It’s one of the biggest money-making opportunities advertised on the internet, yet it’s also one of the biggest money-making scams in internet history.
Google AdSense is one of the most widely-advertised ways that webmasters can make money from their websites. The concept behind it is relatively simple. Google displays an advertisement on your website and you earn money when someone clicks it. The amount of money earned per click depends on the popularity of the site being advertised on the advertisement. Sounds like a foolproof way to make money, doesn’t it? Well, as I’m about to explain, the fine print says it all.
Google has their backs covered in more ways than one. What you would think is a truly legitimate way to make money, is in fact, one of the biggest scams that the world has ever seen. Let me explain my experience with the program and how it turned me, a true AdSense believer, into a person who will now tell everyone he meets not to sign up under the AdSense program.
I was just like you. I owned an animé website and loved spending time working on it. Then I heard about AdSense. I thought to myself, “What a great idea! I can work on my site and earn money at the same time!” So I signed up. That was on July 14, 2008. To my surprise, within 2 months, I had $10.00 in my AdSense account. Keep in mind that my site was relatively small – only about 150 pages. I went through their phone verification, home address verification, sent in my tax forms and selected my type of payment method – cheque, standard delivery (otherwise, Google charges you a whopping $30.00 for express delivery). This, of course, was all asked of me once I reached the $10.00 account balance.
Another two months went by and by the end of October, I was literally jumping up and down in my computer chair, seeing my AdSense balance finally exceed the $100 minimum payout amount. I was going to surprise my dad when I received the cheque in the mail. It was November 6, 2008 when I got the email from Google. Apparently, they had suspended my account due to “invalid clicks” on my advertisements. I was shocked out of disbelief! Not once had I clicked on my own ads, nor did I ever ask anyone to click on my ads! But they had suspended my account nonetheless. In the email, however, it stated that I could appeal their ruling. I did so, filling out an online information appeal form and sending it to Google. I explained that there was no way for me to determine who clicked on my ads and that I would do my best to ensure that this incident didn’t happen again (actually, the only thing I could do was inform my site’s community by posting a news entry explicitly stating to not abuse the ad-click process). It was nearly three weeks later that I got an email response.
“Hello,
We’re currently in the process of reviewing your account with the additional information that you’ve provided. Please understand, however, that there is no guarantee that your account will be reinstated into AdSense. As a reminder, Google does reserve the right to disable an account at any time, as stated in the AdSense Terms and Conditions (http://www.google.com/adsense/terms).
Thank you for your patience.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team”
It then took another two weeks before they responded to my appeal.
“Hello,
Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, after thoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into consideration, we’ve re-confirmed that your account poses a significant risk to our advertisers. For this reason, we’re unable to reinstate your account. Thank you for your understanding. As a reminder, if you have any questions about your account or the actions we’ve taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by visiting https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team”
Needless to say, I was steaming mad. And the worst part about this all is that it states in the AdSense Terms of Service (TOS) that Google has the right to suspend any account without prior notification or explanation, and refund all of the earnings in that account to the respective advertisers. Talk about unfair. What about all the money I obtained through “valid” advertisement clicks that has been returned as well?
I didn’t do anything wrong. All I did was set up an AdSense account in an attempt to make money. What did I do to deserve having my account shut down due to actions which I could not control? At least my account balance was only about $106.00, because if it was several thousands of dollars, I would’ve launched a class-action lawsuit against the company. I’m positive I’m not the only person who has been scammed by Google through this program, and I’m sure that we’d all be more than happy to gang up on Google and sue their pants off.
But then it just hit me, and it hit me hard. What happened to me can happen to anyone signed up under the Google AdSense program. I assume that one of the ways that Google determines whether or not a click is considered “valid” is with regards to the IP address of the computer that clicked on the advertisement. If the same IP address is shown multiple times clicking on an advertisement, Google becomes suspicious. If someone was intentionally clicking on my AdSense advertisements just to get my account suspended, then even if Google had reinstated my account, what could I do to prevent it from happening again in the future? To be honest – absolutely nothing. I have no control over what other people do while they visit my site.
In other words, if you have an AdSense account, it only takes a single person to click on your AdSense ads several tens or hundreds of times, and even though you personally have no control over who clicks your ads, Google will suspend your account assuming that you as a webmaster are clicking on your own ads (or you’re having someone else click on your own ads) in an attempt to increase your account balance, which is not the case. So based on this, theoretically, ANY person could go to ANY website, click on an AdSense ad 100 times, and get the site owner’s AdSense account suspended, thus making him or her lose all of their earnings.
Reflecting back on my experience, it’s actually quite sickening, thinking that I gave Google 5 months of FREE advertising on my site, only to get my account deactivated due to someone else who didn’t want me to get paid. Google won’t provide me any proof that my account was tampered with – all I have to go upon is their email which “claims” that my account was a “significant risk” to their advertisers. No doubt it was more likely a risk to their business, with such a small site as mine making about $20 a month in revenue, only to have it all taken away from me.
No doubt there are AdSense account owners out there who have been paid by Google, but I’d bet that the amount of people who have not received payment in proportion to those who have would be something to the extent of 25 to 1. If you have received AdSense cheques in the mail, and think that this sort of situation could never happen to you, be warned. Like I said before, all it takes is for one person to ruin your reputation, and your AdSense account goes down the drain.
As for me, there’s nothing I can do. Google hasn’t paid me anything, they haven’t shown me any evidence that my account had been tampered with (other than that email message simply stating my account had been suspended due to “invalid” clicks), and they don’t have to provide me with proof either, as written in their Terms of Service.
I encourage everyone who reads this to spread the word about how Google is scamming everyone with their AdSense program. You display ads on your site for free, and when it comes time to pay out, for the majority of the time, Google doesn’t. And I’m sure there will be many people reading this arguing that AdSense is the best program ever, that they’ve “supposedly” earned thousands of dollars through it, and that they have in fact received cheques in the mail. Whether they’re telling the truth or not – that’s another story. Perhaps some of them are even people who have been paid by Google to advertise the AdSense program and its “authenticity,” just to fool everyone into thinking that Google does, in fact, pay their members. I cannot imagine how much free advertising Google has obtained through this con-of-the-century. Think about it for a moment. “Claim” to give out money, offer months of free advertising to their advertisers, then not pay out even one cent to the webmasters displaying those ads.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Hi, interesting article!
I tried with them for a while, but I could never get enough traffic.
To add insult to your injury, it is ironic to notice that on my screen, below our article, under the blue line with ‘Ads by Yahoo!’is, you’ve guessed it, is an Ad for Adsense Websites.
This is cruel.
Keep writing.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Shame on Google. Your feelings and the experiences you have shared here clearly tells how badly you’ve been hurt and humiliated by Google. As you wrote, I bet there are tons of thousands of webmasters victimised by Google, and I know some of them personally too. Just being rich, popular and powerful does not reflect the ethical side of Google and it is becoming obvious across the Internet that subscribing to Adsense is nothing short of a gamble.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
STOP CLICKING ON THE ADSENSE SCAMMER LOL.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
On a serious note. Google is the reflection of the American Business. It is all about profit. They don’t worry about the little guy. They want squeeze the juice out of us and that is all they care. I bet they did not return any money to the people who paid for the ads. It is crime. But, the contract makes it legal.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
The bad thing about these programs by Google and by Amazon is they don’t pay out cash until you reach $100 US so they are hoping they can get away with getting free ads on smaller sites and hoping never to have to pay out. If people would force these big guys to pay out monthly regardless of the amount of that is made or stop using their service maybe they would start dealing with people fairly. Since both are US countries it is something US citizens can write their congressmens and senators about. Get this monopolies taken down a notch. Use other search engines instead of Google and buy books from local bookstores can also be a way to get back at the scamming.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Your article does not surprise me about Google because I participated in their AdSense program, but I never received one cent. It seems that I never reached the amount requireed to get a check. I terminated my AdSense membership before they had the chance to scam me. Most of these companies that promise you great profits for doing surveys and placing ads on your sites do not deliver. Thanks for telling your story. It will save many from the heartache you experienced.
December 6th, 2008 at 9:03 am
The same thing happened to my friend at KenneyJacob.com
Same story… after accumulating a few bucks, they claimed invalid clicks and suspended the accounts. There must be hundreds of thousands of these people which amount to millions of dollars for Google.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:37 am
just get adblock plus for firefox…haha, then u wont have to click their or anyone else’s stupid ads!
December 6th, 2008 at 11:39 am
This same thing happened to me, I lost a couple hundred more than you though. I use http://clicksor.com now. I’ve been lucky with them so far.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:40 am
While it’s certainly frustrating for Google to close out your account over something you likely weren’t responsible for, I think the bigger scam is how much Google skims off ad buys for its network–just ask around (not publicly, against the TOS to reveal the info) for what people who are buying ad campaigns pay, and for what the site owners receive for running the ads. Google may have some pretty amazing technology, but they charge three arms and two legs for it.
Unless things have changed as of late, the commission Google charges constitutes a majority of their revenue.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:42 am
I’ve been using them for a few years and have never had this problem. I get a check for $100 every few months. You may have had some zealous friends clicking away like mad on your website.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:44 am
One of the worst parts is that it seems there’s a very logical way of fixing the invalid clicks problem without scamming the webmaster — just only count the first 1 or 2 clicks from any given IP address (assuming that’s what they’re monitoring to judge invalid clicks). But I guess it’d be against Google’s own self interest to fix a system that they’re (unfairly) making a good deal of money on.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Never tried to use them because it always seemed like a nickel and dime effort because my site is small as well.
Something to note here. If Google is saying that some of the clicks were repetitious (multiple clicks from same IP e.g.), then why doesn’t Google just suspend THOSE CLICKS instead of screwing the webmaster? If they can identify the bad clicks why are they throwing the baby out with the bathwater? I think you may be onto something here.
As an aside, I am a member of Epinions.com (user:timtimes), an online consumer products ratings site. I have been with them since 2000 and have written a couple dozen reviews (they pay when people read your reviews). I think I have accumulated just under $70 OVER THE LAST EIGHT YEARS. Far as I know they are legit (I have never tried to cash out), but unless I were writing reviews 24/7 I don’t think I could make any real money doing it. I do it for fun. There’s no profit in it when you factor time vrs. payment.
Enjoy.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Sounds like a crappy experience, but I’ve been using adsense for years with no problems. It has been well worth the time and effort for me.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:52 am
This happened to me, too. I couldn’t do anything about it… How frustrating…
But it was potential free money so I can’t really complain.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Dude, that totally bites! I have heard other stories liek this about adsense.
jess
http://www.online-privacy.se.tc
December 6th, 2008 at 11:57 am
It’s on Digg; word will spread for sure now
Dugg!
December 6th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
@ Dongrel- What does it matter? You certainly sell things you didn’t make for profit. Ever been to or held your own garage sale? Better yet, big chain stores like Walmart and Target sell things they didn’t make for profit. What’s your problem with small business? Why isn’t selling anime legitimate? She had to buy the product somewhere.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
I agree completely with you. I ran a PPC campaign to get traffic during an event, and I earned $400. Boom. The bast*rds said there was abnormal number of traffic and clicks and closed my account.
The worst part is that you dont even know if they “returned” MY money to the advertisers.
Someone should audit their books please on what happens to the money that they have already charged advertisers. How do they advertisers know that they have returned full?
It is a black box – Google. And we all go gaga the moment we hear its name. It is a thug company.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Nice read. I feel for you and have thought about the possibly of someone sabotaging my adsense account by clicking on my ads many times. However, seeing as this is Google’s main stream of revenue I’m sure they have thought about this and have some sort of system to stop this. I personally have not had a problem with adsense and receive hundreds monthly from it.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
@ #16. Funny, Google Adsense hasn’t been operating for “years”.
This “scam” or whatever you want to call it, happened to me too.
@Ryan What you seem to not understand is, maintaining websites is hard work. To get people to come to your site, is even harder. If you can manage to do that, you probably put in some real effort. Then Google or whatever advertising company gets to profit off that by having ads there for the readers YOU earned. Those ads aren’t going to get clicked without traffic and traffic is the responsibility of the webmaster. Free money? Hell no. Free advertising for the companies participating with Google Adsense? Hell yeah.
They were about to send me a check and “suddenly” they noticed I had “invalid clicks”. I assured them that I was not responsible, but that I would ask my readers to not click the ads– at all. Let the random passers-by click ‘em, I figured. Wasn’t good enough for Google, they still refused to restore my account. My site name happens to be mildly offensive, I thought that may have had something to do with their declaration that I was still a danger to their advertisers. That would be unfair and not under the terms of service as I remember them, but I really don’t know what else to think. Those companies still got the exposure they paid for. But then my money for that service was simply taken from me, easily as that. The amount may seem trivial, but in these trying economic times, it would have made for an easier Christmas. I want my 400 bucks, Google!
Why does Google Adsense even have an appeals process if the only answer you’re going to get is “Sorry, you’re still a threat to our advertisers”?
I didn’t click on my own ads, I offered no incentive, I asked my regular readers to not click the ads, and nothing. I’m still a “threat”.
The companies still got the exposure they paid for.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
#26, wow, priceless that HE’s the idiot but YOU’RE the one that can’t use proper contractions or spell Illuminati. Who’s the idiot, again?
December 6th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Just because it’s written in a contract doesn’t make it enforceable. The burden of proof is on Google to demonstrate that the clicks were fraudulent. In any event, even if there were some fraudulent clicks they still owe you for the non-fraudulent clicks.
File a small claim against Google and let a court decide. In any event, you’ll get some publicity. You don’t need an attorney and it doesn’t cost very much in filing fees.
Get a Nolo book on representing yourself in court and you’ll get through it just fine.
Good luck if you do sue them.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
I had the same thing happen to me, but I got several checks from Google before it did. I had been paid several hundred dollars, and had several hundred more in the account when it was suspended. I appealed, but to no avail. I don’t know that it is a scam, but I do think Google takes advantage of the opportunity to screw people out of money…there were other ways to fix the issue rather than cut me off and keep my money.
All I can say is that now every site seems to have ads from Google, and personally I get sick of looking at them. I like not having the ads cluttering up my blog now. I have a few advertisers paying for space, but for the most part it looks a lot better and I think my readers appreciate not having all that garbage shoved down their throats.
http://www.traderxblog.com
December 6th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
well, hold on a minute here. I think it is a good thing to notice here. I think, it sucks being treated like that. For once, who shold be held responsible? The provider in such services. Which in this case is Google. THEY provide ads, they should provide 100% security too.
Lets get a worldwide ban on Adsense, let’s see how quick Google will come with a solution.
I say, away with Adsense.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
You say you have a small site yet you were making 20$ per month?
Maybe that is a sign of click fraud because my blog >> http://arkation.blogspot.com makes like 1-2$ per month lol.
And I am sure my traffic is lower than yours, but I know you weren’t getting 20,000 visitors a month.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Check out: http://www.uexx.com
December 6th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
check out http://sunnysiteup.blogspot.com/ how Google f*ked this bloke.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I just thought I’d post in support of Google, one of the large sites I work on uses Google as both an advertiser and as a publisher.
From the point of view of advertiser, it makes sense that Google would refund clicks if they felt they weren’t legitimate clicks from users that were interested in the product because otherwise it reduces the payback the advertiser gets for advertising spend.
From the point of view of publisher, they’ve had no issues with non-payment and get paid regularly simply enough.
I’m not a great fan of google but they at least do this fine.
I don’t agree with the $100 min before payment but anything less than that you wind up with admin costs and the like, they’d have to have a cutoff point somewhere
December 6th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Happened to me too, just like you.
http://www.mvgc.net
December 6th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
This happened to me after I had $2000 on my account!
December 6th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
This happened to me as well. I created a site that I liked, and started an AdSense account. Unlike you, I got my first check for $100, but all of a sudden, Google told me that my account was considered a risk. They cancelled my account. I still wonder to this day how they came to that determination – anyone could have been clicking on my ads – and what control did I have over that?
December 6th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Yep, I had the same thing happen to me. Once I got near $100, my account was banned.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
This happened to me, I had about 64 dollars when it happened. Then it happened again a couple years later when I made a new one.
I don’t like adsense, I’m never using their service again.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I feel you, same thing happened to me last year, I had a huge 2 week sustained traffic spike which put my balance in the 200 dollar area, then they killed my account. I was livid.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
I used Adsense a while back. I finally broke the $100 barrier on a small site, then all of a suddent, my clicks stopped. I know I was getting clicks, because the traffic increased. I clicked on one of my links to see if google would track it. It never did track it, then they cancelled my account for violating TOS.
Amazing how big of a scam Adsense is.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
What you or anyone could do in the future is record ip addresses, and store them to a database. When a user attempts to click the ad, use some javascript to make an ajax call to the database and see if that ip has already been recorded and how long ago they clicked the ad. If a reasonable amount of time has passed, let the click through, otherwise disable the click for that user. There you go, control back in your hands. It would be a lot of work if you are not a programmer, but if you are working on the site yourself anyway, it’s not that much more learning and you would be protecting your adsense account.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Been there. Done that. Google have put this into a strategy to fool small (and not so small…) advertisers. I agree, adsense/google is the biggest scam so far.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Show/click ratio!
I think google measures show/click ratio and if it gets too bigg it will assume scam. They usually assume that only in 1 time of 100 showings the add is clicked. But sometimes comes some add that is too popular, maybe something really cool anime stuff (like download free anime movies or something) that your readers were wery much interested in. So the click rate boosted and google assumed that you are cheating.
Probably there are more variables in the algorithm but it still comes down to random, if you have bad luck you are gone!
The system works for google but unfortunately not for small website owners. Since so many have suffered from it, then there should be some collective case against google to force it to change it’s methods, I think.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
looks like some google employees got in the comments
December 6th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Google, what a scam. You give no proof and even if you did, you go and cancel accounts just like that without really finding out the true story. Google, if you keep this up, you will paint a bad name for yourself and start a downward spiral with your first fail on the internet. This will be a BIG FAIL.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I got the same message. I thought how rude of them to do that. I like your article.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
what google could do:
look at your site for 3 months, then if they think you suck, just send you a email from nelson
HA HA
December 6th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
It scares me now, because I got that same email a couple weeks ago. I’m a legit blogger and this article makes total sense. You send stuff like that to people like us who are completely innocent. So there is no way people can trust Google Adsense. There is just no way with these kind of shady illegal practices. You will get sued eventually. It’s just a matter of time.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
And guess what. Microsoft or someone else will pick up where you left off screwing us, and create a fair adsense program. Google, stop your crap with Adsense. Put in fair checks and balances. And warn people instead of using it as a kickback to make money and screw innocent Adsense customers.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
>>>look at your site for 3 months, then if they think you suck, just send you a email from nelson
precisely. Isn’t Google such an analytical company(so they claim) but they choose to turn their backs and not analyze Adsense data fairly. What hypocrites.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Do you even know what a class-action lawsuit is? I’d love to see you start one because you loose a few grand from AdSense. Your going to spend so much time and money with lawyers that you’d be more than a few grand in the hole once your finished.
What you want is small claims court for something like that.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Yea, we are all cheaters. The idiots who respond to this post are just amazing to me. They act like high schoolers.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
>>>you didnt pay google anything, you just cut and pasted a few lines of code
yep, and Google is getting rich off of scamming us as well. Swings both ways buddy. Any intelligent human being would never argue such a lame point that you just made.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Adblock FTW!
December 6th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
>>>Is it googles responsibility to support every damn blog and cheesy website with mo
so I guess this means in your relative terms that your site is NOT cheesy. If not show us and reveal your full name. Show us your site. And shut your mouth. Quit hiding behind your immature posts. Are you an intern?
December 6th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
It’s amazing to me how many google employees with such cocky attitudes are replying to this thread right here and now. Just magnifies how attitudes are from Google period. Rude, scamming, and outright stupid and irresponsible little pricks.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
>>>Googley doesnt owe you a living
did anyone say that? Another naive and stupid statement. All customers are asking here is a fair system, not a scam. WTF does your comment have anything to do with these concerns and experiences a lot of people obviously have had with Google Adsense lately?
Please reply with intelligent posts. If not, I can point you to some help with scholarships to your local college.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Dave, stop making anime websites, get a job
December 6th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I don’t think google is stupid enough to use only IP addresses to investigate fraud as most companies NAT all of their internal->external traffic out through 1 or 2 public IP addresses. You could have potentially thousands of people look like their are coming from the same IP address just because they work in the same company.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
name 1 person who isnt a lawyer who has made dollar 1 from class action?
December 6th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
>>>I don’t think google is stupid enough to use only IP addresses to investigate fraud as most companies NAT all of their interna
it’s not just stats. It’s trends. And so if the trend is that the same IP is clicking every month that still doesn’t warrant a cancelation. And if Google thinks cancellations without providing proof is ok, then this will be a huge problem.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Just so you know, Adsense is not for people with web sites the size of yours. If it took you months to get to $100, you probably are not worth Google’s time. Also, I bet you have a small number of visitors that come all the time and click on your ads to be nice.
On the site I run We have no problems with it and do not make a ton of money, but get a check every month. We get about 300K unique visitors per month on average. You should try working on getting a higher number of visitors and not the same people. If you can build websites, I am sure you can make $100 faster by building someone a website.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I agree that Google should have standards, and not support websites who clearly are not worth the paperwork
December 6th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
An individual doesn’t “launch a class-action lawsuit.” Several thousand dollars also wouldn’t be enough money to warrant a suit against a company as large as Google. People love to threaten with a lawsuit whenever they are dissatisfied with a company’s service. I agree that you got screwed but try to keep things in perspective.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Google wouldnt pay up for the ads on my child porn site either
who’s with me on that?
December 6th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
where is this mystical anime website?
i want to check it out
December 6th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
dont expect adsense to pay for it
this isnt like in ‘field of dreams’ gotta have real content not ripped off, maybe even a real site that sells, i dunno, a product?
then maybe adsense will care
December 6th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Dongrel may be on to something. If you were not the creator or copyright owner of those anime, it is quite conceivable that the real creator/copyright owner may have been clicking on the Adsense ads to bust you.
December 6th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
imagine the 2 heads of google laughing and cackling over the huge pile (well 1 hundred singles) of dough, they have managed to aquire from your hugely important but somehow non-existant site
December 6th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
man,do I feel bad for u
but google was probably right
must be another visitor to your site that’s clicking on the ads non-stop
Google wouldn’t make a simple mistake like that
December 6th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
it was someone else’s fault..
yep, wasnt you, no-body saw you do it
December 6th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
damn, thats at least 10 street blow-jobs from diseased street hookers, no wonder you are pissed
perhaps your dad can help you out, either with money or in kind
December 6th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
I agree, because I have had better income from
full commissions versus pennies paid by Google Adsense.
I’m using a Google search box just to get
my balance paid for the first $100 after years
later opening an account.
thanks from tony at:
http://www.ntopics.com
December 6th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
#112 – A class action can be filed by one person, who then seeks other members of the class. In the end, if they win, most of the members of the class get very little as they divide up the money. The lawyers on the other hand get a nice huge chunk.
this info was pretty easy to find, i hope you are nto an attorney or do not play one on the TV.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Sounds like quite a bit of bickering of people agreeing and disagreeing that google would do something like posted.
Well there are more than enough reading to start testing the concept. If Google really goes to those extremes of rejecting payment and banning, it is time to grab your own bot, make a script, or manually start clicking a larger website every day for a few months. That website will either be the happiest person in the world with an ~30 extra clicks a month or google uses their back hand again. If enough people do this, google will need to research new methods to poll instead of rejecting any website that sees a multitude of the same visitors. Otherwise this same behavior will continue and adopted from other advertisers.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I have had a very similar experience. Shut down from Adsense for no reason.
AS for Lame (comment #134 above), you can’t begrudge the author from advertising on his site. You probably do as well. I use AdBrite now and have been very happy with them to date.
December 6th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
I know a number of gaming and review website webmasters and a number of them don’t even try google adsense anymore as it just isn’t worth it. There are so many better, reliable, and shorter payout amounts. It might seem like you are getting quite a bit of money up front, but that could be from 100-300 people clicking your links everyday for 3 months (homepage). Which at the end of your 1-2 months you wont receive your money that you were expecting to receive and lost an investment in another ad revenue.
As for the peeing in water, you are partly right, although google tracks every pee stream left. So I would assume if it starts seeing 50 pee streams * 30 days in the ocean, google just lost ~$150. So even a large website would be influenced depending on what google monitors.
At that point they should technically implement a system of ad revenue reduction based on the number of clicks per ip through a month instead of banning the site. Atleast they would have to change something to keep their largest ad revenue websites, while filtering out the bots or script attempting to defeat their system.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Welcome aboard the “screwed by google” train. You can read my ordeal here: http://nukeit.org/2008/09/16/burning-the-bridge-to-nowhere/
December 6th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Sorry, going to have to play devil’s advocate here. What do you propose Google should do? Let’s say some enemy of yours is responsible and has clicked on an ad several dozens of times. How can Google delineate between you and someone else scamming the system?
I don’t see another way that they can protect their advertisers. Even if they were to pay you a portion of what you’d accrued, it would only encourage people to abuse the system repeatedly.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
if you have a good site, you can do well with adsense.
they have been very good to me.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Google claims they can detect “invalid clicks”. So… why not simply *not* *count* *them* in the adsense totals? Not so hard, is it? I’ve been a programmer for 35 years…. seems easy to me. I understand Google employs more than a few programmers that might be capable of implementing this.
I’ve never understood how Google can be such idiots about click fraud. If they can detect invalid clicks, they can ignore them. Problem solved for both advertisers and bloggers. Instead, they persist in this totally idiotic behavior. The reason people see an evil consipiracy is because a simple, straightforward, honest, fully adequate solution is trivial to implement, therefore, Google must be playing some other game.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I had this exact same problem in 2005. On my completely independently developed site, with 100% original content, Google claimed I had fraudulent clicks and refused to pay me hundreds of dollars. When I contacted them they adamantly refused to provide any information as to how they came to this determination.
If Google has the ability to detect so called “fraudulent” clicks why not simply ignore those clicks? Google has covered their unilateral and dishonest actions legally through their Terms of Service. Our only recourse is NOT USE ADSENSE and make sure we are very loud so any people who could potentially be taken for a ride by Google know not to fall into the same trap.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
The adsense program has been good to me. I’ve been running adsense on some sites since 2004 and bank between $6k – $10k every month.
Adsense isn’t going to ban your account simply because 1 person repeatedly clicked on your ad. This must be an ongoing thing from multiple people which caused your account to be deactivated. I send thousands of visitors to my sites and gets thousands of clicks on my adsense blocks and haven’t had a problem.
Knock on wood
.
December 6th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I’ve had no problems yet with adsense…..
http://www.PlanetEarthLink.com
http://www.awackydo.com
http://www.PlanetJokeLink.com
http://www.CowObsession.com
December 6th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
This happened to me too. But in my case they claimed that I wasn’t verified correctly and I had to wait for a pin number using snail mail. The pin never came. Asked for it 3 more times and then just gave up. Google owes me 500 bucks.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I had the exact same experience, to a tee. Adsense is a scam and definately not worth the misery.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:27 pm
I have a story even sadder:
http://www.scorpiono.com/the-daily-www/my-first-google-knol-unvails-the-google-adsense-assasination-technique
Best wishes and I agree with you on each aspect,
Scorpiono
December 6th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Same experience here too, but they owed me closer to a thousand dollars.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
To those who said “you didn’t lose anything…” 5 months of advertising space on your website is not something that comes cheap… It’s not free money, it’s renting space on a website. A bit like renting a house only the tenants didn’t pay him. Thats losing money by anyone’s standards.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Google Adsense works, but only for commercial or organizational sites. You need to have traffic of 5000+ a day to make good use of the service. It’s also not for sites smaller than 100 pages. You also need large traffic net from all over the world to make any thing and this takes a medium size(2500+ pages) website to due. We been using Adsense for about 4.5 years now, but we didn’t get paid for the first 13 months. Since then we have been earning about $2700.00 a month off of ~100,000 unique monthly visitors. It take time, its not get rich quick or even for that matter make a buck quick. Yeah we had an account closed on one of our websites but we simply opened a new website an started advertising again. Just start over with a new site and account, you no what went wrong the first time don’t let it happen the second time.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Same thing happened to me. Put the ads up, eventually accrued $100, account disabled, no check received.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
All of that and you don’t even include a link to your website? I’m not sure I can believe Google is out to get you unless I could see for myself that your website isn’t risky – is there any malicious code? Any spammy pages? Any link exchange or other banned activities? I find it suspicious you didn’t list your website in this article, don’t you want traffic? I think we are only getting one side of the story here and it smells fishy.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
I agree that google has some glitches but, that’s why I try to use others sources for advertisement on my blog.
Depending on the site you had, which you mentioned anime strikes me as a topic only kids read about and most of the adult google users tend to be a bit wiser when it comes to overclicking.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Google suspended my AdSense account with about $2000 owed to me. It was a fully legit account that I had used (and had not abused) for about three years. I went through all of the frustration that you did! I started researching the suspension and found that many others had experienced the same thing, and a few had actually gotten their accounts reinstated by consistently contacting Google with a positive attitude. I tried it and after about four months, a zillion emails and a few small objects thrown threw my wall I finally got an email saying that my account was back in good standing and a check was on the way. Wow.
The funny thing is that after four months Google still hadn’t refunded my “fraudulent” clicks to the advertisers and had the money to pay me? I was also an ‘advertisee’ on AdSense and I never once received any kind of refund for “faulty clicks”. You would think that with the high rate of account suspension that everyone who places an ad would eventually get some kind of refund, right? WTF?
I went right back to using AdSense for lack of a better alternative, but I was more wary about depending on that income.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
I’d like to thank everyone who commented with their opinions on my article so far. There are some things I’d like to address, however.
First, there have been many people posting comments with my username “Dialga”. These comments are not mine and I have deleted them. All of my comments are posted with my name actually linking to my Triond account, so if my name is not linked to my account, or it is linked to someone else’s account, please keep in mind that it is not me who has posted that comment.
Second, there have been multiple people complaining about the fact that I have not included a link to my website in my article (one of which has been a comment posted by “Nick R”). I did not include a link to my site because Triond prohibits self-advertising of other websites in their articles. Unlike some people here, I do follow the Terms of Service. I followed the TOS of Google, I’m following the TOS of Triond, and I will follow the TOS of any other site I go to in the future.
If you really want to see my website, send me a Private Message on Triond and I will be happy to direct you to my site, but I will not violate Triond’s TOS by advertising my site’s URL on here. In fact, I find it very suspicious that people actually WANT me to post my site URL in my article. Do you want me to get notified by Triond that I’m violating their TOS? I’m not that stupid.
And third, a few people have commented that I’ve been posting false facts, most likely with regards to when I said in the article that, “No doubt there are AdSense account owners out there who have been paid by Google, but I’d bet that the amount of people who have not received payment in proportion to those who have would be something to the extent of 25 to 1.” I just want to clarify this. Based upon the number of people who have commented thus far that they too have been scammed by AdSense, my “25 to 1″ estimate doesn’t seem too farfetched, but it was only an estimate ratio that I included in the article simply because of how mad I was at the time of writing it. Please do not take it too seriously and consider it with a grain of salt. What I meant to say was that the number of people who have been scammed by AdSense is greater than the number of people who have not.
One more thing. I remember reading one comment about how the commenter hoped I was not some sort of lawyer. You’ll probably be relieved to know that I’m not in that business. I create websites and perform computer repairs as my main source of income.
I look forward to reading any other comments that are posted.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
The same thing happened to me back in 2005/2006, so I left adsense and never looked back. I was so frustrated. Thanks for articulating what I felt.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
everyone on the earth, let boycott google from now on. everyone please stop clicking the google advertisement. if u really feel interested in the advertisement, u can jus copy the link under the ads without clicking it. if everyone do tis for 12 months, let see google will collapse or not !
December 6th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I have the same pain. I was near 80 bucks, and then google sends me the same message.
Google Adsense is not worth it. I can’t believe I was going to get paid out.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Thanks for this information. I’m now going to discontinue Adsense from my blog. I thought it would be a good way just to make some extra cash on the side, but if this is how they treat their customers, by allowing them to advertise on our sites, then turn around and treat us like trash, then forget about it. I’d rather go without Google.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Hey Diagla, you create websites for a living and you just heard of AdSense 6 months ago?!?
December 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Welcome to the club. Adsense payout per click were 10X more back in 2003 to 2005 compared with today. It’s just a big scam. Thank you for pointing it out. There’s another article which tells the same story.
http://smartstartup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/07/a-fable-doing-b.html
December 6th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Exactly the same thing happened to me! And I got stung as they sent the cheque, I cashed it in, THEN they canceled my account and stopped the cheque. The bank charged me for a bounced cheque! (or spelled check in the USA)
Tom – http://www.mouselike.org
December 6th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Same exact thing happened to me. It’s funny how they don’t suspend the account until right before you are expecting to get your first check
December 6th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
That is an interesting story. I have a website called http://www.whiskeytales.com and we use google addsense and dont get many hits off it but hopefully we dont get screwed by them either
December 6th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Same happened to me, but they owe me over 10.000 USD!
Nothing i can do about it… GOOGLE FU!!
December 6th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Thank you, I just removed my Adsense banner. What do you expect from some terrorist and communist-coddling billionaires.
December 6th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
First off, if you do have one person abusing your adsense you can track them very easily through google analytics and google can just suspend those ad clicks. Secondly, your site was probably a risk because, as you said, it was an anime site and thus probably hosted up illegal copyrighted material. Having a companies ad up next to illegal copyrighted material is bad for that company, hence the “liability” that google says your site represented.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
World wide web is a giant bill board, people like google are trying to collect rent on property they don’t own.
Try collecting toll for using the public road in front of your home, if that doesn’t work then google advertisement programs also will not work long term…….
December 6th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Yeah, Google closed my Adsense account too, for what they claimed to be invalid clicks. At the time they owed me over $300.00 and I never seen a dime of it.
My site was receiving a few 100K visitors per week and I never put more than one ad column on a page. Google claimed that my click through rate was abnormal and terminated my account. I did try to write Google directly to appeal the decision, but they did not budge from their position.
Since then, I have moved on and I will never do any more business with the Google Adsense Program. It is a scam for the little guys on the web.
God Bless,
Nelson Doyle
December 6th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Life sucks and then you die
December 6th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
At least adsense’s ads aren’t* as annoying as the ones I had to put up while reading this article.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
Same happened to me
but my latest check was $50.000 and they never pay!
http://www.70news.com
December 6th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I could be wrong, but I remember reading something on Google Ad Sense when I signed-up for it that they could suspend an account if it doesn’t get enough clicks within the first, I think it was 60 or 90 days. Knock on wood! HollywoodJunket.com
December 6th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
I lost over $1600 in my adsense account (plus all future earnings) due to a disgruntled forum member who was recently banned for posting pornographic content an my site. He complained, google responded.
Same bogus emails and appeal process.
Yahoo, sadly, is the only valid alternative to text ads, and they don’t pay nearly as well, but at least they pay!
December 7th, 2008 at 12:08 am
All google has to do to be legitimate is to have the repeated IP clicks ignored and pay you for the unique clicks. Instead of flat-out suspending accounts, simply filter the abuse out. Problem solved for everyone.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:17 am
You’re right and that is why I didn’t waste my time with Adsense…because there was no guarantee they would pay me. Sorry you didn’t hear about the Adsense horror stories before you got started like I did. By the way I’m sure Adsense doesn’t suspend the accounts of their top clients no matter how many thousands of invalid clicks they get….your account got suspended because you are not as important to Google as their top clients. And please do continue spreading the word about Adsense horror stories.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Google Adsense is not a scam, it works. However, it sucks. It does not earn enough revenue for the adsense users and users can only withdraw money after you accumulate 100 dollars. It takes forever to get 100 dollars – possibly an entire year.
The payout is not worth the effort and the time. Rather, get on Triond and write a few articles and you will get plenty of money monthly.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:44 am
My site crawlanime.com got a block notice too. If your site was another leech site like the many springing up it’s understandable. “Dialga”… your username is based on a pokemon. You were excited to show your dad the $100 check… sounds like you’re a high schooler or something. The first thing most people would probably do is click the ads at school and the local library every possible chance and tell their friends to click the ads. Google is bored of this and issues GTFO notices in reply. The IP can pinpoint the ISP location which makes it easy to see clicks are coming from the same area. I think adsense is great and especially profitibale for service based and targetted sites. Giving you full disclosure or an open policy on how they manage the invalid click policy would only help the people wanting to manipulate the system.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:05 am
When I read the article it was like deja vu ! I had same experience for my website technitium.com. I stay in Mumbai where many cable internet providers use NAT on their networks such that all the users in their network have private IP addresses and all the requests are routes through a few internet IP addresses the cable internet provider has. So effectively most of the users on the same network have same IP address for outside world. Thus many of my site visitors being from such networks, Google must have thought there are multiple clicks by same user. Now NAT is not rocket science to understand and Google knows this too. I too lost initial $100 and they banned my site too for registering new Adsense account! Man this is really a fraud.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Adsense Sucks!!
Enough said..
December 7th, 2008 at 3:26 am
I had Adsense on my website too…until someone decided to click 19 times on the same ad
December 7th, 2008 at 5:19 am
Use bidvertiser.com its quiet good and convineant because they pay straight to your paypal account so you wont need to go througth all that headache for a check
December 7th, 2008 at 6:23 am
I was number 100 to like this article. It’s frightening, indeed… Some guy goes clicking your Google ads… and thus shutting down your account…
December 7th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Hey i use GZYN.com you can write articles on there and Google will add sponsored links to your work. I earn around $100 – $200 per month.
beats earning pennies, but triond still rock as you can be more creative with your writing. Adding pictures etc.
December 7th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Couldn’t agree more, you are definitely not the only one. My experiences below. Google should be ashamed.
http://tinyurl.com/64k988
December 7th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Happened to me too, just like you.
Had 4 site with them and all cancelled, just because someone clicking like mad on 1 site, other sites revenues gone too.
December 7th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I agree with this article. Good piece.
December 7th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I tottaly agree with you.Ive been there and done that.I as so pissed.Ill make sure I spread this page.And very well written.
December 7th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Great article. I agree with you with regard to the points you make.
Take Care,
Joanna Maharis
December 7th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Im sorry to hear about your bad experience. Im a current Adsense affiliate and Ive had my account suspended at one point, so I did a lot of research and I found many many people that had their account suspended for the wrong reasons, and worst of all without any explanation. It seems that Google just cancels the low income accounts before they pay up, in my case when I had made 70 dollars.
Still, some others had advice on how to try to get your account back, and I followed their advice, after all I had nothing to lose. My blog is in spanish, so I dont really have access to other programs like Yahoo Ads, so I thought Id give it a try. So, I wrote about 6 emails with lousy reponses from the Adsense team. Finally after about a month I had given up I got an email that my account was reinstated! Im still using Google Adsense and waiting for my first check to come, its only 150 bucks but for me its great.
So, heres my advice: email them every 2 days, be polite and offer your help to solve the problem (even though most times there isnt any in the first place) and dont give up! You might be lucky like me.
Like I said, if I had access to other type of ad programs Id quit Adsense, but I dont have much of a choice right now…
December 7th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Hello. There are certain solutions that allow you to monitor your AdSense click and block them if they come from the same IP…
Where there’s a problem there’s a business too.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Hi I’ve earned consistently with Google Adsense wince November of last year. Your experience is bad..but you shouldn’t go as far as saying that Google is a scam. According to the terms of conditions, Google has the right to terminate any account promptly and for no apparent reason. In layman’s terms, this means “sign up at your own risk”.
At any point that your account poses a threat to the advertisers (i.e., if your site has the potential to inflate advertising costs), Google has no choice but to close your account. Repeated clicks from the SAME PEOPLE will likely cause an alarm in the Google tracking algorithms. One possible source of this problem is if you’re promoting your website to a select group of subscribers over and over again, and not attracting fresh traffic to your site!
The answer? Generate NEW VISITORS to your site and don’t just “recycle” your traffic. That way, Google sees your website as trustworthy and “advertiser friendly”.
If Google’s rules seem to be too stiff for you, I suggest you try out other advertiser/publisher PPC platforms:
Chitika.com
Bidvertiser.com
Exoclick.com
Kontera.com
Tribalfusion.com (for high traffic websites only!)
Adbrite.com
Yahoo Search Advertising (apply as publisher)
There are literally hundreds of others! The best thing is, the communities aren’t that crowded in other pay-per-click (PPC) sites yet.
I wish you success..and sorry about the bad news…
December 7th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
I had the same thing happen with Amazon. Someone (presumably a competitor) ran a pop-up campaign with my account. Amazon had no interest in investigating the issue.
December 7th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Try The Rubicon Project
rubiconproject.com
December 7th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
That is why cashcrate is better. Its not a pay-per-click, but similar. And it will pay you when you get 20 bucks. Its free too.
startwithcashcrate.co.cc
December 7th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
The thing that makes me sick is in most cases Google waits till the member has achieved a hundred dollars or more to suspend the account.
I can understand that there are scammers who do try to cheat the system and Google has a responsibility to it’s advertisers but majority of people try their best to play by the rules and Google is taking advantage of that.
It waits for months to suspend “suspicious” accounts. It does not give any information as to why and Google rarely gives second chances. And instead of just targeting the suspicious site it removes ads off every site the webmaster owns.
The red flags are everywhere.
It’s hard enough to make a living online without companies like Google basically encouraging users to sabotage our businesses. Thanks for saying what so many people feel.
December 7th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
It occurs to me that maybe the culprit is the outfit that was paying for the ads. All they would have to do is to hire someone to click-sabotage adsense sites with their ads and they would get a lot of ads for free before it was shut down.
December 7th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
The same thing happened to me. Google Adsense is really a SCAM. I lost my $360 for the month of October 2008 for reason I do not know. They suspended my account for a claim they could not even justify. As far as I know, I have not violated any Google TOS. That’s why I don’t display Google ads in my blogs anymore. I have Bidvertiser, Chitika, AdBrite and Kontera. I earn better now. Shame on them!
http://mercurianscribe.co.nr
December 7th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
well, in view of all this, I must say, just as well I couldn’t figure out how to get my Adsense acc working on my site http://www.karenzomedia.com
December 8th, 2008 at 5:45 am
The Law about Internet advertising is as you said, disgusting ain’t it???
Majority of people make money without the Internet and use it to use others for making money.
T R U S T is a five letter word, that they ain’t!!!
December 8th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Hereare my suggestions:
1. Consult a lawyer to see if you have a case for class-action suit against google regardless of the google terms. May be your lawyer(s) will invite others with similar experience to join you for class action. If their reason was YOUR SITE WAS A SIGNIFICANT THREAT to their advertisers and yet not stated in their google terms, you might have a strong case.
2. Use the media and not just the forums to tell your experience with google adsence. How about contacting Oreilly of FOX NEWS for an interview and have fox news invite a google executive.
3. Let google know that you will use their competitors to post ads to all your site and let everyone know to use ads from google’s competitors like yahoo and microsoft even if you won’t earn anything from the 2.
4. You’re better off joining another company like google to post ads to your site. There are a lot of affiliate programs to join.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am
It’s all true here. I had recently my Adsense account deactivated for supposed activity against their TOS like placing ads in sites with content not suitable for them. The funny thing here is Google checked that same website and approved it itself! Now that site deactivated my account 2 years later!!!
Some people are millionaires thanks to Adsense. Well some people are millionaires thanks to the Lottery, thanks to bad businesses and thanks to many other things but they are just one in a million.
Don’t be scammed like this article writer was!
Kick adsense in the arse.
By the way I mailed Google and they replied me some weeks later just saying my account was not going to be reactivated because my website is against their TOS… My website haven’t changed for 2 years! It’s just a computer games website with free tips!
Google is just abusing more and more it’s dominant position in the market. They’ve been growing very fast. Hope someday they finish even faster…
Pedro
December 8th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Something of interest you may want to look at.
Criticism
Due to concerns about click fraud, ‘Google AdSense’ has been criticized by some search engine optimization firms as a large source of what Google calls “invalid clicks”, in which one company clicks on a rival’s search engine advertisements to drive up the other company’s costs.[14] Some publishers that have been blocked by Google complain that little justification or transparency was provided. Webmasters who publish AdSense can receive a life-long ban without justification.[citation needed] Google claims they cannot “disclose any specific details” on fraudulent clicks since it may reveal the nature of their proprietary click-fraud monitoring system.[15]
To help prevent click fraud, AdSense publishers can choose from a number of click-tracking programs[citation needed]. These programs display detailed information about the visitors who click on the AdSense advertisements. Publishers can use this to determine whether or not they have been a victim of click fraud. There are a number of commercial tracking scripts available for purchase.
The payment terms for webmasters have also been criticized.[16] Google withholds payment until an account reaches US$100,[17] but many small content providers[citation needed] require a long time—years in many cases—to build up this much AdSense revenue. However, Google will pay all earned revenue greater than US$10 when an AdSense account is closed.
Google recently came under fire when the official Google AdSense Blog showcased the French video website Imineo.com. This website violated Google’s AdSense Program Policies by displaying AdSense alongside sexually explicit material.[18] Typically, websites displaying AdSense have been banned from showing such content.[citation needed]
Soucre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdSense#Abuse
It might be something to look at for those with questions about it from all sides.
I’ve never used it, but I’ve heard good things and bad things about it. I’m sorry to hear this happened to you, but usually when there’s a way to make “easy money” the majority of the time you are bound to get screwed. It’s just something anyone who wants quick cash should expect. You should ALWAYS be skeptical of “easy money” programs. Do the research, then try it out. Of course there is always the “trial and error” method, but I wouldn’t recommend that. You may loose more than you choose. Sorry if anyone doesn’t find this relevant, but I thought it might be something that might be to some (perhaps none) interests.
Not to sound in a bad way, but I enjoyed your article. Please keep writing.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:47 am
I write in a website which shares 50% of Adsense revenue. When my money accumulated to 100 dollars, I got my account banned by Google. But very fortunately and luckily, my appeal was accepted and Google paid my money, after suspending my account for about 20 days during the complaint processing time.
My next payment may get due by another 2 months. I just keep my fingers crossed. Google’s message, their curt style of response, lack of any scope for 2nd appeal or for approaching any authority for grievance redress – everything points out to one thing – absolute arrogance.
Scam? Not sure. High headed arrogance and cheap tactics to rob thousands of small members who do have scope for legal retaliation? Yes.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:50 am
If this is happening to as many people as it seems, you should all share info, contact some lawyer and do a class action lawsuit.
Google at the very least, should need to provide documentation of the abuse they suspect.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
That was really interesting! Thanks for sharing your experience.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
This is the best click here OCCUPEX
December 8th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I tried using Adsense for my travel site http://www.tripntale.com. Haven’t been paid by Google although my account has crossed $100 line
December 8th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Ad Sense, non cents, whatever it is, I am weary of anyone that will hand out money for free. I work hard writing, and get paid up front. I had a site with a simular program on it. I gave them well over a million hits and low and behold, they said there were no sales. The law of averages tell me that at least one person would have bought something, well, those days are behind me. Good luck to you.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
It looks like most of the comments that disagree with the post have been deleted. This makes it hard to see if the issue is nearly as one-sided as it seems.
I would suggest compiling a list of parties interested in a class action suit. With enough people involved, class action suits become an option. A ballsy lawyer willing to take the case for a percentage would remove your risk. If you really feel that you’ve been screwed, it’s your duty to see this through.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Google keeps very good records. A small time scam like this wouldn’t be worth getting busted by the FTC.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:40 pm
All of this commentary makes me realize how fortunate we are that Triond exists. My earnings here are small but steady. I\’m glad that users will post articles warning others so that we can be aware of the pitfalls of internet merchandising. The bottom line here is read the contract, follow the contract, be SURE you know what is being offered, and research the company before you jump in.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I HATE GOOGLE ADSENSE, CHEATED ME OUT OF 800 BUCKS FROM MY GREAT BLOG ENTRIES
December 8th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I bet a firm that could afford the research could earn millions in fees to call them on their lies.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Too bad no one lived during the early days of th’ Internet when you made cash.
Now those who took advantage of those times are controlling the little bugs who hope for crumbs -
My advice? Start your own ITC company and be on the controlling end, you are simply picking up the little pennies from heaven from the rest.
Good luck . j
December 9th, 2008 at 12:01 am
@#34 Alex
i highly doubt you reached $2000 and had the same thing happen to you. you couldnt type like that if it did.
@#156 marleyinoc
i agree with you..its buried treasure WHO WANTS TO TEAM UP haha
altho google would have some powerful lawyers..yup
anyway nice read googles not so angel-like as everyone thinks
December 9th, 2008 at 12:07 am
Surely agrees with you.
I must say that Google is pain when they disables an account and takes back all the money including the correct once’s.
I too wish, if there is any lawsuit too for their TOS.
But I have heard a case when a publisher’s account was reinstated when she made a complaint to the Better Business Bureau.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:24 am
hiiii
it’s very very nice
December 9th, 2008 at 8:07 am
I hear ya man I went to use Google Adsense on my website (skooltoolz.com) and it was just a huge pain, ugh. Now the website’s no longer in development, and I’m working on a Picable Horse Archive (which of course I have to plug, sorry!)
Just do a search for horses, mine are labeled “Horse 00001… Horse 00002″ etc and help me put those descriptions in if you can
December 9th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I smell class action lawsuit. Look at the economic benefit for Google. Stock market takes a dump, they get pressured to save money, they arbitrarily freeze or withhold $100 X 20,000 bloggers and website owners. Google instantly saves millions of dollars in what should have been paid but I doubt they refund the money to the advertiser.
Rstanley – http://robertmstanley.com
December 9th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Class actions are a means of punishing companies for wrongdoing, so they are useful as retaliation. However, it is true that lawyers are the main recipients of the economic benefits of class action suits. The amount distributed to individuals is in most cases negligible, especially when the class is very large and the amount relatively small. (Think class actions against credit card companies for interest infractions; the company pays millions, and the law firms get 30%, but the individuals get checks for amounts like $3.25.) If you have suffered an economic injury in the hundreds to low-thousands of dollars, and what you really want is your money back, it may make more sense for you to sue in small claims court. Google might not send anyone to defend in a small town, where they don’t have representation, and you could then get a default judgment, assuming your action is not “frivolous.” (This isn’t legal advice!
)
December 9th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
The funny thing is that Google is notorious for not providing refunds to their advertisers. I can almost guarantee that the $100 they owed you didn’t make it back into the hands of the advertisers but simply back into the Google checking account.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Too bad, I have made millions using adsense. No problems at all. Of course, I actually provided useful and interesting content, not whinging little stories. I guess with people like you leaving, I have a chance to make even more money…but i don’t need anymore cars!!
December 10th, 2008 at 8:41 am
For a very useful breakdown of alternative advertising revenue, go to
http://www.webupon.com/Marketing/10-Realistic-Alternatives-to-Google-Adsense-for-Webmasters-and-Bloggers.389923
A shameless plug for my own article, I know! Forgive me!
December 10th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I was considering signing up for Adsense, now I won’t bother with them, thanks to your article. It is ironic; however, that Triond and thus Webupon use Adsense for the advertising on this article, an article in which you advocate not using Adsense. I love irony.
December 10th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Adsense is a scam
December 11th, 2008 at 4:40 am
The exact same thing happened to me/ I earned 2$ since the creation of my blog a month ago (lol, i know) and this morning i received an email saying I had some fraudulent activity. I have to say, I burst out in a big laugh when i saw this. First I did not click on my own adds. Second, seriously ??? For 2$
December 12th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
I nearly got into this also. Now after reading your post, I will heed your warnings.Much detail and infomation for me to have learned a lesson through your rocky road. Sorry for you!
December 14th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Wow love this board. Good to know I wasn\’t the only one scamed by google. I thought it was such a great service and was excited to start placing ads and search features on my small design site. And google also disabjed my account when I reached the $60 mark. Sure I mentioned my site to friends. Since we\’re all in the design field. I can control what people click. Anyway as mentionedsome of you. Itwould be simple enough for google to fix or write is problem. If they have the know how to provide google earth. I\’m sure they can pinpoint the users ip. But choose not to. At the very least they should send a warning email or suspend your account. I\’ve lost all respect to goodle and only wish word gets out and their stock prices fall. Let the wallstreet disable google and hit their pockets. Maybe even jayoff all the people in the Adsense department. I\’m going to try to get the network to do a story in it. Anyone else out there with connections to tv reporters let them kno we can\’t get our fee from google do let\’s take theirf shares. Let their stock fall 50-60 bucks. ADSENSE IS NONSENSE is my new model gonna make some tees and sell it. With all the people who got scammed by google. Also post a video about Adsense in YouTube. Very disappointed at google.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:28 am
sorry about typos my itouch is acting up and don’t know why my ‘ looks like slashes. And also hate the auto spell check. Anyway I’m going to email this article to everyone. Adsense is a scam
December 14th, 2008 at 6:08 am
have a great idea. I’m going to create ad ad on my site that looks like a google Adsense ad. Instead the headines will be more like. Google scams. Or don’t trust google. Etc. The links will take the user to this article. Will post the ad in my site for all to copy and paste on their site. Any ideas on headlines.
December 14th, 2008 at 6:27 am
I’m starting a new Adsense called doogle. You advertise my ads for 5 months and than I disable your account. I’ll state in my contract. You have no rights. Sounds like a good idea. If it worked for google it should work for me. Google you’re a risk to my well being. You have been disabled. You can file an appeal at kissmyass.com
December 15th, 2008 at 9:53 am
It\’s obvious here there was click fraud, no one could get that kind of revenue with that content and such a small site. Another anecdotal waste of space.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I have actually received a refund of around a hundred dollars for invalid clicks from google adwords, so they do actually refund the money to the advertisers. Your experience is a definite bummer. My adsense account has about $30 in it. I have violated their terms of service at least once (ok maby twice) – I didnt click on my own ads or anything, but before I new better I sent some traffic to my site via a traffic exchange, and that is not allowed (ratting myself out here). I am hoping they dont kill my account, but I am not that worried. Besides there are other ways to make money by placing ads on your site – similar to adsense but they pay 10X more. Hydra media is popular as well as azoogle leads. I have had people tell me that having their adsense account banned was the best thing that ever happened to them because they switched companies and made more money.
The concept of ppc ads is awesome – you only pay when people click on you ads – Now that is targeted, and better than direct mail. Also love the idea of passive income for webmasters – who wouldnt.
Adsense can work, it is too bad so many people have been burned. I know that would piss me off.
December 17th, 2008 at 2:47 am
While it is a bit of an annoyance to have your AdSense account shut down, I’d say your few hundred bucks of lost revenue hardly classifies it as “biggest money-making scams in internet history”.
Take a look at the racket that the 419 scammers run – that is serious, life destroying sums of money. Not the pocket change you are whining about.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Google will be taken down only if boards like this stay alive! so keep posting everywhere!
December 25th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I hate Google!
December 28th, 2008 at 6:16 am
google is way over priced. Wise wallstreet will know their books are cooked. They will fall like the dotcom. Watch out investors.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:34 am
ya it happens with adsense…. but i know many who have been paid….
January 16th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I’m still waiting for my first cheque. I’ll let you guy know if I get it!
January 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
I have seen your story over and over in other forum…It seems Google using some automated system for this process because I have seen the same words from others who have gotten suspend as well.
I always tell others not to put all your eggs in one basket and Google is not the only Advertising Network…I see you using Yahoo Ads, just showing we have a choice.
Below is a list of Ads Network where you can find Google Adsense alternative..
http://site.realbigbuy.com/blog/affiliate-programs/
January 26th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I had the same experience with Google. I have a blog that covers scams and Google scammed me as well.
Bobba
http://www.scamandfraudblog.com
January 27th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
It took me over 2 years to finally reach $150! By the time I did reach it, I was NOT paid and I was banned. Their reasoning? Click fraud. The one thing that is really crappy about Google is they think they own the world. Which might be partly true because they have their dirty little paws in all kinds of projects and websites but I really dislike companies such as this. The “fame” and “fortune” really gets to their heads and they say things like:
“Please also bear in mind that once we’ve reached a decision on your appeal, further appeals may not be considered, and you may not receive any further communication from us.”
That is bothersome to me. Like WE banned members are not individuals. We are all labeled as “scammers”. Scammers as in we purposely did something wrong. Hey, some people are scammers and they do black hat techniques in order to get more money from AdSense. But not ALL of us are like this. So not ALL of us should be grouped into one big labeled conundrum. For me personally, I never did “fraudulent” clicks nor did I ask anyone else to.
The thing that really bothers me about Google AdSense is that they SAY they do “pertinent and deep investigating”. Meanwhile ANYONE that knows anything about fraudulent clicks could just as easily come on your site and go “okay I’m gonna get this guy in trouble and I’m going to sit here and click 20 ads”. A) You could have someone that dislikes you and does this. Or B) You could have a competitor that can do this. For me, that just isn’t legit. To be able to say they investigated it and have come to the conclusion that its YOUR fault? As stated above, anyone can do anything and YOU will get in trouble not them. Secondly, if you have a website with AdSense on it? You cant control who comes to your website and who does what.
Do I look like a baby sitter? No. Im too busy running my site, answering questions, making updates, etc. So the whole AdSense “thing” is crap all the way. You can appeal your account being deleted but I have NEVER heard of one person actually getting their account back. Its funny because before I got involved in AdSense about 4 years ago someone straight up told me “as soon as you reach the min payout they will delete you” and low and behold, they did. They say the money goes back to advertisers. Do I believe this? No.
I wish I could find a program LIKE AdSense but one that wasn’t so damn retarded with its weird regulations and unfair rules.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:27 am
I had the same experience as you. I did get some checks for a while then I got the dreaded termination notice. I didn’t do anything either and tried to track down where the illegal clicks might be coming from they were talking about. I did notice some funny traffic, but it was not from my doing. They waited until they had to pay me off then took the money and shut me off. I won’t click on a Google ad if my life depended on it now. I have been using other search engines too. To think I supported legislation that aided them and then they treat people like dirt. Never again.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
http://marinasokolova.com/2009/01/my-experience-with-google-adsense.html
January 29th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Same here. I got thrown out without a good reason. They give me the choice of 4. One of them should have done it. But it probably was that single person who clicked more then a couple of times on a link. I even had close to $500, to get paid out. Never saw that. They even said in the mail that responding to them has no use because they don’t answer it.
I even bought the domainname http://www.googlesucks.nl (I’m Dutch) to collect this kinda comments. I have never done this though. For a good price I will sell it to you, if you like.
I recently went to Yahoo (Publisher). Hopefully they treat their customers better …
February 4th, 2009 at 3:06 am
Well i have just started with Adsense so i wouldn’t know it, however the odd thing is my earnings is still 0 after almost a month??? i don’t know but the traffic for my blog is quite oke average about 100 a day..i might stick to it for at least 3-6 months and if nothings happened with my earnings then hasta la vista adsense
February 22nd, 2009 at 2:36 am
I have had only positive results with the Adsense program.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:01 am
We can always keep trying to get our account out of suspension, requesting Google support every now and then. Be persistent. It works.
We also need to find any problems that our sites or articles have and correct them. You can all about it in Google’s Adsense pages.
February 24th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Hello Dialga:
Thank you for taking the time to bring this Google fraud into the spotlight for all to see.
I would only hope that others would do what I should have done BEFORE I placed Google AdSense ads on my web sites…that is, read your informational blog on this subject.
Here’s my Google Adsense experience….I have several websites that I had Google Adsense ads on for the past two months. I have high traffic volume that generated over 2,600 clicks on the Adsense ads in these past two months. Like you, I was very excited with the money I thought I was making off of these ads on my sites…here’s how my scenario went….In January I was owed $289.00 from the clicks…BUT..my payment was being held until I received and then posted to my Adsense account, a pin number that was mailed to me. I was a little disappointed that the money was being held…but was excited when the pin number finally came in the mail yesterday. Wahooo, I couldn’t wait to fire up the laptop and get that pin posted to my account. As of yesterday, February 23rd, I was owed $664.39 . I was so excited that Google had all my information and finally the pin posted. This excitement turned very quickly into deep depression…as it was less than five minutes after I posted the pin number to my account…that I received the same e-mail you received stating that my Adsense account had been suspended for alleged illegal clicks. WHAT..I screamed as I read the e-mail…then as I looked more into this..I was really pissed when I read that Google would NOT be sending me the money they owed me. In review…they never said anything last month that there were any so called illegal clicks…if that was the case..would they have not have suspended my account last month? Those bastards AdSense my ass…NonSense is more like it. But what can we do…it’s Google against us…and Google wins Again! I hope that others get the word that Google Adsense is A FRAUD! My concern now is that Google has all my personal information…S.S.#, address, cell #…everything! What will these scamming bastards do with this info????
March 12th, 2009 at 12:41 am
I have used both google adsense and adwords all in vain.
Infact i have a great website which i used adwords to advertise it locally.
Thanks to my software developer coz i can track who has been visiting my site.I configured my adwords to around 50 miles from where i stay.All my traffic is from south america and europe.
What is google doing running my ads 5000 miles from my location?
Am done-once beaten,twice shy-gotta try yahoo this time.
March 15th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I’d like to say, I feel for Google Adsense crap. I too, just had my account closed due to:
My website is harmful to Adword users.
This after Google found out I went over the $100.00 limit. I have posted a link on my site not to use Google Adsense.
http://www.thesportstodayforum.com/off_topic_zone/6777-dont_use_google_adsense.html
March 15th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Check out what I posted on one of my pages in response to those crooked Google Bastards.
http://patphensley.1stfreehosting.com/index.html
March 17th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Looking to sue Google Adsense? This guy did.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-i-sued-google-and-won_b_172403.html
March 17th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I just took a look at your article there Tre, and I found it quite interesting. Not all courtroom judges are honest, but that one was, and Google got what it deserved. $721.00 is nothing to Google, but if everyone who got their Google accounts canceled, such as myself, were to sue Google for $700+ dollars in class-action, then Google would definitely be “at risk” in terms of giving away millions.
I found it quite stupid that Google sent a Litigation Paralegal, who did not even know why Aaron’s account was disabled, to fight the lawsuit. And I find it quite funny that the only argument Ms. Milani used on behalf of Google was “But it’s not fair!” That’s laughable at best.
Speaking about “fair,” is it fair for Google to cancel your account without reason? Apparently in her mind, it is. But that just goes to show you how stupid Google and its workers are. Both their employees and legal representatives don’t know squat, yet they’re hired by Google and they receive paychecks on a daily basis. For doing what? Sitting in front of a telephone answering AdSense complaint phone calls with the old “There is nothing we can do about it” line?
Honestly, what the hell is wrong with this company. I’m glad I wrote this article and got everyone thinking about how certain people and companies think that they’re “above the law.”
March 18th, 2009 at 12:33 am
The thing about big corporations such as Google, is that they don’t believe that they are liable for their actions. It’s like big Tobacco. They know they put harmful items into their cigarettes. They know it kills. And many people who sue cannot win because of the clause that states on the sides of cigarette boxes that it can cause damage. But it doesn’t state how addictive forming it is, which is why people continue to smoke and die. It’s almost comparable to Google. It’s a big corporation. Millions of people use them on a daily basis, and why? It’s addictive. But what they don’t tell you is that they use the “little” people (i.e.) us for advertising by using their websites, and we are subject to being used however they choose. If one person is able to sue a big corporation, even if it’s for small potatoes, then that says something. It means that big corporations are now susceptible for their action. And why not? Just because they make millions of dollars, off of us, we the users, doesn’t make them any less resposible.
April 5th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Just because they\’ve written a clause that they can cancel at anytime does not make it right. That would be for a judge to decide. As far as class action lawsuits, you can get a lawyer per bono if they feel you have a strong case. I\’ve seen this happen a lot and there were a lot of settlements before going to court, especially for the bigger companies. So for those of you who feel you were scammed, get an attorney on it, they will love it! It would definitely make the headlines. That\’s the only way Google will straighten up it\’s act.
April 12th, 2009 at 2:15 am
i dont now this ad crap but it sounds like you all have the same problem. when you hit a certain amount, it is in Googles interest to keep the funds and cancel you out. You will simply be replaced by the next guy. Sounds like a red flag to me. You should get one good lawyer and all of you should get together, couple thousand should do it. Get the media invloved, force them, show up on Googles lawn, the cant arrest when you are in big numbers, and sue them. Trust me, they will pay just to shut you up and get out of the spot light.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Thanks for telling us your story. It’s good to know. It seems Google is like those big casinos in Vegas. They don’t like you when you win only when lose. If you win they don’t invite you back or give you freebees. It’s called corruption.
April 20th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Wow , I actually read the entire article… all the posts ect.. it makes me kinda depressed when i was thinking of scamming them. But i am sure i would get the Axe just like use. I enjoyed reading how one of you actually sued them, I was hoping when i got to the end that i would read they changed their strategy or that a class action was filed.. or anything stronger. thanks for the blog.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
I make pretty decent money with Adsense…upwards of $90 a day, so I guess I’m lucky that I haven’t gotten into any hot water…….knock on wood.
May 19th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
google did the same thing to me. I was earning $50 a day and they said it was invalid activity. It’s not fair and i am hurt. I was with google since 2005.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I am very glad I decided to do some research before making an actual investment in anything. I would advise all of you to do the same in the future.
Research is key.
Thank you for this topic. I will be sure to spread the word.
June 2nd, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Wow!!! Sorry to hear all those scary stories. I was ready to sign with them, glad I’ve found this blog and save myself hours of hard work.
Now, I wonder is there a way to use Google search but WITHOUT seeing all those ads in the right column of your screen?:)
June 3rd, 2009 at 5:11 pm
200th comment wooooo
June 5th, 2009 at 5:30 am
@ John #199, i use Adblock-Plus, a Firefox Add-on for what you’re trying to do.
As for the rest of the info on folks experience with Adsense, its very informative and brilliant. One or two complaints, and you would think someone has it in for Google. But 75% of the posts on here are from people who have had a negative experience with this, which does ring alarm bells.
As for all the posters who reckon “i make $100 daily with Google Adsense without problems”, I notice a consistent lack of further information on how they got it right, or what not to do in order to maintain a successful Adsense campaign. They wouldn’t have to give out their websites in order to give further advise, but they choose not to. Further adding fuel to the Adsense-Nonsense fire.
I have recently been made redundant from work due to the recession, and i was in the process of creating a sporting and hobby interest community and news website which is divided into country pages with interactive applications, like media player, blogs and forums and etc. I had the idea of running different country specific Adsense adverts in all the different country pages as a source of revenue to maintain the site etc.
But needless to say, all this will take me time to set up and i am completely PETRIFIED at the thought of Google banning my site without reason or for something i had no control over.
Doesn’t Google offer a working partnership with Bona-fide people who are not as technically able (like myself) to progress ventures like mine in ways that don’t breach their terms?
It all sounds like the same story. If you’re small time and only pull in $100 Adsense money in a few months then you WILL get shut down, JUST BEFORE YOU’RE DUE TO GET PAID, and with no particular good reason given that you could try fix in future, EVEN with Googles help. Am i scared?… you bet i am!
It goes without saying that most people on here who got this above treatment will NEVER be going back to try ride this Pony again, because you STILL wouldn’t know why you came off it in the first place!
I realise Google could do more to help their fast deteriorating cooperate PR. But its obvious that their manner of problem resolution is well, a problem in itself.
All the talk about being persistent could get your banned account re-instated doesn’t hold water, because there’s no way of effectively challenging their ban rulings to start with. Which means that their appeals process is but a farce in itself! On what grounds can you appeal if you can’t see the initial evidence against you??
After reading 200 odd posts, it sounds like only about 3 people in over 100 banned had their accounts re-instated. And even THEY weren’t too sure exactly what went right in the appeal process. Because you don’t even know how you got to be banned in the first place! GRRRRRR!
Help me out people!
Is there anyone out here running an Adsense account who can step up and speak up for it with CLEAR and CONCISE pointers as to how and why it works for them? You don’t have to give us your website. No suspect Google bots posts now!
I wouldn’t mind trying venturering into Adsense with my upcoming website. But i also don’t want to ignore what over 75% of folk on here have said about their experience with it!
What say ye??
June 11th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I run a non-profit site for a Fraternal Police Organization in Michigan and had adsense ads on that site. And as most of you, I got up to only around $50 (5 months of ads) when I received the dreaded email that the account was disabled. Specifically, this message…
While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.
Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.
If you have any questions about your account or the actions we’ve taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by visiting https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.
Thanking me for my understanding and cooperation?!?! They just disabled the adsense from a Police Organization for no apparent reason given in their generic email message. When I did reply to this message (though it states not to), I received another bogus unexplainatory message of….
Thanks for contacting Google AdSense. This is an automated reply to let you know that we’ve received your email.
Due to our high email volumes, we’re unable to respond personally to this particular message. For this reason, rather than reply to this message, we kindly ask that you read below for more information about invalid clicks.
- If your account has been disabled for invalid click activity, please visit https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153 for more information, including a link to our online appeal form. If you’ve already submitted an appeal form and are waiting to hear back, we thank you for your patience while we evaluate your account.
- If your account is currently active and you’ve received a notification about invalid clicks or impressions on your ads, please visit https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=62472 for more information.
- For any other AdSense-related issues, we recommend searching for more information at our Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense/support .
- For any issues related to other Google products or services, please visit Google’s Help page at http://www.google.com/support .
We also recommend checking your email inboxes for any messages we may have sent you recently. Sometimes our messages can be caught by email filters, so please be sure to check the Bulk/Spam folders of your email accounts as well.
So again, no explanation of what was wrong with the site. I have used the online appeal form and never received a response back.
Maybe it is time that a Class Action Lawsuit be put into place by everyone who has been screwed by Google!!
June 30th, 2009 at 12:05 am
It happened to me, and several other bloggers I know. In all cases, they suspended us and denied repeal when they were about to pay out.
I hope they get a real big class action lawsuit against them.
I’m one person, and it happened to three of my friends (and me). I’m sure they’re doing this to thousands of people.
July 1st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
I just wanted to say that the “Exact” same thing happened to me today. I finally reached the $100 mark and now on the first of the month I get an email saying the same thing as yours. If anyone would like to try and get an attorney ” I am in.” The first thing that we need to do is get a list of potential plaintaffs.This is an outrage and as someone else stated in their post just do the math $100 x (how many) 200, 300, or is it more like 2,000, or 3,000.
I believe we all know they are not refunding this money back to the origanal merchants who pay their hard earned cash to have their sites advertised. I have used adwords to promote my site and I have never once been given a reimbursment for any improper clicks on my ads. Notice I said have used adwords because that account was closed today.
July 2nd, 2009 at 5:14 am
I was amazed to have the same thing happen. 7/1/09
This was my surprise when I logged on.
Account Disabled
Your AdSense account for this login is currently disabled. We recommend checking your email inboxes for any messages we may have sent you regarding your account status. Sometimes our messages can be caught by email filters, so please be sure to check the Bulk/Spam folders of your email accounts as well.
If your account was disabled for invalid click activity, please visit our Disabled Account FAQ for more information.
July 17th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I couldn’t believe it, my google adsense disabled and they stop payment on the $800 check that I rightfully earned. I have NO idea, why they disabled my account, and stop payment on my check and I have $100 in my account for the month… I’v appealed and got this e-mail:
“Hello,
Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, afterthoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback intoconsideration, we’ve re-confirmed that your account poses a significantrisk to our advertisers. For this reason, we’re unable to reinstate your
account. Thank you for your understanding.”
I’ve followed all the rules that they have set for adsense account publishers, but all the suddent my account was Disabled without anything to help me know what happened.
It’s really Sad, I have lost $800 and $100 in my account that’s $900 that’s crazy. The Sadest part is that I DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG… As I Know!
Thanks!
July 20th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I found a great website that i found after spending a couple days online i finally found a website that actually works all you have to do is signup which is free and then you can start making money right away.
http://cashcrate.com/1442069
August 4th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
“bjones,” “James,” and whoever else says they had/have good experience with AdSense, need to be more specific about your experience — otherwise I think you just Google reps putting up “good” reviews to try to take the sting out of the b.s. actions by Google.
If there are suspicious/bad/repitious clicks then Google should just not credit those clicks, not screw the poster totally. If the geniuses that wrote the Google program cant figure THAT out then maybe no one should be using Google at all !
In my opinion, sounds like enough people have the same problem to have some atorney file a class-action lawsuit against Google for deceptive practices.
August 4th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
\”bjones,\” \”James,\” and whoever else says they had/have good experience with AdSense, need to be more specific about your experience — otherwise I think you just Google reps putting up \”good\” reviews to try to take the sting out of the b.s. actions by Google.
If there are suspicious/bad/repitious clicks then Google should just not credit those clicks, not screw the poster totally. If the geniuses that wrote the Google program cant figure THAT out then maybe no one should be using Google at all !
In my opinion, sounds like enough people have the same problem to have some atorney file a class-action lawsuit against Google for deceptive practices.
August 11th, 2009 at 2:09 am
The same thing happened to me, but atleast I got my check before it happened. The check was for $1,118.94
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:29 pm
I’m afraid that Adsense is actually worse than a scam. Google has begun to put fraudulent charges on peoples credit cards. In phone conversations when you say ‘no I don’t want to go ahead with the scheme’ of getting you to actually BUY advertising the phone goes dead and they fraudulently charge your credit card anyway. DO NOT PAY any requests for $2.95 for further information!!!
September 1st, 2009 at 10:03 am
This exact thing has just happened to my friend. We are in the UK and he got to £56 (the limit in UK is £60) and the same MO, email the lot. They even took down 15 of his web pages that were page 1 google without ANY warning at all!!!!!
I have now joined adsense and placed them on 5 of my blogs with pretty small traffic so lets see if I get to close to £60 and they screw me to. I will report back.
Google are getting way too big for their own boots and I think we should revolt. They are already losing ppc to bing so come on bing, bring it on and create a fair system!!!!
September 29th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
After reading your post. I ran into the same problem with google. Except I lost around $600.00. I spent allot of money to get my website on search engines and I bought over 10,000 hits for web traffic.
My google adsense account was around $400 when I got the same notice. I don’t think this is fare. I did everything by the book. I broke no rules. Google is so big. They can do what they want and get away with it.
How ever. You can create a new adsense account. All you need is a new email address. I am currently on my second account. Wish me Luck $-)
October 14th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
I was going to try Adsense on my site – I was googling mor einformation about it, so i typed into google “adsense”. I was about to press enter, when i saw under the suggested list “Adsense Scams”… You and the other commenters here have saved me a lot of hardship. Peace!
October 17th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Had the same result. I advertised my site through flyers and emails to my customers who need the health products I advocate and one product for which I am a distributor.
When I reached close to 100 dollars, I was shut down.
I am very confused by this because I cannot understand why it would be wrong to promote your website to potential customers.
If my customers in their zeal clicked on the google ads, isn’t that what they would want. I never even knew what was at the other end of the clicks but I was still shut down. It is ludcrous.
I am not bothered by it because I never believed in its legitimacy anyway. I am still continuing on with my websites which bring me great satisfaction whenever I can help someone with my knowlege and experience on the topics in which they seek help. In my opinion, Google Adsense is a joke and not worth the bother just to make a few hundred dollars once in a while. The people who are making a gazillion bucks using Adsense are definitely using designer programs to boost their traffic and their clicks and ironically enough, they are the very ones that Google will never shut down.
October 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 pm
C’mon people. This is the sucker game. As PT Banum said, There’s one born every minute. If you really want spare cash, get a part-time job.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Google is not affiliated nor endorses any of these adsense websites you are referring to. once again, the fine print will get you. You see the word \”google\” and you get that warm fuzzy feeling like the guarantee you see on many products. fact of the matter, I can defecate in a box and put a guaranty on it, but you are still getting a guaranteed piece of sh!t.
when pointing blame, try to make sure the finger is not in your face.
that sucks though. awww well. good info.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
wow. same thing here. I had a few fansites and I did the whole google adsense, never clicked on and it took me about a year to get up to 100 dollars did the confirmation with the phone and everything… and got caught with “invalid clicks” or whatever… which was not true. never recieved anything.
I am reading other scams and things like these… those make money online stuff. ah, waste of time! the only way you are gonna make online is as if you sell things.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
well sorry to be the only one to be impolite but f… google and they steal my money when my account reached 350 they suspended it but i swear i didnt click on any of those ads???? is it fair? i’m gonna go around all the sites out there and click 1000 clicks from my IP and then all of those sites are gonna be suspended too !!!! is this fair for others too google?anyone like a jealouse person could destroy any site that we worked on and gave it all our time is it fair?????????? hope someone of them sees this but they dont care anyways what respectable company allows scammers to use their name to steal people and they advertise for those people like WTF are u for real? u really worth shitttt
November 19th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Wow, guess it hasn’t only happened to me. unbelievable
November 25th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I just received an email from them this morning, I feel so pissed and enraged, more then 2 months of hard work is gone, shame on them I didn’t do anything, site that my ad sense was on was a very active forum.
Google scammed me and they will pay for it, I can’t wait for the day they are one of those companies asking for bailout I hope it happens in my lifespan so I can laugh like I never did before.
November 30th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
This happened to me too just recently and it is frustrating….
December 6th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Hmmm, very interesting. I had adsense on several of my websites. After a few months, my account was just a little over $100US. I thought wow, It is not a lot of money but could be a nice dinner night out. Then, the email came. My account was being shut down, blab, blab, the same letter as everyone else has been getting.
Although it doesn’t change anything or make me feel better, it is good to know what was happening. I had blown the incident off, just figured one of those things.
Oh, as a test. I found a couple websites which had very little real content but lots of google adsense ads. They were just b.s. sites for people to land on via search engine and hopefully click on the ads, either on purpose or accident. So once a day I went and clicked on all the ads on each page. Now, my ip is rotated every eight hours from my ip provider to keep people from running a home server, so I was never clicking with the same ip. Interesting enough, however, it only took those twenty days until they must have hit $100 pay out as all the adsense ads disappeared off those two web sites. I checked back for a few weeks and saw they never returned.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I ordered the “kit” to get started with Google AdSense, and read over all the material carefully. I “smelled a rat” because of their own implied caveats, and returned the stuff and got my account canceled before my “free” period expired. Glad that I did!!!!!!! Big business, as so many have already noted, is all about profit. Shame, shame, shame on Google!!
December 9th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
I think google adsense is the biggest scam on a world wide scale!
I started a small web site, which I continue to work on. I signed on for google adsense and worked with them until this morning when they disabled my account because of invalid clicks. I haven’t clicked on my own ads, and I haven’t told anyone about ads on my site. My account got cancelled when it reached 102.00 USD and it was time for Google to pay. I see a pattern here on many cases where google closes accounts when it’s time to pay. I don’t care about the money generated on my site, however, the lack of responsibility is what really bothered me. I felt like an idiot hosting ads for Google for three months. There is no valid reason why they shut down my account, they did have a valid EXCUSE however not to pay. Is there a class action law suit going on that might need another account added? Also, has anyone tried contacting the advertisers “companies” directly about how your site got scammed by google while showing their ads?
Thank you.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I totally agree with the fact that “Google Adsense is nothing but a big Scam”
I can quote many such examples as my friend has quoted.
Exactly the same story with everybody. Why does Google has to wait till one’s account becomes 100$ and then send a regret letter saying that suspicious activity was observed. If any such activity was there, Google could have sent a letter immediately, why it has to wait till 100$ worth, may be it collects thousands of dollars by that time from the Advertisers.
I used to be a great fan of Google, but now I simply Hate Google for following such practices.
December 11th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Everything on the internet is a scam in one way or another. These big companies are scams and people buy into it, to fix the problem dont get involved….
December 11th, 2009 at 6:37 am
OMG This is so true!!!
I have a webquest site that i run webquests on for schools to you as a resource for the teachers in lessons. It has taken me a few months to build up and i hit the £60.00 threshold the other day! and can you believe it, within an hour of hitting this i got an email from google stating that my account had been suspended as it posed a threat to their advertisers!!! what the hell is that all about?
The company are just a bunch of con artists, is it that you cant run ads and search boxes on proxy servers as schools obviously do, I have never clicked on my own ads and always have read terms and conditions of anything i sign up to throughly. The only thing i didnt get round to doing was to post a privacy policy on my site which i will do now, but i cant think that as it. Do google really look into sites as they say they do, cos if they did they would see that my site is opened by schools all over the place and kids will click the search boxes and occasionally the ads, That i cant stop. I have appealed but i dont know why as google being the big pigs they are have the monopoly and you cant beat them. We need another company to be up there competing.
I feel very down trodden and it just isnt right that they can withdraw as fast as you reach that threshold. Free advertising on my site for months for nothing. Well as far as im concerned they can shove their company where the sun dont shine, Its not worth the paper its written on. I will try ad-brite or another one, THEIR LOSS
December 15th, 2009 at 5:28 am
Hummm there are ways to protect your self, or at least be prepared for when they decide to pull that stunt.. There are small java script programs that only allow one click per ip address… What it would do is activate the adsence ad based on a non used ip address…
I know many have seen voting sites where they only allow one vote per ip address… it’s the same princable and could easly be adapted to googles adsence…
At least this way in court you could prove that no single ip address could be clicked more than once.. And make no mistake if i were to do this after what you people have said you can bet i would defintily put that code in my site, and sue them when i get the email. This is crap but untill someone burns them it will continue.
December 16th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
It is happening to me also. Google Adsense never made the phone verification call to complete the payment process, by it did let me publish Google Adsense ads on my site.
I put too much work into it this to let it go.
Has a class-action suit been filed in this regard?
December 16th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Hello, I sorry to read all your frustration about Google and their tactics. Do you think they just don’t want to pay or what?
December 30th, 2009 at 6:18 am
Same thing happened to me today, reached $60 and account disabled. Even though I filled out the appeal form to have it reactivated I will cancel the account if it is. I’m now looking for a new provider for ads on my site. I’ll be also making a website dedicated to the great “Google Adsense Scam”.
January 1st, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Hi all, i was previously a scam victim when i was overseas. After that \”expensive\” incident, i came to realize a golden rule in ensuring my own safety: GOOGLE SEARCH it! & remember to add a text \”scam\” behind it.
For example, this so called Google Adsense, GOOGLE search for \”Google Adsense SCAM\”. Well, this is 100% guaranteed that you will find out the truth
In short, the truth is out there, just GOOGLE search, YAHOO search it, etc.
My 50-cents.
Merv.
January 1st, 2010 at 4:18 pm
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January 11th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
Thanx! I will now be removing my Adsese. I have adds all over my website and it almoast looks like graffitti everywhere. I finally find out I’m doing that for nothing! Not woth it.
January 16th, 2010 at 4:34 am
This is how it works: Google charges businesses and share the money with Google AD scam companies. Yes, your Google AD won’t make money because that is the reality, but scam companies make lots of money by cheating. Does Google like it? Why not, because it helps to show how it “works” to the businesses. Of course Google will pretend to try to defeat the scam but the real working scam never show up, and there are tons of them.
It is a big scam and a big joke. Come on, this 2010, the bigger the scam, the better. Heard Madoff before? Who get hurt then? Businesses and other AD companies … but who cares.
January 22nd, 2010 at 11:15 pm
I had 6.15 when I got the email. I appealed but they did not reinstate. No problem. I now do not click any of their advertisements. I simply type in the URL of the sites I want to visit instead of clicking on any google’s advertisements.
January 24th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Same problem. Six months free advertising for Google. Money in the account almost ready to retrieve and BAM! Out of the blue comes the same notification from Google AdSense as the rest of you received.
If Google AdSense is a scam, then it’s because Google gains free advertising and because Google charges something like $50 per click to the AdWords client while forking out 3 cents to the AdSense advertising webmaster. Also, as others have pointed out, we can not be sure whether Google returns the payments already made by their AdWord clients after the AdSense account is disabled.
I think in the future I will start advertising some other kind of search engine on my site.
January 30th, 2010 at 1:37 am
I am so so so glad you put this site up, it happen to me as well. I reached $100.00 and google cancel my account. They are crooks it just makes me upset that they can get away with this. Wow!
February 12th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Same thing here, was making some decent money on my site, then got kicked off of adsense. I hadn’t updated my site in a while, so It was 2 months before I discovered my adsense was removed because some joker obviously did a bunch of clicks to get me kicked off (and I was naive that google would boot you when it’s not your IP). I was so mad at google for their tactics and taking back all my earnings, that I thought, screw them, I’m not going to deal with them anymore. I’m hoping to make some money on youtube, but now *dread* it’s adsense –and only adsense– you have to deal with in becoming a youtube partner, so that’s really bad news and I wonder if they’ll even accept me after booting me in the past. Can you say, monopoly?
February 15th, 2010 at 8:31 am
From here >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdSense
———————————————-
Because the JavaScript is sent to the Web browser when the page is requested, it is possible for other website owners to copy the JavaScript code into their own webpages. To protect against this type of fraud, AdSense customers can specify the pages on which advertisements should be shown. AdSense then ignores clicks from pages other than those specified.
To help prevent click fraud, AdSense publishers can choose from a number of click-tracking programs.[citation needed] These programs display detailed information about the visitors who click on the AdSense advertisements. Publishers can use this to determine whether or not they have been a victim of click fraud. There are a number of commercial tracking scripts available for purchase.
———————————————-
Even though I found the above information helpful in protecting webpage publishers.
I have decided NOT to use AdSense or any Google ads on my page, due to reading your 1Year + old post, plus the many informative posts after it (from User comments)
Thanks for the info, I also believe this is the biggest scam on the Internet.
Thumbs down google.
February 21st, 2010 at 6:28 am
Man, you are bitching about it… you made money off it. too bad it ended so soon for you… I’m not in the program and i understand how you would be frustrated… but you know man, so long as you didnt lose money in the process i’d come out of it with a neutral position…
February 24th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
i think you all are full of shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i have personally made millions off of adsense, you people just dont know how to setup a beautiful website that actually gets visitors, not some stupid lame blogg, nobody wants to hear about your lame ass stories about how google ripped you off, your websites suck balls and i would be willing to bet that you probably suck balls too.
February 26th, 2010 at 6:51 am
It should be noted that yesterday i had 3 clicks on my adsense account totalling a total of 4p. Now I have also an adwords account and at no time have i ever been charged anything less than 20p a click… therefore for the 3 clicks that earnt me 4p has ernt google at least 56p. This is ashame.
February 26th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Hi,
Indeed Google is a greatest scam of all. If you put their ads on your site, you get like 1% of what they charge to the person whose ad was clicked.
I have both purchased Google ads and used their AdSense program. Spend about $20 bucks in three days with very few visitors; been showing their ads for three years now and it seems like it’ll never come to $100. The quantity is about $94 now. Just few hours ago got a click and they added $0.01 for it. Compare what they charge you with what you get and you’ll see that 99% of the money the advertiser pays goes to Google, while 1% goes to the one who shows the ads.
Google is just scamming and robing people, with their AdSense account and promoting piracy on their Search pages – several products that I have developed have been pirated and all appear on Google on top of the first page (this does not happen on MSN or other search pages).
Bottom line is, if you do not want to waste your money, avoid AdSense like plague, be it for advertising or for showing their ads.
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March 17th, 2010 at 1:34 am
Wow. The same thing happened to me. I’m currently waiting for an appeal reply. I will probably never hear from Google AdSense again. There seems to be a pattern … once you reach a pay out amount, AdSense disables your account. What a scam.
Time to find some real advertisers and dump Google.
I have stopped using Google as of today. And I will do everything in my power to avoid searches powered by Google.
Take note, Google, word of mouth is stronger than you.
Hello, Yahoo!
March 17th, 2010 at 1:34 am
Wow. The same thing happened to me. I\’m currently waiting for an appeal reply. I will probably never hear from Google AdSense again. There seems to be a pattern … once you reach a pay out amount, AdSense disables your account. What a scam.
Time to find some real advertisers and dump Google.
I have stopped using Google as of today. And I will do everything in my power to avoid searches powered by Google.
Take note, Google, word of mouth is stronger than you.
Hello, Yahoo!
March 20th, 2010 at 10:28 pm
Yes, exactly the same thing here… Published AdSense ads on our web site for close to a year before finally getting our first cheque for just over $100 in the mail. Then a few days after receiving the cheque, the email stating that our account had been disabled for posing a significant risk to their AdWords advertisers came. We appealed their decision and our appeal was rejected.
I used to have respect for Google until this happened. Looking forward for the class action lawsuit that will straighten them up.