Click fraud

[Bagi Zoltán]

Hi Girls and Boys,
as I browse through different webmaster forums I see many threads about suspended Google AdSense accounts because of the click fraud. I'm pretty sure that there are some innocent victims as well. I wonder that I may develop some defending script, to protect the earned money, but unfortunately I don't have too much experience about these kind of advertisment programmes. Could you help me to describe where is the limit of the click fraud? For instance 2 clicks/day from the same IP?
Your help is highly appreciated in advance!:dance2:

 

[temi]

Zoli,
You cannot create a defender script or anything, Google claims to have some "special" way of detecting click fraud which they said they will not share with you because its proprietary and all that rubbish, that is why I closed my Adsense account. Read the message below from Google for example, they can accuse you of click fraud but if you ask them where is the evidence or why do you think I am committing click fraud they will say they cannot tell you.

------here is a typical email to that effect from Google----------
It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have
been generated on the Google ads on your site(s) through users of third
party programmes paid or provided with other incentives to visit your
site. Such programmes include, but are not limited to auto-surf,
pay-to-surf, pay-to-read or pay-to-click sites.

Please bear in mind that if we continue to detect invalid clicks or
impressions from these services on your ads, we may disable your
account to protect our advertisers. In addition, we may adjust your
future payments for any days during which invalid clicks occurred in
order to properly credit advertisers for any invalid activity.

We understand that you may wish to receive specific information
regarding the invalid activity that we observed on your account.
However, due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot
disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what
specifics we found on your account.

As a reminder, any method of generating invalid clicks or impressions
is strictly prohibited by our Terms and Conditions and Programme
Policies: https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_GB
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_GB

For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your
account in good standing by visiting our Help Centre at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921&hl=en_GB.

Yours sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
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[Bagi Zoltán]

Temi, thank you for your input. According to the quoted email I belive that google won't protect you from being a victim. All they did is to suspend your publisher account if the ads are clicked following a suspicious pattern at your site. Is it right?

If they can't or don't want to protect us from being the victim, this is our task to protect our interests. I think it is not so difficoult to control the appearance of the ads.

 

[temi]

Okay go for it Zoli and create an Adsense defender script, I am sure Adsense account holders will find it useful.

 

[Bagi Zoltán]

Temi, hopefully the script will be added to the download section within weeks, just need to execute the background survey as first

 

[seonotes]

If they can't or don't want to protect us from being the victim, this is our task to protect our interests. I think it is not so difficoult to control the appearance of the ads.

Bagi I have different Idea. We can protect our interest. If you prepare a script that track and record all the activities of your visitors and present a good report defining all the IP's clicks, pages etc, we can provide Google an exact report on from where it occurs.

I feel Google will love it, when you implement this system. Also you can ban the IP's which you feel are mysterious and organizing a click fraud. What about developing this too. It may help many to prepare the report!

 

[Bagi Zoltán]

Thanks for your reply seonotes. My main goal is not to make Google happier (since that is not a friend of mine), but to help to avoid correspondings like Temi described above.:2guns:

 

[seonotes]

Thanks for your reply seonotes. My main goal is not to make Google happier (since that is not a friend of mine), but to help to avoid correspondings like Temi described above.:2guns:

They are not good friend of me too I have 3 checks worth $ 900 issued from Sept 2007 but not delivered to me via standard delivery. I have written to Google many times all I received a standard reply and no action taken yet.

Moreover I opted for secured delivery on 2nd Jan 2008 as I saw 200$ again generated. Till then no payment has been issued neither the payment is on hold. :boiling:

They clearly state that checks will be generated on 15th every month when account balance reaches $100