Copy of e-mail sent today....

Dear Google,

Please help me out here. I'm a BIG Google supporter. It's my default search, I'm a Adwords customer, an Adsense publisher (sort of), a Froogle applicant and I offer Google search in many of my sites.

A few months ago I was booted out of Adsense. The reason given was "spurious clicks". I don't get it. I didn't publish adsense on my sites for the money, I published Adsense to provide depth of content to my visitors. I was owed $80 at the time which had taken quite a long time to build up, I lost that but that doesn't matter. The point is I was hardly screwing the system with a balance of $80 and yet I'm told "It's all over pal, you have been trying to rip off our advertisers, and you lost your 80 bucks too".

I may have clicked on the odd published ad in my sites out of genuine interest but It has never crossed my mind to sit at the computer clicking away to make a few cents, I haven't got the time (and I always assumed you'd have systems in place to track such behaviour anyway). Clearly I was right BUT I have been wrongly accused.

Now I don't know how all of your products link up but I must make an interesting observation. You are perfectly happy for me to spend money with you via my Adwords account and I continue to publish your search box on some of my sites thereby displaying my support and preference for Google. It seems however to have become a one way street. I'm not allowed to publish Adsense and I can't seem to get my products from ampalian.com listed on Froogle, I just get ignored.

Please help me out here, I don't understand what I'm supposed to have done and I LOVE GOOGLE ! Please review my Adsense status and please allow me some response from repeated Froogle support requests.

I look forward to your reply.

Kind regards

Malcolm

(URL links supplied here)

Thread moved. Good luck getting this sorted out :) I am too scared to click on any ads that I run on my sites :nervous:

Where to please?

Well when you signed up to adsense you also agreed to the terms and conditions set out by Google which states webmasters are not allowed to click on there adsense for any reason. I'm sure if you were to have a read you would see this. So since you broke the terms and conditions you deserve every punishment.

I agree, I was wrong although ignorant rather the fraudulent. At least this thread serves as a reminder to others.

Funny rule, i can understand if you clicked on your own ad many times everyday, that you should have your punishment for it but if you see something that interrests you, you shoulden be punished for clicking on the ad since you are a potential client to the site that have the ad that cought your attention.

My thoughts exactly e-zone, rules are rules though :(

Funny thing is, if you search Google for people witha similar story, you will be overwhelmed with results. I too had had an adsense account at one time. I recieved a total of 2 checks. One was cut at the end of the year for $42 (balance much reach $100 to recieve check unless fiscal year has ended). And, a second around 8 months later for $100.71.

Several months later, my balance grew to $37 and some change, i recieved an email stating the same. I was removed from the program
for cliking my own links, etc, etc. I tried to argue the point with them, but it was a waste of my time.

Good luck with you fight.

Originally posted by Ampalian
I may have clicked on the odd published ad in my sites

You clicked your own links. You broke the rules. What is there to debate here?

As an Adwords advertiser, I'm glad you were booted out.

The rules are very clearly stated, and the "don't click your own ads" rule is mentioned in a number of places. They even tell you how to decode their ad urls in case you want to see where they link without clicking on them.

When the Google employee reading your letter gets to the line above, they will stop reading and send you a cut and pasted response. Give it up and don't waste their time.

About your Froogle, I was just accpeted a week ago. It took me about a month. How long have you waited to get accpeted into Froogle?

I've waited about a month now but of course Christmas was in the middle of that.

Ive never used Google Ads, they seem to uptight and strict, and ive heard a lot of people who have had there accounts taking away for getting too many clicks and so accused of forcing clicks....

Ampalian,

You have done no wrong. There's some pretty harsh people on here. Sounds like they have to do a better job of communicating this rule, if it's so important. Sounds like they have cut other people off for less, too.

You know, Google's internal slogan is, "Don't be evil." I think if you don't get what you want from your letter, send a snail mail letter by certified mail to the CEO's. You can find their snail mail address by searching Yahoo Financial. They need to know about this glitch in their system to fix it. If they are everything they are cracked up to be, they'll want to do that.

Originally posted by Ampalian
I may have clicked on the odd published ad in my sites out of genuine interest but It has never crossed my mind to sit at the computer clicking away to make a few cents, I haven't got the time (and I always assumed you'd have systems in place to track such behaviour anyway). Clearly I was right BUT I have been wrongly accused.
No offence dude, but you were wrong.
You should have not clicked on any sponsored links.

"Don't Be Evil"

Originally posted by Bluegirl
"Don't Be Evil"
I said "no offence". It's my opinion.

I think this rule is a little strange, because technically it ought to be simple to just put a google adsense cookie on your machine which marks your adsense clicks so they get ignored.

Then you can click to your hearts content!

Of course, it might go the other way too, they might have a cookie right now which shows you clicked on your own ad!! That's probably the easiest way of detecting it. Anyone know what they do?

If they are able to track your clicks, they'd be able to filter them and don't pay you for your own clicks. As easy as that and you could click your ads with no worries when you see something interesting or you have pasted the code on your site and want to test if it's working. Why they don't do that? Who knows... :rolleyes:

It's probably wasting their resources..

Of course you're not allowed to click on your own ads even if YOU ARE interested in the ad. You get the advertisers money, fraudulently. Seeing the ad on your own site will influence you more to click it, it's temptation to get easy money... They clearly explain that if you are interested in the ads, decode the URL and paste it in the address bar.

yup
just ignore your own adsense ads, thats what i do.
don't ever touch them.. :D pretty simple.
now wheres my adsense check for dec earnings? :( :(

same thing happen to me. but exactly $99.00 dollars I got the email saying invalid clicks were generated

As a first time user of Adsense, I was out there to simply test it out and find out how it really works. I am not sure if my account was removed or what. How do you know? Do they send you an email?

I click on my own ads on a particular site just to see if it is working. I think Google should be able to find ways to allow webmasters to test if everything is working. Some new webmasters will be curious and would want to see if everything is in place. Maybe Big G can do something about it later.

Take care everyone!

:)

Originally posted by nuthin
just ignore your own adsense ads, thats what i do.
don't ever touch them.. :D pretty simple.


Yup. And the 3 times I have clicked on mine by accident I have emailed them to let them know, which they seem to appreciate.

Originally posted by consul
As a first time user of Adsense, I was out there to simply test it out and find out how it really works. I am not sure if my account was removed or what. How do you know? Do they send you an email?

I click on my own ads on a particular site just to see if it is working. I think Google should be able to find ways to allow webmasters to test if everything is working. Some new webmasters will be curious and would want to see if everything is in place. Maybe Big G can do something about it later.

Take care everyone!

:)

^ dam don't tell me you are required to do that?

I have clicked on the ads too about 2 times by mistake, because google has a lot of white space around the ad that looks like your page but its actualy in the google code. and sometimes you need to click on the page to scroll up or down with the mouse.

saying that, they already have a filtering system in place you do not get paid for your own clicks. so why do they have a problem with own clicks!

But i do have a concern regarding adsence , hope someone can clear this up for me.

ok say i go to a website and start clicking there adsense ads non stop, say 100 clicks (will that webmasters adsence account get banned)

My guess is that if Google has never seen that webmaster connect to Adsense from your IP, they would simply count the clicks as fraudulent and not charge/pay anyone for them.

But since they already know your IP (from you logging in to the Adsense control panel), I wonder if they might penalize YOU?

a good thing to do in particular if your on the same ip all the time eg; in your office with other people, let google know your ip and they will just not count the clicks.

i have clicked my ads a few times before, maybe once or twice but i assume they always know my ip address as i frequently login to the adsense admin area, so they probably just don't count the clicks.

but i wouldn't deliberately click the x amount of times a day, a quick way to get removed from their program.

Sad, I sent them an e-mail about something like this and just got back a canned message...