Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sacked by a Google algorithm

duckworksmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 300 posts

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#101

Post by patio11 »

So, as an AdWords advertiser, here is my experience when someone gets "creative" with ways to encourage their audience to click on my ads:

1) I see a sudden spike in my daily spend and think "Yay, I'm going to get more customers!"

2) I go to Analytics and see a wave of people who spent seconds on the website and did not convert to the trial.

3) Google bills my credit card for hundreds of dollars.

This has actually happened, although the specific incentive to click fraud was different. I was sixteen flavors of pissed.

Google keeping me unpissed is worth $10,000 a year. I'm a wee little customer. The whackamole sites are worth a few tens of dollars a year when behaving normally. What do you expect Google to do?

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#102

Post by Symmetry »

meterplech wrote: post #16
gonehome wrote: post #5

It's too bad what happened to him and it doesn't seem fair in this context, but shouldn't there be a reasonable expectation that people who are relying on advertising revenue from google at least read the terms of service? I know it's something that I would make sure I was aware of.

I understand your point, but have you ever actually tried to read the terms is service of any multi-thousand line legal document written in legalese. You are obviously in a way right, but for Google (and other companies) to purposely obfuscate the process does more harm.

Not for every piece of software I install on my computer, but if I'm doing it for work or if its important like an OS or a cellphone plan I do try to read the entire document. Its really not that bad if you're willing to take a few minutes and they aren't written purposefully to be hard to understand - just to be legally precise.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#103

Post by cincinnatus »

ryanto wrote: post #96

I don't get why everyone is so upset at Google here? The guy admits to committing click fraud and then gets shut down. As someone who spends a bit of money on adwords I am pretty happy to see Google is active in enforcing these policies.

Where exactly does he admit to click fraud?

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#104

Post by mycroftiv »

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…

Doesn't everyone on the internet already know that website operators receive revenue from visitors clicking on ads? I don't comprehend the underlying premise that ad-clickers are supposed to be ignorant of how internet advertising works.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#106

Post by twistedanimator »

gthank wrote: post #79
alex_c wrote: post #17

Seems like part of the problem is that YouTube revenue is tied together to revenue from AdSense for websites, even though the two services are affected by click fraud differently. Now Google is still making money from the author's popular YouTube videos, and he won't see a penny. The "correct" response would be to pull all his videos from YouTube, move them to a competing service, and write Google to let them know wh…

http://www.vimeo.com/ ?

He should put 30 second clips on YouTube and then have links to the full video on vimeo.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#107

Post by jshen »

ryanto wrote: post #96

I don't get why everyone is so upset at Google here? The guy admits to committing click fraud and then gets shut down. As someone who spends a bit of money on adwords I am pretty happy to see Google is active in enforcing these policies.

If a user of my site asks me how the ads work and I say that I get paid if users click them ... Is that click fraud?

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#108

Post by alanh »

patio11 wrote: post #101

So, as an AdWords advertiser, here is my experience when someone gets "creative" with ways to encourage their audience to click on my ads: 1) I see a sudden spike in my daily spend and think "Yay, I'm going to get more customers!" 2) I go to Analytics and see a wave of people who spent seconds on the website and did not convert to the trial. 3) Google bills my credit card for hundreds of dollars. This has actually ha…

Don't be heartless. There are thousands of dollars being stolen from an honest cameraman and you don't think Google owes him one word from a real human? Honestly?

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#109

Post by jshen »

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.

I don't recall him telling users to click on ads.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#110

Post by scotty79 »

dsmithn wrote: post #64
irinotecan wrote: post #6

Moral of the story: Don't make too much ad revenue with AdSense or you will be accused of click fraud, and have no recourse.

What I got out of it was to open up independent Adsense accounts for different websites. If Google decides to shut one down, at least the others won't be affected.

I heard that this actually works. I've seen this advice over the internet: If your account is suspended just open another one. You have much higher probability of using it that getting the original working again.
Post reply on HN