Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified? • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#61

Post by rickdale » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:24 PM UTC

msvan wrote: post #32

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #28

It's been an hour, and a very clear trend is emerging: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=bar+graph+13%2C+5%2C+10... Is there any reason why 4x more people would be banned within four days of a payout than any other part of the cycle? (This presupposes the poll results can be trusted, which seems dubious at best. But if this survey is trustworthy, then I wonder what it implies.)

It's a voluntary poll, hence not reliable. I would never trust an HN poll for something as significant as this. If the results were true it would be worrying, but we need much stronger evidence than this.

Thats true if the results are close, but when one of the options clearly trumps the rest, even assuming there is some fraud ,a disturbing pattern emerges.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#62

Post by rogual » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:27 PM UTC

I made a bit of money in the early 2000s by writing Flash games and putting Google ads around them. Google eventually banned me citing a "no flash games" policy in their T&C, which (if it existed) was very selectively enforced.

At the time I didn't fight it, just said "OK, I'll just switch providers, please close my account." Google did actually pay me the rest of the money in my account.

But, since then, I've been disallowed from using AdSense on any new sites, Flash games or not, and, weirdly, been banned from Google Code too, so if I want to use a project on there I have to log out first.

I've since stopped using Google services, even learned about postfix & dovecot so I could host my own email. Never looked back.

Shame about the lack of viable alternatives to AdSense, though. I did use AdBrite for a while, though their ads were sleazy sometimes. Now they're gone.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#63

Post by ancymon » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:27 PM UTC

Are there any good alternatives to AdSense?

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#64

Post by hosay123 » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:28 PM UTC

iambateman wrote: post #46

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... possibly. It seems strange that this particular poll would attract so many trolls, though. Surely there are some troll results, but most of the results are showing that people are getting banned within 4 days of payout. As long as >75% of participants are honest voters, then it doesn't seem like the trolls could skew the results to the extent that we're seeing.

Outside of having actual proof of suspension, I'd view 80% of these as troll results. finding that users with suspended accounts in an hour is unlikely.

Going by http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html HN was seeing 120k uniques as of 2011. This post has been up for an hour, and attracted 105 poll respondents. (120k / 24) is 5000 users, 105 respondents represents about 2% of that.

So either 2% of all HN readers have had their AdSense account banned, or the poll results are a bit noisy :)

(Obviously this is extremely rough math, but allowing for a huge error margin, 0.5% of HN readers would still seem too high, at least to me)

On saying that, AdSense is an enormous program

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#65

Post by FroshKiller » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:28 PM UTC

Donzo wrote: post #13

I find it hard to believe that a multibillion dollar company is plotting to steal hundreds of dollars from publishers. Perhaps a more productive activity would be to post the reasons Google cited for ceasing the ad serving on your site and then explain what you changed. Linking to your site would also be helpful. In this way we can determine more reasonably whether they were right in suspending your account. Surely i…

You don't get billions of dollars by ignoring small change.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#66

Post by sillysaurus3 » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

hosay123 wrote: post #64

iambateman wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outside of having actual proof of suspension, I'd view 80% of these as troll results. finding that users with suspended accounts in an hour is unlikely.

Going by http://ycombinator.com/newsnews.html HN was seeing 120k uniques as of 2011. This post has been up for an hour, and attracted 105 poll respondents. (120k / 24) is 5000 users, 105 respondents represents about 2% of that. So either 2% of all HN readers have had their AdSense account banned, or the poll results are a bit noisy :) (Obviously this is extremely rough math, but allowing for a huge error margin, 0.5%…

HN was seeing 120k uniques as of 2011. This post has been up for an hour, and attracted 105 poll respondents. (120k / 24) is 5000 users, 105 respondents represents about 2% of that.

Actually, HN has grown exponentially since 2011. You'll have to extrapolate this chart: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5253773

Also, the traffic fluctuates depending on which part of the day you measure. There are comparatively few people here during 3AM - 7AM in the US.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#67

Post by blauwbilgorgel » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:31 PM UTC

shocks wrote: post #7

Yes, a few days from a $400 payout. I was 15 at the time. All attempts to get my account unbanned have been completely ignored.

Adsense has an age requirement. You have to be 18 or over to use it. From the terms of service:

By submitting an application to use the Services, if you are an individual, you represent that you are at least 18 years of age.

If you are 18 now I would try again. That they ignore requests from underage people is understandable, when their terms of service state that they are not allowed to join.

Did you not know this or did no one ever notify you of this? It seems that this phenomena does play a role in the online debate. People will say they've been banned and that they have no clue as to why, and that Google gave no reason or ignores their plight. Perhaps some of them did not read the terms of service too?

I see the same cognitive dissonance on SEO forums. People are most vocal when their site got hit with a manual penalty ("for no reason"). They'll ask why their SEO does not work as well, and then you see their sites and everything seems to violate a Webmaster Guideline.

It is not too nice to lose your payout days before you'll receive it. But it is also not too nice to steal money from Google and its advertisers with click fraud. I do not think that Google ONLY bans the fraudsters, never making any mistakes. But I also find it hard to believe that more than 50% of banned users are innocent. This tactic of killing accounts days before payout is to discourage the fraudsters and TOS-breakers, and I still think that is the majority of bans.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#68

Post by ttr » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:33 PM UTC

I don't understand how this poll could accurately reflect anything.

Other than it being anonymous and open to anyone, the given options are still wide open to interpretation: Waiting until an account accumulates funds does give them a more complete picture to make judgments about the validity of the accrued funds. Also doesn't Google refund advertisers? then what's the motive here?

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#69

Post by cordite » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:38 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #16

Donzo wrote: post #13

I find it hard to believe that a multibillion dollar company is plotting to steal hundreds of dollars from publishers. Perhaps a more productive activity would be to post the reasons Google cited for ceasing the ad serving on your site and then explain what you changed. Linking to your site would also be helpful. In this way we can determine more reasonably whether they were right in suspending your account. Surely i…

Maybe they're not plotting, maybe they're just overlooking an overzealous ban-bot.

That seems to be their pattern, considering on YouTube they readily ban and remove NASA published content once other news stations or publishes like SONY share some of it.

Re: Poll: Were you banned by AdSense? When in the cycle were you notified?

#70

Post by jonknee » Wed, Apr 30, 2014, 2:38 PM UTC

The thought of getting banned is one of my worst fears. The other fear is a change in algorithms that severely affects search engine referring traffic. It's a weird feeling to be able and have your business destroyed overnight due to circumstances completely out of your control and without any recourse.

tl;dr: For what Google giveth, it may taketh away.