in my opinion.

I look at my competitors sites but never report them. I hold myself to higher standard than someone that would do this.

People don't set them that much high standard. Jpch u might be an exception. People do report others that is a fact.

What I am asking here can we create an early warning system before Google is even involed.

Some analytics packages have a heatmap feature that shows you where site visitors are hovering and clicking. That's a feature in CrazyEgg. It's a great feature for usability testing but it could be used to show if people are clicking on the triangles.

But what could you possibly do with the information? That's a rhetorical question. The answer of course is nothing. You could ban the site visitor by IP but that's easy to defeat and in any case the deed is already done. If you did create an "early warning system" to warn you about triangle clickers it would not change the fact that there is nothing you could do about something that's already happened.

If it's true that competitors do that then it's likely Google is already aware of false reports, particularly if reports are coming from IP addresses associated with spam.

Since we have a person in this very forum who happily admits he submits false claims about his competitor in order to do "tests" (and thinks he's justified in doing so), I would not at all be surprised that it happens more than we think.

Don't underestimate the hate from unethical "competitors". I find it hard to believe what some people do but... they do those things. A while ago (on the "crisis" days) we had a thread from some guy who told his story on how he gets money while asking a job on companies, only to steal information (yes, that's the word for that) I found that thread as a terrible surprise. So don't underestimate people.

You also see it with ratings of apps and browser addons.

I have a firefox addon which normally gets 4 or 5 stars but one day i had 3 ratings of one star. The comments were also referring to each other and were all new accounts and only rated my addon....so yes it is not always ethical..

Since we have a person in this very forum who happily admits he submits false claims about his competitor in order to do "tests" (and thinks he's justified in doing so), I would not at all be surprised that it happens more than we think.

Yup, I was a victim myself. But I have reported numerous site violators (not my competitors) in the past and still goes on. When I visit a site and see a nude photo, my hand is quick to report.

What I am asking here can we create an early warning system before Google is even involed.

That's not possible (yet) unfortunately. Millions of sites get reported every day. Google does not want to spend so much manpower on that -- they have a robot that does the job - albeit really badly.

One thing we can hope if google ever send the very same report to the adsense publisher asap it is being reported... But I think it is too much to ask from Google

That's true, sadly. I have reported ugly stuff and nothing happened, including PLAGIARISM. G didn't care, not to mention the many times their forms didn't work.

Sure has to do with the topic, is confusing how some people get away reporting sites that have nothing wrong.

But what could you possibly do with the information?

Get rid of the evidence before a Googler gets to it? ;-) Move along, nothing to see here...

Shouldn't be too hard to script this, actually, if it wasn't for the fact that the AdChoices area seems to appear in different locations, depending on the type of ad (image vs text). And remember that it's not always people reporting your website when they click through to that Adsense Help page.

It is a common practice by competitors to report other website and its pages to Google AdSense using that tiny triangle on Google advertisement.

Anyone know what they report back to Adsense? Because if it's blatantly a lie the surely G will penalise them and not the site being reported?

i would;t worry to much, google is way smarter than spamming button on competitors ads. If your website is OK with TOS- nothing to worry about.

Anyone know what they report back to Adsense? Because if it's blatantly a lie the surely G will penalise them and not the site being reported?

There's probably a flag for people (frequently) submitting false reports. And a report is one thing, but if you're not in violation then there's no problem, is there?

What it boils down to is that if you're serving ads, Adsense or otherwise, you should make an effort to control your content. That's a responsibility you need to take seriously. If you fail at that, you'll open the gate for your competitors or visitors to (perhaps rightfully) report any possible policy violations.

Since we have a person in this very forum who happily admits he submits false claims about his competitor in order to do "tests" (and thinks he's justified in doing so), I would not at all be surprised that it happens more than we think.

Yup, I was a victim myself. But I have reported numerous site violators (not my competitors) in the past and still goes on.

Victim? Didn't you admit to falsely reporting a competitor?

Hmmm ....

Posted by:
jbayabas
msg:4603295
10:12 am on Aug 19, 2013

Yup, I was a victim myself. But I have reported numerous site violators (not my competitors) ...

Posted by
jbayabas
msg:4600262 [webmasterworld.com]
5:55 am on Aug 8, 2013

... I tested my theory a week ago by falsely reporting a competitor ...

My, my, my...

As we say in my trade: "Shot Duck"

Yup. Didn't I admit I was wrong on the same thread?

Agreed, I shouldn't have done that. The reality is ANYONE can file a false policy violation report. And the alarming thing is all publishers are vulnerable because Google relies on a robot.

The reality is this policy reporting is quite important and I'm happy people bring it up to expose google bots unreability.

You should not only worry about your competitors but also your

1. Jealous family members
2. Vengeful ex-lover
3. And last but not the least -- your angry visitors

Yup. Didn't I admit I was wrong on the same thread?

Just trying to keep the record straight for the folks who have only read this thread and to keep things in context.

The thing that ppl false report to google is irrelevant as it happen quite frequently. The focus should be what can be done so that one can get some kind of intimation before Google Bot comes to that page.

False reporting. Sounds like something for 10 year olds.

The thing that ppl false report to google is irrelevant as it happen quite frequently. The focus should be what can be done so that one can get some kind of intimation before Google Bot comes to that page.

But surely that's not true. If I report someone for having red ads whereas in fact they are green then G will most likely spot that discrepancy and I will suffer not the person I reported?

Also, where is the evidence that reporting happens

quite frequently

?

Some people will ramble on about anything these day. In thread after thread I find two common themes...

1. Everyone's out to bring down my empire (Google, competitors, angry girlfriends, etc) and I'll spend all my time making sure that doesn't happen (even if it means breaking a few rules or doing it to the competition first).
2. I could care less about things outside of my control, I control my content, it's presentation and my business model so my time is better spent improving the things within my control.

It's victims vs those who refuse to be victims. It's "woe is me" vs "I've got work to do." It's a waste of time vs efficiency. And it's appalling that this is pretty much one of the most active threads in this forum right now. Of course, I'm not out to change the game. My only intention is to insert my own whacky view into the ongoing calamity and offer the following as a sacrificial lamb to the gods of reason.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

And can I please get a box of integrity for Christmas.

You know what they say about shoes and whether they fit or not, right?

How would you even know if some competitor reported you (rightly or wrongly)?

I wouldn't waste my time worrying about what someone else is doing. I run 4 businesses and I get plenty of attacks on my main business line, but I've been there for 22 years. Competitors spring up, run black propaganda compaigns against me. But in a year or two they are bankrupt by their own hands.

At the office we laugh at them. We consider them jealous and weak people, which they are.

Don't get me wrong, these people can and will do damage. But that's part of living on Earth, apparently.

Just look at the United States. This country has some of the hardest working people in the world. Yet, if you were to believe all that is said in the media and in schools, you would walk away believing that every well-to-do American is really just a lucky criminal who stole everything they own at the expense of the lazy and ignorant, who happen to be lazy because the hard workers stole all the opportunities. The arguement doesn't hold water.

The lazy and ignorant can't see and don't understand, thus they are easy to make jealous even though they have exactly what they've earned, nothing. Even when given something, they will destroy it and end up with nothing. Why? Because they didn't earn it. The same is true of the competitor who hasn't earned the business. They might start off with some easy money converting a few unsuspecting customers, but in the end they still have to deliver the goods. And that's where they fall down.


Put out as good a product as you can and improve it where you can. Just stay the course. Those who depend on cutting you down for their income will eventually fail because they aren't nearly as capable as you are. If they were that capable of putting out a good product, they wouldn't need to resort to cutting you down in order to get business.

Believe me. It IS done and I have seen it proven that it works! Perhaps not precisely what is being discussed here which is far too obvious and simplistic (simply haven't studied this version yet, it only applies to Adsense publishers, but I wouldn't rule it out), but VERY similar, and some FAR more devious involving SERPS. Over the last few years, we have hired and/or talked closely with ex-employees of competitors (we're talking multi-million dollar online companies) who have an actual department dedicated to nothing BUT this stuff including against us! They usually have at least one ex-programmer of a SE as the head of the department. We have learned a lot about what they will resort to in order to stay number one in the SERPS for a range of terms when it means an extra $250K/day in revenue and maintain credibility with big advertisers to them. It is only a couple $hundred/month or less each to set up dedicated servers anywhere in the world with a range of IPs and run proxy browsers through it and the damage you can do with it to competitors in a key market can be quite extensive. The difference in traffic between SERP position 1,2 and 3...10 can be substantial.

So I'm guessing the naysayers above who say they don't even look at competitors are either part of it or simply totally naive to it.

So I'm guessing the naysayers above who say they don't even look at competitors are either part of it or simply totally naive to it.

Or like me, have no clue what to do even if I thought a competitor was filing false reports against my sites.

So I'm guessing the naysayers above who say they don't even look at competitors are either part of it or simply totally naive to it.

No, comments posted by me, and I think others, are in direct response to the OPs post. Your response is about something different as you say. Not sure what you are writing about because there are no specific details.