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Sacked by a Google algorithm

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Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#41

Post by stanleydrew »

motters wrote: post #7

This seems to be a not uncommon tale for people who make money out of Adsense.

Yes. I think the problem is that people don't really understand Adsense. They think they are "earning" money by placing ads on their sites. In reality they are outsourcing the placing of ads on their sites to Google, who manages the customer relationships with advertisers and shares a portion of the revenue with the site owner as an incentive. In agreeing to outsource the ads and relationships, site owners put themselves at the mercy of Google, which has a responsibility first and foremost to its paying customers, i.e. the advertisers.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#42

Post by eru »

rbanffy wrote: post #36
meterplech wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely right- I think the general feeling is that Google needs to do a better job of communicating that to content creators. This guy clearly didn't realize the extent of the damage, and said he would return adsense revenue from the website. They could fairly disable adsense on the website, but knocking the YouTube revenue just seems unnecessary after giving a very stern warning. People find it troubling…

I would suggest a "three strikes" approach. The program warns you (because it may not be your fault) then the program blocks you for, say, 30 days and then you are banned. Disclaimer: I was banned from AdSense too and I still don't know what happened. Since my site had very low traffic, I suspect even one well meaning fan could clickfraud me into nonexistence.

How about exponentially increasing ban times, instead of a life-time ban after the third strike? (Perhaps with even a cooling off period, if you behave well for some time.)

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#43

Post by wildmXranat »

locopati wrote: post #26
wildmXranat wrote: post #15

Tough luck. Yes, that might come across as crass, but did they bother reading Google's terms of service? So they will bitch and moan about it, try the appeal process and not a dent will be made in their case. What it boils down to is: if you rely on those earnings to sustain your business, guard against anything that tosses you into a suspicious category. And that is a moving target as well. I do empathize with him,…

Doesn't seem like you have a ton of control over the situation, seeing as the rules as written are almost impossible to break in some manner, the rules are only partially declared, and you cannot police your users who may think they're doing you a favor (note: he did actually discourage his users from clicking).

Heh, that is partially true. Once a person is in his situation, I agree, there isn't much to be done. On the other hand, there are ways to guard against getting into hot water and lack of effort counts against him.

There are unmentioned albeit publicly verified limits or thresholds that a publisher should abide by. It's in the publishers best interest to learn these, consult on what to do before ad-sense is enabled and what to do afterwards.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#45

Post by illdave »

mayank wrote: post #31
arn wrote: post #14

...long story... Oh yes, I was also running little blocks of adverts provided by Adsense and, yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors. ...long story... In the end it was click-fraud-ish. There's a huge fear for those dependent on google adsense that they will get terminated out of the blue like this. T…

> But instructing your visitors in some way to click on your ads does cross the line. If you think that crosses the line, then you just gave anyone with access to a small botnet (or who knows how to cleverly use Tor) an easy, cheap way to cut off the income of people who rely on AdSense. And there are a LOT of those. Outright, criminal fraud is one thing, but I would argue that it's unethical to hold up the funds he…

I wonder if the money is withheld because it'll be returned to the advertisers - or whether Google actually keeps it. I'd be surprised if Google charged the advertisers for traffic that it detected to be fraudulent.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#47

Post by [deleted] »

mcyger wrote: post #13

For as many articles that there are about how great, smart, [fill in another positive adjective] Google is, I'm surprised that no news source has pointed out the ridiculous behavior of Google. Who else would you work with (i.e., display advertising for) without having the ability to speak to someone by telephone when a difficult situation has occurred? None of our customers would tolerate this -- why do we continue t…

[deleted]

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#48

Post by Luyt »

lynx44 wrote: post #30

This sucks, but telling your visitors to click on ads indirectly is a clear violation of the ToS. I too got fired by Google's algorithm and didn't do anything whatsoever wrong. They are heartless. Worse of all, this article does not mention the monopoly they have. They own the online ad market. No one else exists that is anywhere as good. It's straight-up monopoly, and if you get on their black list, you're out.

Did this also influence the page ranking of your site? (I would have sent this in email, but your email address is not on your profile).

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#49

Post by rbanffy »

eru wrote: post #42
rbanffy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would suggest a "three strikes" approach. The program warns you (because it may not be your fault) then the program blocks you for, say, 30 days and then you are banned. Disclaimer: I was banned from AdSense too and I still don't know what happened. Since my site had very low traffic, I suspect even one well meaning fan could clickfraud me into nonexistence.

How about exponentially increasing ban times, instead of a life-time ban after the third strike? (Perhaps with even a cooling off period, if you behave well for some time.)

That's a brilliant idea, really.

I wonder how we could generate an economic incentive for Google to adopt it.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#50

Post by rbanffy »

arn wrote: post #35
mayank wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But instructing your visitors in some way to click on your ads does cross the line. If you think that crosses the line, then you just gave anyone with access to a small botnet (or who knows how to cleverly use Tor) an easy, cheap way to cut off the income of people who rely on AdSense. And there are a LOT of those. Outright, criminal fraud is one thing, but I would argue that it's unethical to hold up the funds he…

There's a difference between: 1) fraudulent clicks that could be generated by a botnet 2) instructions on the site itself that you have control over telling your visitors to click on ads to make you more money. I don't want to come across as defending google on this. They could use a lot more hands on customer service. This sort of sudden termination is scary and sucks. I'm just pointing out, there is unjustified ter…

Mind you Google never told the guy what happened so he could properly defend himself or correct the problem
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