Sacked by a Google algorithm • Hacker News Board

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#211

Post by brisance » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 1:53 AM UTC

ryanto wrote: post #202

jshen wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

No, but its getting very close to the gray area/fine line. If you are encouraging the user to click your link for some reason other than him being interested in the product - then it is click fraud. Example of click fraud: I get paid when users click my ads. The more money this website makes the less time I have to spend working hourly at Starbucks. Less time at Starbucks means more time working on my website, writin…

That is exactly the opposite definition of fraud.

  From Merriam-Webster:
  a : deceit, trickery; specifically : intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right

  b : an act of deceiving or misrepresenting : trick

Where was he deceiving or misrepresenting the situation? The fact is that there is no tractable way for Google to separate people who are interested in supporting an ad-driven business from those who really are creating false ad traffic for financial gain.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#212

Post by nikster » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 1:54 AM UTC

epoxyhockey wrote: post #139

patio11 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule is "Don't directly or indirectly tell people to click on your ads." The reason for this is that loyal audiences will , if you tell them to click on ads, click on ads to support you. This is exactly what happened. The CTR goes through the roof, the advertisers get billed lots of money, and no commerce takes place.

It is obvious to you and me that a 6% CTR is supernaturally high, at least in my experience. If Google's algorithms are so great as to detect AdSense "cheaters," why don't they just throttle down the CPC for "cheaters" down to 1 cent (or less)? I think we're basically discovering that Google is defending their immature AdSense algorithms by banning users rather than adapting to different behaviors.

It's not that simple. Real cheaters will react, and devise counter strategies to whatever you are tying to do.

I can understand that Google is strict about this, that's their core business, CPC and conversion rate are what makes them the best advertising platform in the world. They have to protect that fiercely, even if some unfortunate users are thrown under the bus along the way.

Is it possible in the AdSense scheme to set up multiple accounts? It seems if he'd had an account for the YouTube site, and another one for his sailing stuff, he'd at least have kept his money maker.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#213

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 1:56 AM UTC

solutionyogi wrote: post #186

anigbrowl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, you are not necessarily having the same experience as this guy's advertisers (who are catering to outdoors hobbyists rather than software consumers). Second, this guy is being 'creative' by creating actual content which people want to watch. It's not like he's started with the idea of generating traffic spikes and then determined that the path to success is mini-documentaries about big trucks or coastal sailin…

?? How does the target audience (outdoor hobbyists vs software consumers) matter? Next, Patrick did not say anything about the guy not being hard working. Nor did I find that he was taking a dump on him. (really, what kind of language is this?). He only wrote about his experience as an Adwords/AdSense advertiser. And why are you comparing billboard and TV advertising with AdWords? As you mentioned, it is extremely ha…

I mentioned the target audience because customers with different needs will have quite different buying patterns. When I want a software product or service, I tend to look at the offerings and make a purchase/signup decision soon after I find what I want unless price is a major factor (ie high). For someone into sailing, one might be interested in consuming content and considering advertisers' offerings year-round, but only make purchases a few times a year, at the beginning of the sailing season or in advance of a trip. Just looking at website analytics without considering market-specific purchase behavior or seasonality can be misleading.

You are right that Patrick didn't say anything about him not being hard working, but using the word 'creative' to imply click-farming seemed inappropriate, considering the OP is someone working in the arts. As someone in the same field, I suppose I took it a bit personally - but how would you feel if this story involved a webapp and I said "here's how I feel about web 'programming' that just moves money from my bank account into someone else's..."? It kind of denigrates the primary skill of the business person.

You are right too that new advertising systems like adwords have and deserve their popularity because they provide much better feedback and value than traditional forms of advertising. But I bring up the contrast because those traditional forms remain highly necessary for larger businesses, and part of a business's success rides on being able to accept the changing risk/reward payoff as the business grows. The farther away that a publisher or retailer is from the median, the less reliable the quality of the CTR analytics, and the more hesitant Google ought to be in applying them rigidly. When you get down to a extremely specialist market and where the spikes are measured in a few hundreds, as in this case, statistics can be more misleading than usual.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#214

Post by hughw » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 1:58 AM UTC

kjksf wrote: post #159

anigbrowl wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not agree. There is an enormous difference between click-farming and a courteous 'please support this site by considering the fine offerings of my advertisers.' Also, to cut off all his YouTube income because of a misreading of his pitch on a tiny subscription-driven site is BS - there's no sign that he abused YouTube in any way. I appreciate that a more responsive feedback loop can be exploited by bad guys as…

His practice is a clear case of click fraud and his above-normal click-through rates demonstrate that he was successful in that fraudulent behavior. Google correctly identified his business as dishonest and terminated his account per agreement that the guy signed when he started using AdSense. You try to make a case for Google trying to determine shades of gray, but it's a non-scalable, slippery slope. The current ru…

"Emotion can trump facts". I think the guy's point is, emotion should sometimes trump facts. No Google human was involved. A big chunk of the internet economy is controlled by a heartless robot who can't tell the difference between a middle ages sailor guy going a little over the line, and dedicated click fraud. Shit, even the IRS lets you explain to a human and maybe get a second chance.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#215

Post by nikster » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 2:05 AM UTC

jeromec wrote: post #156

true_religion wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rule says you can't encourage your visitors to click. It doesn't say that you have to actively discourage people from clicking to ensure only those most determined to buy the product actually click. As to him "looking the other way", he explicitly said he replied by telling them to only click on adverts that they were interested in. I'd say he went above and beyond.

The problem is he built up a kinship with his viewers which included his financial plight: I film myself huddling around a tray of candles in the boat as the ice slides past the hull in the winter. Then he tells them a way he makes money: yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers You say that's not encouragement? Well, others thought it was enough to comment ab…

We have two sides of this story - Dylan Winter's words, and Google's cold, hard data. Google dumped him because there were lots of clicks and they didn't generate revenue, which indicates either click fraud or violation of the rules.

Dylan Winter apparently was not aware that his very high CPC rate was a problem. From that I assume he also didn't do a very good job communicating to his users to not click on the links. Telling your users that you make money from clicks seems like a very bad idea.

And why would you edit out comments that encourage users to click more? What you should do is edit it, and replace it with a statement saying to please not do this.

It's a story of coulda woulda shoulda, and honestly I think Google should have consulted with the "wronged" advertisers first and see what they say - maybe give them a simple option to flag or not flag the site.

For Mr. Winter it seems he could now try to get all these sites to rent ad space on his site bypassing Google. Since the site is very specialized in its audience, such a deal might work out better for everyone involved. After all you are cutting out the middle man.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#216

Post by rossjudson » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 2:28 AM UTC

ryanto wrote: post #201

cincinnatus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where exactly does he admit to click fraud?

> 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 in…

It's not _entirely_ clear that asking users to click on ads is prohibited. That phrase is in section 11 a) ii, in the _Payment_ area, not in section 5, which lists Prohibited Uses. Perhaps it should be.

Of interest is section 11's withholding clause, which states that the withholding is "pending Google's reasonable investigation". I don't know why it's there, if Google can terminate at its sole discretion at any time (which is can, according to Section 6). I think it's there to throw some legal chaff in the air and make it _seem_ like there's some protection, so the agreement isn't entirely one-sided. Section 11 (which provides a vague promise of investigation) does NOT survive termination of the agreement, according to section 6. So termination means the investigation is over, and means it never actually has to take place.

A fair agreement might require Google to return, to advertisers, confiscated funds. A fair agreement might also create a "suspended" state for an account, preventing termination until the results of a "reasonable investigation" are available.

Of course, IANAL. I am just reading what is there, which is what most of us have to do. Looks to me that Google can confiscate any funds it wishes, then terminate.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#217

Post by rossjudson » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 2:30 AM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #110

dsmithn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The AdSense agreement specifically prohibits you from doing this. Of course, you might not get caught, but from a legal standpoint it's a Prohibited Use.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#218

Post by rossjudson » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 2:40 AM UTC

kjksf wrote: post #159

anigbrowl wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not agree. There is an enormous difference between click-farming and a courteous 'please support this site by considering the fine offerings of my advertisers.' Also, to cut off all his YouTube income because of a misreading of his pitch on a tiny subscription-driven site is BS - there's no sign that he abused YouTube in any way. I appreciate that a more responsive feedback loop can be exploited by bad guys as…

His practice is a clear case of click fraud and his above-normal click-through rates demonstrate that he was successful in that fraudulent behavior. Google correctly identified his business as dishonest and terminated his account per agreement that the guy signed when he started using AdSense. You try to make a case for Google trying to determine shades of gray, but it's a non-scalable, slippery slope. The current ru…

It's a peculiarity of AdSense that turns what would normally be helpful behavior (please check out my advertisers -- they have really good stuff I personally recommend) into "fraudulent" behavior. The reason is, of course, that the site author has zero input or control over the contents of the AdSense boxes, and as such can't really recommend what's in there. You can _hope_ that what's in the box is a relevant ad for your readers, but you really don't have any way of knowing.

Google could provide a kind of back-and-forth here, to restore the ability of a site author to provide a testimonial for a particular advertiser. An author would have to provide a (short and limited) list of sites and testimonial copy for each one.

A sailing site could then, for a particular sailcloth manufacturer's ad, provide a short testimonial noting the high quality of the product, etc...and Google could serve up that custom testimonial along with the ad.

You'd either have happy advertisers, or not.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#219

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 2:41 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #196

mcantor wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps I did not read carefully enough, but I didn't read anything that made it seem like he directly or indirectly asked anything. He simply makes a point of being 100% transparent in how he runs his business; part of that was explaining that ad clicks improve his revenue. Did Google expect him to lie?

Effectively, yes, if you consider keeping secrets to be lying. Saying "clicking on these adds gets me money," could easily be considered indirectly encouraging people to click on ads. And that's against Google's rules... and for good reason. I don't particularly like Google's lack of transparency, but all this stuff is in the terms you're required to agree to before you start using an AdSense account. Yes, it's a big…

> Saying "clicking on these adds gets me money," could easily be considered indirectly encouraging people to click on ads

How many people believe otherwise? If you cater to any audience with a 3-digit IQ, they know you get paid when they click.

On my current arrangement I have payments on conversion (it's working well enough) but it requires a bit more work than AdSense did.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#220

Post by anigbrowl » Thu, Dec 30, 2010, 2:42 AM UTC

jeromec wrote: post #188

anigbrowl wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is asking them not to demon click, and editing out innocent comments about having done so, a 'look the other way' attitude? Although I'm unsure exactly what encouragement he was offering without seeing a screenshot of his members-only page, from his overall tone I'd guess it was very general, 'support your favorite site' in nature. You are right that he was careless and didn't look after his own business interest…

You are right that he was careless and didn't look after his own business interest by studying the contract carefully and thinking through the implications of such statements. I don't think anyone has to "study" Google's terms for an AdSense account to know they don't want fraudulent clicks. I'm pretty sure Google tries to make that very, very clear during the account set up process. As my earlier comment notes this…

Of course, but you're using an extremely expansive definition of 'fraudulent' here.