Sacked by a Google algorithm

> As part of the deal, and as a way of involving the sailors, I tell them about the revenue for the project which all comes from the website. The more the website earns the more sailing I can do, the more films they see.

> 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.

So basically, I am paying for his boat project. People are clicking the ads in order to see his project continue, not because they are interested in the product. Sure, the correlation between users clicking the ads and users interested in the product is going to be a lot closer to 1 than -1. However, that does not justify what is going on... at the end of the day users are clicking the ads so he gets more money, not because they are _absolutely_ interested in the product.

I really don't know what else to say about this. Google makes it pretty clear that you cannot do this. Just because he didn't read the T&Cs and just because he is doing videos isn't going to give him a free pass.

I think google handled the situation poorly. They should pay him some amount, like the expected CTR for the ads that were displayed on his site. As far as Google never doing business with him, I think thats fine and correct... think of the big picture here.

The open-source video aggregator Miro actually has a Firefox extension that automatically appends Miro's affiliate code if there wasn't already one on the link you followed to Amazon. This is done pretty obviously so I assume that Amazon is aware of it and allows it.

I don't see anything even slightly fraudulent about saying, "Amazon pays us commission on sales made with our affiliate code attached, please buy expensive things there", and I don't see how that's bad for anyone.

One implication of this story is that simple "click spam" can kill off some Google products, censor a small business, etc. The product Google is offering is inherently vulnerable to low-cost, high-price attack.

I don't have much AdSense experience, but what is there to protect folks from click fraud fraud?

Example: A blog/app/whatever is targeted by anonymous/botnet/whatever and intentionally drives the CTR to an insane amount for a sustained period.

Interactions with Google go something like this:

GOOG: Dear $Client: our automated algorithm says you are engaged in click fraud. We are reversing payments made to you and confiscating what is in "your" account. Thanks.

$Client: Whaaa? (Furious form filling).

GOOG: Dear $Client: Based on the same information, our automated algorithm $still says you are engaged in click fraud. We are $still reversing payments made to you and confiscating what is in "your" account. All your comments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Thanks.

I haven't experienced anything with ad sense (never used it), but I have experienced the sorry excuse for customer service their automated systems produce.

A few years ago I did the web site for a small retail store, and set up the Google advertising for it. The average bill, per month, was around $500. After about a year, the credit card on the account expired, and a new one was needed. Something went wrong during the update process and the account stayed locked out, even though new credit card information had been entered. This was a situation that needed a human to look at it, for about 60 seconds, to fix the problem. Eventually that happened.

It took over six weeks, and dozens of pointless, automated message exchanges. That $500 a month we had been paying to Google wasn't worth even a _minute_ of a human being's time. For a small retail business that absolutely relies on Google advertising to bring in business (it's a highly researched, rare purchase), being cut off Google is a kiss of death. The phone will go from ringing 20 times a day, to ringing once a day.

For certain types of businesses, there's simply no alternative to Google. You're either there or you're dead. In terms of revenue/ad$, it was by far the best. The day the ads reactivated, the phones started ringing again. Looking back, I can't believe that I thought that the messages I was receiving from customer service actually meant they were looking at the problem. Knowing what I know now, I'd have a completely separate backup account ready to go at all times, with the same sets of keywords and bids, on the off chance that the main account was deactivated.

If this is how they treat people who are trying to _give_ them money, I can't begin to imagine how frustrating it must be to get money _out_ of them!

If I were participating in the AdSense program, Google could terminate me for writing this message, according to 5.(xi) of the US terms and conditions, which classifies as prohibited use "any action or practice that reflects poorly on Google or otherwise disparages or devalues Google’s reputation or goodwill".