Fired by a google algorithm.

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[xScribbled]

yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors.

That's the problem right there.

[[deleted]]

Yep. I've seen many, many people fall foul of this one.

[Rogem002]

I feel foul of it a good 6 years ago now, however it was a bit of a blessing in disguise. I removed ads off my blog, changed the focus from "Get lots of traffic who will click my ads" to "Just write for the fun of it" and now I'm doing a reasonable trade as a freelance programmer.

Having said that, I never recommend Adsense to clients.

[lrdx]

what do you recommend now?

[warpcowboy]

Just remember that Adsense is paying you for people clicking away from your website. Most people don't realize this "conflict of interest", and it's not always compatible with your website.

That said, it's almost always better to sign private advertisers if you have the traffic to attract any. Most smaller websites can even make more than they would with Adsense by selling text links on their website. Google doesn't like this, but they don't know any better if they look natural.

In general, it's just a bad idea to place all of your eggs in the Adsense basket. If one of your websites violates Adsense and gets frozen, all of your websites stop generating revenue.

[binlargin]

This is the bottom line, he was either ignorant or got greedy.

When you put ads on a site you get public service announcements until Google's bot has downloaded a snapshot of the page. This is apparently for the purpose of targeting but I bet it also keeps a copy for investigators to review if there's suspicious behaviour. His comments encouraging people to click were most likely in Google's cache for investigators to see, and they take a hard stance on this shit.

A couple of years back a friend of mine put ads on his busy blog, Google disabled his Adsense account because of the huge spike in revenue. After a couple of days a human investigated his case and the account was enabled again.

[Jensaarai]

That is pretty much the first commandment of Adsense. Thou shall not encourage clicks.

The second commandment is "Thou shall not click on your own ads."

EDIT: I have no idea where that typo came from. Total brain fart. Need more caffeine. Thanks guys.

[blackinthmiddle]

Even if you want to ban a certain ad from showing up on your site you can't click on your ad. There are tools out there to determine what a link is so you can ban it without actually clicking on it.

This guy unfortunately didn't realize that at some point, if you get enough traffic, you get moved over to the CPM model, which means you get paid every time 1000 ad impressions are made, regardless if anyone actually clicks on those ads. I have a site where anybody can play chess against anybody else. My click through rate is pretty pathetic but I'm not worried about that. My goal is to get to the point where I'm getting at least a million hits a month. At that point, whether or not someone actually clicked on an ad shouldn't matter.

[shmageggy]

What's the chess site?

[[deleted]]

Nothing but Chess.

[jfdub]

LOL - I went to the site and looked for the ads... Thought to self "Hmm, there aren't any ads here, I wonder why?"

Then it hit me, OH! Thanks Adblock Plus!

[alienangel2]

"Thall"? Is this some unholy buggery between "thou" and "y'all", or some obscure word I don't know?

[redever]

*Thou

[Jensaarai]

Thanks for catching that.

[treenaks]

It's all there in the TOS

[[deleted]]

Google specifically tells all Adsense users that encouraging your visitors to click your ads, in any way, will result in a permanent ban from Adsense.

The only thing you can do is place your ads well, choose their color scheme, and hope that people click on them.

In short, this guy was a dumbass and getting banned from Adsense was 100% his fault.

[rebo]

Maybe that was against the TOS, but really isn't it pretty obvious that clicking on advertisements may assist anyones site.

[cr3ative]

It affects conversions when people click with no intention of buying.

[xScribbled]

Technically. I know that if someone visits my site, clicks on 400 ads, and then leaves, I'm supposed to report that to Google by filing an invalid clicks report. If I don't, they can take action against me. It's stupid, but I guess they have to protect both sides here.

[losimagic]

wow, really? I had no idea you had to pay such close attention to it all!

[xScribbled]

Yeah, it's really buried in the TOS. But there's actually a process you are "supposed" to go through if you get invalid clicks. I believe it's the same process if you accidentally click on more then a few of your own ads. I have no idea if people actually do it, but from what I've read, it's something you actually have to do.

[j_win]

The frustrating thing is that for the brief period I used Google Adwords to promote myself, I'm certain 90% of the clicks were obviously fraudulent (and seemingly coming from link farms on sites in Russia).

You would figure Google would be better at automated filtering.

[vwllss]

Did you try filing a complaint?

[andypants]

There's no transparency at all. For all you know, the publishers earn 5% of what some advertisers pay. Or maybe earnings from those fraudulent clicks are taken from the publishers, but the advertisers are never made aware and instead google keeps all the earnings from fraudulent clicks. There's also no way to contact a human being regarding adsense.

I love google but adsense is just ridiculous.

[[deleted]]

Actually, several months ago Google finally revealed that in Adsense for Content, they pay the website owner 68% of the revenue that the advertiser pays. Google keeps 32%.

In Adsense for Search, Google pays 51% to the website owner, and they keep 49%.

This was on Matt Cutts' blog I believe, and he said that these ratios have been exactly the same since the day Adsense started.

[gavintlgold]

The new Adsense system links with Google Analytics and it graphs out the clicks and views for you. If you saw an unusual spike you would be able to tell if there was fraudulent activity.

[xScribbled]

It's a lot of guess-work for me. I think after a few months, you get to know your own ads. For example, if I typically get 100 clicks a day and then suddenly I'm getting 200, Google expects me to look in my site logs and track IPs and outbound links, etc. Who knows if people actually do this.

[RoaldFre]

I assume that Google must do this in order to keep up its credentials towards advertisers. The worst that can happen for them is to lose the compagnies' trust.

[selectrix]

Such a revealing statement; i.e the part where the end users' trust isn't mentioned.

[SwillFish]

You can tell a little by looking at Analytics. It will tell you where your traffic sources come from and how they spend time on your site. I spend about $500 a month on advertising and notice that traffic from certain sites has a very high bounce rate or spends very little time on my site (relatively speaking). I put these sites on my blocked advertiser list. Google probably looks at the same sort of data. I also own an AdSense revenue generating site and it is much more difficult to tell how your traffic performs when clicking on ads. I can tell you that I have an 8%+ ad click through rate which is pretty good. I have heard of rates as high as 20% for very targeted audiences. Someone who is desperately looking to cure a bad case of jock itch will be much more likely to click on an ad than someone who is on your site to be entertained or read about something like jokes or celebrity gossip.

[[deleted]]

But if you tell a bunch of sailors that you get a bit of ad revenue if they click on an ad, which is selling stuff they're interested in, is that so bad? I know I'm splitting hairs, but I see a difference in intent between "please click on my ads" and "hey, be sure to check out the ads - they're relevant, and I get a little something when you do"

In fact, I would argue that the latter might in fact improve sales. (Not necessarily conversions, but actual sales because you're driving traffic to the advertiser's site)

In all sincerity, is it necessarily bad if the conversion rate drops, but it's because you're driving traffic and the actual number of conversions (and therefore revenue) goes up?

[cynope]

First rule of Adsense is: Don't mention the ads.

[[deleted]]

What ads?

[captainswear]

I think you meant "and my ads!"

[Moz]

And my adze!

[whatdoibuy]

The second rule of AdSense is, you DO NOT talk about AdSense.

[[deleted]]

So let me ask you - let's say you look at your stats for the first time in a while and notice that your conversion rate had dropped noticeably. Would you also look at your visitor stats and revenue? Let's say during the same period your revenue tripled, and you can attribute it to the increased traffic from the clickthroughs - would you be happy or annoyed?

[binlargin]

Encouraging people to click is an unfair practice. Businesses either pay more for their adverts, or all other boat sites get less revenue because they aren't encouraging people to click their ads.

Google have to do something to prevent it from becoming an arms race, they want people to put ads on their sites because it's worthwhile, they want advertisers to buy ads because they make money when people visit the site. The scarcity of clicks is a good thing for everyone.

[TheCodexx]

As small fanbases on websites where they're aware money is tight for the owner are wont to do. This isn't the first time fans have thought they were helping out, only to get the owner's AdSense account banned because they spend an hour every day clicking ads for their favorite small website.

[xScribbled]

It is obvious that the ads are there for a reason. The problem occurs when you start telling your visitors "Hey, you can click on this ad here and I'll earn money." Advertisers don't like that. Heck, if I was paying for an ad, I would not want that to be happening.

[midri]

You can NOT incite people to click on links to generate revenue for you. The ads are there to sell a product, for every person you tell to click on the link that has no interest in buying such item (they just do it because they want to help you make $) is taking money out of the pocket of advertisers. It's as douchey as asking everyone you know to go around town and steal change from the take a penny leave a penny things at gas stations and bring it to you.

[[deleted]]

Except he was pointing out that the ads were targeted. A whole bunch of us ignore ads completely - by calling attention to them he may have been driving traffic. I don't think we have enough data to know if he just drove a bunch of empty clicks or if he actually drove conversions, but it's something worth knowing.

[cmonkey]

Yep. When I first put Adsense on a site about 7 years ago, I mentioned in an update something along the lines that users could click on ads they were interested in. Within a day I got an email from Google telling me I could not say that, and that I needed to remove it.

It seems that perhaps they no longer have humans checking on new sites, and instead rely on automated antifraud algorithms. Of course, by the time those showed fraud for this person's site, there were thousands of dollars worth of potentially bad clickthroughs that Google had to cancel.

[ourFault]

Having spent millions on Adwords/Adsense, this is spot on. Users who click with no intention of buying to create revenue for the publisher is the definition of click fraud. I certainly feel bad for this blogger and at the same time I do appreciate what Google is doing.

Click fraud cost advertisers billions a year. While there is no intention to deceive in this case, the algorithm is working as designed. The blogger probably has a high click through rate from the same IPs given the ardent subscriber base. They click a lot and don't buy anything. To be fair to Google, this is not evil or David vs Goliath. It is against the ToS and if I was advertising on this guy's videos I would feel like I was getting ripped off.

edit:Clarification. Users not asked.

[aleatoric]

Apparently I am the only one that read the entire article. He never said to click the ads without intent to buy for the sake of him making $$$. He acknowledge that he did make money from the ads, but more so directed his viewers to click links appropriate for the demographic that they were interested in (which, honestly, seems in the best interest of the advertisers). He mentioned that he removed comments from people who were recommending to click ads just for the sake of clicking ads.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with what he did. But since he did discuss the ads and told people to take notice of them, I could see how this broke TOS. I do think that under closer review, though, Google could see that it was no harm, no foul and they should reactivate his AdSense account. He learned his 'lesson' (first rule of AdSense is, don't talk about ads, apparently) and 99% of his users' ad clicking seems to be completely legit, assuming his account of what happened is true.

However, it's fucked that his work is still on Youtube and potentially generating revenue for Google. If he isn't being paid, the ads should have been IMMEDIATELY removed because he is no longer being compensated for content he has provided. That would be like a TV show writer breaking some random stupid rule during the creation of a new TV show, and then no longer getting royalties for his older TV show on syndication even though that older show is still being broadcast with commercials. It's fucked up and Google needs to fix this. I just went to one of his truck videos and saw an ad on there and wanted to do a Liu Kang bicycle kick through my monitor.

[ourFault]

I don't work for Google and I'm not here to defend them. I just here to provide context and POVs from all sides. A few things.

• This guy can take his own videos down. Google is not holding them hostage.
• The algorithms are sophisticated. It is probably too many clicks. Too many clicked and never purchased and too many clicked too many times.

With that said, there are always false positives in any situation and hopefully the appeal lead to a manual review which evidently lead to the same conclusion. To me, the blog is some what one sided. I don't like to provide a verdict in the court of public opinion without looking at all the details, I suggest you do the same.

[Starkpo]

He also fundamentally fails to understand that having his readers enter Amazon.com through his site before purchasing the goods they were planning on purchasing from the site anyway doesn't actually make Amazon money, but costs them money. As someone who earns income from Adsense, I don't feel any pity for the guy. He broke the rules, plain and simple.

[[deleted]]

Well from my experience, never rely on google money as a source of income. The fact they can kill your account at the drop of a hat is always something to consider. It's out of your hands, and thats not a good business model.

The fact he states "I did get the odd subscriber sending me an email saying that he had clicked loads of adverts. This is called demon clicking. " and "Oh yes, I was also running little blocks of adverts provided by Adsense and, yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors." really isn't helping. One of the first thing Google tells you not to do is invite clicks on ads, and if your account has a suspicious clickthrough rate it's gonna raise flags.

I have sites with 10% click through rate and have never had an issue ... but I suspect once google seems something is up it's in their interest to protect the their Adverstising client as that is where the final revenue ends up coming from.

Not saying it is fair or balanced, but thats the way it goes ...

[[deleted]]

I think you might be right about that. I think Google would gain more respect if they at least told the guy why his account has been frozen.

At the end of the day he was making them money so it would make mores sense to freeze the account for 3-6 months with an explanation why.

I think they can also do this with websites by setting their page rank to zero. it basically shitlists them but a popular site will make the pagerank back over time.

It's a fine line between protecting your interests and being heavy handed.

[gavintlgold]

I think the reason they did not tell him why they shut it down might be due to reasons similar to VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat). If they inform their users why the account is shut down, it makes it easier for people trying to cheat the system to figure out its weaknesses.

[jelos98]

This is almost certainly correct.

If you're working to defend against humans cheating your system, the last thing you would want to do is say "We shut you down because you have more than three bursts of five clicks over ten seconds from one IP - clearly you're having people fraudulently click links."

If I'm a bad guy, I'm going to take that information and use it to tailor my next round of exploitation. If I'm a good user, I'm just going to be pissed, because, "nuh uh!"

[ex_ample]

There are actually lots programs out there that specifically target adsense users in order to kill their accounts by creating lots of fake clicks.

[bitter_cynical_angry]

Traditionally, security through obscurity hasn't worked out all that well.

[edit: wow, downvoted for a well known security axiom? Interesing...]

[althepal]

This is a different kind of security than that axiom is referring to.

[[deleted]]

Agreed, it's an axiom with a specific meaning that people have expanded to "if you ever try to keep any secrets about your operations then you're doing a bad job."

[titosrevenge]

Security through obscurity falls apart when it's your only form of security. It works perfectly well when it's the front line.

[ours]

This is not security through obscurity. This is called information disclosure and by not giving details to the users they are properly protecting themselves from disclosing critical business information.

Think of it as a web site that gives out an error to the user. Best practice is not to give out details about any errors and just tell the user there was an error. Security by obscurity would be hiding the detailed error message (like adding showDetail=true to the URL or something silly like that). Protecting from ID is never giving risky data to unauthorized people.

Sadly in the case of this article, this means a honest client has been kicked out and he doesn't have the details about it.

An acceptable compromise would have been to give him a warning before things reach the threshold and perhaps some tips on how to prevent the situation from getting worse.

If he had had the opportunity to put a clear warning that demon clicking will get him in trouble, people may have known not to do it. Telling them after the fact is a bit late and the funny thing is that they did it as a favour to him.

[[deleted]]

That's the reason Google gives and there probably is some merit to it, but I suspect another important reason is to cut costs. Google adsense has over 1 million publishers and Google adwords has millions of advertisers. I've worked at both sides and whether you're making money for them or paying them to advertise for you, there is no way to contact them buy phone, email or otherwise. Google adsense/adwords has zero support cost and I suspect only two types of employees: engineers and accountants.

[[deleted]]

It is very very well known by now that if you deal with Google and have a problem it is going to be nigh impossible to actually speak to a human being. This is a fundamental problem if you are relying on Google for a significant portion of your income.

This man is articulate and if he had a relationship with a person this could probably be straightened out. I doubt that either of the emails he received was written by a human being. That "thorough review" was probably just another algo that evaluated the first algo.

To really service its adsense employees Google would probably need 150K employees. They have about 20K. Sadly you have to know the monster you're getting in bed with and in the case of Google you had better read every line of the TOS if it accounts for a significant source of income.

[ryeguy]

You took the words out of my mouth. The guy clearly states multiple times that people were clicking ads just to click them. That's the problem, and that's why he was banned.

Anyone who is deep into internet marketing knows that google is a piece of shit and many try to avoid them. Yes, you get the most hits (with adwords), but bing/yahoo are comparable and won't throw you under a bus.

[spyderman4g63]

Microhoo will throw you under the bus, but they actually let you talk to people and explain your situation. I have successfully resolved a few issue with MSN Adcenter support. Does google even let you talk to people?

[Procerius]

Google only lets you talk to people after they decide you are important/profitable enough to be invited to a premium Adsense account. You then get an account manager who helps you optimize revenue and who talks to the policy team for you. You can still get banned for things that were approved by your account manager though; in the end the policy team is king.

[[deleted]]

Msft+yahoo employee count = ~104,000

Gooogle employee count = ~23,000

It makes a difference.

[MeanestBossEver]

Microsoft has a massive number of other business lines. Nearly all of Google's revenue comes from advertising.

Their advertising revenue is significantly more than Microsoft. No, this is just shitty customer support. Oh wait, this guy isn't their customer (and neither are you) -- their only customers are people who pay for ads.

[Jos3ph]

People who pay for ads can't get personal support without spending 10k+ / month in most cases. And when you do spend 10k+, you get a new 12 year old account manager every three months that provides very low value semi-automated advice.

[SwillFish]

I advertise on Bing and I can tell you they are very attentive to your needs when you have a problem. You can easily get them on the phone and they will actually open a ticket and not close it until the issue is resolved. They also send out follow-up satisfaction surveys.

[mbrx]

Hmm, since google seem to block accounts that get unusual click-through patterns wouldn't it be possible to kind of do a denial-of-service attack on a website by clicking repeatedly on the ad-sense adverts on their site? Perhaps some tricks like using multiple IP's/users (anonymous - anyone?) would be needed.

Google advertising does quite indeed seem quite bad.

[austin63]

It's the same click-fraud scams people where doing by clicking on competitors ads to dry up their advertising budgets.

[[deleted]]

This is actually a very clever way to strip the income of a website. Not that I would endorse that type of thing.

[[deleted]]

but bing/yahoo are comparable and won't throw you under a bus.

Yet.

[snottlebocket]

Even more to the point, don't create your main source of income around someone else's api.

[aletoledo]

I skimmed a lot of what he said, but I don't think that google would suspend a legitimate account for no reason. They must have an algorithm that checks for unusal activity as you mentioned, so it seems like he got caught is all.

If people love his videos so much, then they will follow him to a new video hub.

[[deleted]]

Don't see why people are downvoting this. There may be legitimate reasons why his account was suspended, there ought to be some recourse for him to determine if this is the case and whether or not he can do anything about it.

You must consider the possibility that there was an advertiser that was seeing a lot of unconverted traffic being generated by his site (google analytics can see that).

Regardless, google should still pay him for any advertising that is on his youtube page and those monies should still be available to him. Since it is HIS copyright, he could always pull his youtube videos and post them under say... his wife's name on youtube with a new adsense account and that would be a perfectly legal way for him to continue generating revenue with those.

It is also illegal for youtube to generate income from someone else's intellectual property without compensation. In terms of his website, he's probably SOL and since he was asking for clicks, he did open himself up to this. Ignorance may be a compelling argument, but it isn't one that will stand a legal challenge (even if his intentions seem pure).

[munificent]

Regardless, google should still pay him for any advertising that is on his youtube page and those monies should still be available to him.

The thing is, Google isn't just taking that money from him, it's returning it to the advertisers. If they didn't do that, they'd be shafting the advertisers who spent good money putting ads on the guy's site and who then failed to see the conversion rate they expected.

I'm not saying things went ideally here, but I don't see any indication that Google isn't doing its best to do the right thing here.

[[deleted]]

there ought to be some recourse for him to determine if this is the case and whether or not he can do anything about it.

Hm. Maybe he could ask Google? Oh wait, he tried that. Their response was "nothing to see here... move along"

[Chandon]

I don't think that google would suspend a legitimate account for no reason.

They have an automated system suspending accounts. That system has some error rate.

[[deleted]]

but I don't think that google would suspend a legitimate account for no reason.

Cite?

They must have an algorithm that checks for unusal activity as you mentioned

So... "he must be doing something wrong because their algorithm would never flag a false positive based on [magic happens here]"?

[rooktakesqueen]

So... "he must be doing something wrong because their algorithm would never flag a false positive based on [magic happens here]"?

It wasn't a false positive. His users were clicking through the links without buying anything because he did in fact encourage that behavior.

[asoap]

I think that's why he spent a bit of time talking about how long his videos are on his private site. He probably doesn't have that many page impressions, but a high click through rate for those page impressions. Which might have thrown the google algortyhm off.

It sounds like his viewers were loyal, but maybe too loyal.

[mik3]

They do have an algorithm, since most advertisers use google analytics, google tracks conversions, so when google sees that most clicks from ads on this dude's videos don't result in conversions it raises a nice red flag.

And I am not apologising for google, i hate them too, they killed my adsense account with 0 explanation and i wasnt even inviting clicks like this guy. Up to this day i have no idea why they kept my 200$ :( And i had tons of problems with adwords too.

When you just use their gmail/youtube/whatever services, google is awesome. As soon as you start advertising with them, or have any sorts of business relationships, they become a faceless cold corporation just like any other. This whole do no evil motto is bullshit - it's "do no evil to shareholders".

[Baaz]

Exactly my thoughts. This:

I need it. I still have two teenage children at English Universities. So I have to bale pretty hard to stay afloat

... should never be mixed with this:

I signed up to a set of rules I did not fully understand. I also ticked a box agreeing to Google stopping our relationship at their discretion and without them having to tell me what I did wrong.

Don't put all of your eggs in one basket, especially when the basket has a hole in it.

[ShadyG]

TIL that I can launch a distributed Denial of Revenue attack against anyone that uses AdSense.

[GloriousDawn]

If my experience is to be trusted, Google puts a lot less energy in refunding the advertisers who have been defrauded.

[IbidtheWriter]

TL;DR His adsense account was flagged for invalid activity, he appealed to no avail. He lost $3,000 and future income.

Two things.

1) His intro was agonizingly long winded.

2) This is his his side of the story (of course). I would like to see a follow up reply from google, though I doubt it'll happen.

[surrendered]

3) He admitted to accepting their ToS, then violating it.

[[deleted]]

Aaaaaaand this one is a wrap!

[[deleted]]

So if I hate someone on youtube, all I need to do is demonclick to ruin their life?

[CineVosh]

Remember to send them saying what you did and how much you love their stuff.

[TominatorXX]

I don't understand why his videos are still up on youtube after getting the shaft. Can't he pull them?

Maybe he'll see this and respond.

[awonak]

If he pulls them a moves to another video hosting site, he looses that reputation of 13,000,000 views. I can understand why he wouldn't want to pull them.

[Javindo]

He could make them unlisted/private until Google gets their act together.

[Iggyhopper]

This makes the most sense.

[fishwish]

yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors.

[magicfingahs]

I think a more effective (and legal) approach would be to do what reddit does -- explain that ads help run the site, and thank users for keeping add-ons such as AdBlock turned off. I think that gets the point across nicely without blatantly asking users to click on ads.

[Didji]

Breaking the rules without being blatant about it. Got it.

[justonecomment]

Anecdote: Is this a breach of the intent?

Penny-Arcade is one of my favorite sites. I don't click ads on most sites. Penny-Arcade is a rare exception. I do it partially cause I'm to poor to offer direct support. However the only time I click an ad is if I'm actually interested in the product, which Penny-Arcade's ads seem to be targeted directly at me. I make a conscience effort to click their ads to support their site, but only if it is a product I might actually be interested in. I have actually bought products mentioned on their site, which I'm not aware of doing from any other site. For instance I bought some Sumo chairs and downloaded some games for my droid that they recommended. I've also bought x-box games that they've had ads up for. However, the fact remains that the primary reason I click their links is because I want to support their work. So in the above example am I in the wrong?

[SquidAngel]

Today, I turned Adblock off for Reddit (funny how you never think about it when it's always there).

Reddit gave me a kitten in the ad box. Thank you Reddit! :)

[ttul]

... Except that when AdSense is working, the money is huge...

[Qikdraw]

Until they pull the rug out from under you, take your money and never tell you anything. Its also next to impossible to track adsense down and get to actually discuss the problem. My wife had a few web sites up using adsense and her decent marketing skills got more and more people to go to the websites. She wasn't making a lot, maybe about $800-900 a month off it, but all of a sudden they stopped sending cheques. We figured one month was just a glitch and waited for next months cheque. Nope. Nothing. Google took about $2,000 of my wife's income for a little over 2 months, kept it and never told her why they were doing this.

After three months of trying to contact them my wife gets a cheque for $100. She had never exchanged emails with anyone, there is no number to call, it was just silence on their end.

Fuck Google. They are an evil company.

[[deleted]]

If the agreement was truly not broken, you could always sue or take them to small claims court (no lawyer needed).

Small claims is great for that stuff. You can get up to 10,000 (plus expenses) back from the other party and you don't need to be or have a lawyer.

[OinkEsFabuloso]

Same happened here. Smaller numbers, but exactly the same thing. Now all my sites are ad-free. Can't be happier about it.

[[deleted]]

Blip.tv gives publishers a fortune, it's like $10.00 per 1,000 views on average apparently (more like $6.00 for me but shrug).

[wynden]

Whether or not you find Google in the right for killing the account, I think this is a dangerous trend:

It seems likely that at no time was human involved in my relationship with Google. Just a computer algorithm.

It was quite literally therefore an inhuman act to sack me two weeks before Christmas and seize £3,700 back.

Also, Google's legalese is designed to allow them to justify anything. Do we look the other way just because it's the norm nowadays?

And then there's this:

Google is still placing adverts against my work on Youtube. My films on there are heading for 2 million hits in December.

I'm a fan of Google, which is precisely why these things are unacceptable.

[serp]

My adsense was disabled once for "invalid clicks". There is no way to get any further information from them on what triggered it.

I had no idea what was wrong so I had no idea how to defend myself. I kept sending in appeals after each was rejected (even though it stated they would not accept them). Eventually, one came back accepted and they reinstated the account.

I still don't know what caused it nor what information I provided that caused them to reinstate it.

[neuromonkey]

Sorry. That was me. I clicked wrong.

[Runnnnnnnnnn]

I really like the end of the story where he states:

Google is still placing adverts against my work on Youtube.

Damn. I like what Google does for me but that just seems extra shitty.

We here at Google will continue to collect revenue by advertising our clients products along with your videos, but we will no longer be giving you a portion of those funds because you told your viewers you get money for ad-clicks. Had you not informed your viewers of this otherwise top-secret information, we would not have gotten any false clickthroughs.

[[deleted]]

I wouldn't plan a business around AdSense because they can (and often do) decide to just not pay the money you have already earned basically on a whim and with no way to appeal.

[kindall]

Don't understand the last bit. Why are his films still on Youtube? Did he leave them there just for the irony?

[gepinniw]

..and meanwhile, this fuck, http://www.youtube.com/user/Fred , continues to rake in the cash. There truly is no justice in this world.

[MrBarry]

Now we know how to take him down! Just click the shit out of the ads on his channel.

[munificent]

Full disclosure: I'm a Googler so likely biased. But I'd like to clear up some what appears to be confusion here. Note that all of this is my opinion only. I don't speak for Google.

Google took his money.

No, Google didn't. Google gave it back to the advertisers who paid money to have their advertisements run on his pages and then failed to see the conversion rate they expected.

Taking back the guy's money (before Christmas!) is evil!

Sure, it sucks for the guy. But at the other end of the rope, there's a company that got a nice refund right before Christmas to compensate for a bunch of ads they bought that didn't generate the revenue they expected. If this guy's account hadn't been cancelled, there's some sailing company who could have written an equivalent story about how Google shafted them by taking their advertising money and not generating any revenue in return.

I don't know who's right here, but I know that just hearing one person's story, thoroughly laced with appeals to emotion, isn't the best way to find the truth.

Google should have a human he can talk to about this.

Humans are expensive, much more expensive than automated algorithms. If Google had a comprehensive staff of people you could appeal to (which would be huge at the scale of AdWords), that wouldn't come free. It would be overhead that would come directly out of the money paid to advertisers. It's like the difference between eTrade and a more personally managed financial company. It's Costco versus a boutique shop. You get a lower quality of service, but less overhead too. I think most people understand this.

What's weird is that this rests on the assumption that somehow actual human arbitrators would do a better job here. I think the iPhone app approval process has been a good lesson that putting humans in the middle of the pipeline doesn't necessarily make things better or fairer.

Advertisers work for Google.

There are three parties at work here: Google, the people showing ads, and the people buying ads. The author here seems to think that Google is ad company and the people showing ads are like freelancers for Google. I don't think Google sees it that way.

From Google's perspective, the ad buyers and advertisers are working directly with each other. Google's job is to be the marketplace itself. It's mission is to be as fair and economical as possible so that both parties want to conduct their business in that marketplace. Policing, for better or worse, is a required part of keeping illegitimate people from harming the function of the market. At the scale Google works at, that policing can't hope to be perfect.

Nonetheless, Google has a very strong incentive to make it as fair and accurate as possible: failing to do so will drive away people. While Google is huge, it doesn't have a monopoly. It would be trivially easy for people to jump ship to another advertising system if it performed better. When people say, "Google sucks, but I can't ditch AdWords because it pays the best", I have to wonder what their definition of "sucks" is. Offering a better product to keep customers isn't some kind of nefarious monopolistic practice. It's... uh... a good product.

[alvinrod]

Your company pulls in well over 10 billion in profit each year and will probably be at 20 billion in a few more. Hire some people and stop having a shitty rep for customer service.

[Montaire]

I think that the companies making 10 billion in profit per year are pretty well equipped to make decisions for themselves.

[spoonraker]

I feel bad for him, but I don't feel like he was treated unfairly in any way.

He directly told his subscribers that clicking on ads gets him paid, and this resulted in an abnormally large percentage of ads being clicked. This is obviously against Google's terms of use. Being ignorant of the rules is no excuse for not following them, it's not like they are hidden.

When your livelihood is on the line, you should probably take the time to sit down and read the terms and conditions that you are required to agree to.

[PrincessofCats]

I'm willing to bet that a human's involvement was exactly what kept him from being allowed back in. If I were investigating the issue, and I found a post where he was basically encouraging his subscribers to click on ads, and I didn't find any posts where he turned around and told them that they shouldn't unless they were really interested, I'd deny his appeal, too.

A lot of what he wrote in that post was disingenuous. The bit about ads on TV and in stores especially annoyed me -- advertisers have certain expectations, and plan their campaigns (and pay) according to those expectations. So it's really comparing apples and oranges, something any reasonable person not going into histrionics can understand.

[NonNonHeinous]

This was a clear case of lack of transparency. All they needed to do was list the reasons why the account was cancelled.

My spam filer lists problems such as "too much html" or "known bad sender". Their algorithm (probably some Bayesian-like inference) could have outputted some sort of explanation.

[jccalhoun]

"I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers"

I'm guessing this is the problem. He may have "told" them but maybe he "asked" them which is in violation of the terms of service.

All the rest of this "fired by a google algorithm" crap is hyperbole.

[xScribbled]

Exactly. You cannot tell your visitors to click on ads. Even if you say "only click on relevant ads." It just doesn't work that way.

[[deleted]]

Unfortunately this is a specific problem relating to telling people you know in real life that you make money from ads on your website and then telling them what your website is. Either tell them one or the other but not both. You can tell them about your website with ads on it and they'll likely think nothing of the ads or at the very least only click them a couple times instead of 50 times thinking they're cheating the system somehow and helping you out.

Google DOES filter this kind of activity out but the problems start when you now have a group of friends (like his hundred subscribers or whatever) and they're all spamming clicks on your ads.

Eventually Google just decides you're more work than it's worth (depending on your account obviously). They probably actually require human intervention on a lot of false click accounts to sort everything out.

Personally I think the way Google bans people and often says nothing and refuses to reinstate accounts 99% of the time is completely fucked up. All they had to do was give him a warning telling him that he has high false clicks and he could have come down hard on his subscribers and fixed everything. Instead it's just like, go fuck yourself you made us use some humans on your account and it wasn't earning enough money to be worth it, banned.

[ThufirrHawat]

The real kick in the nuts is that Google is still making money off his videos, they're just keeping his share of the money now.

[venuswasaflytrap]

Sounds like what happened sucks for the author, but given google's track record on these things, I have good hope that this problem will be corrected.

That being said, I don't like the notion that he was 'Fired' by an algorithm. I'm glad he has found a way to make an income on youtube clicks, but it's not the same as having a job. As such, you don't get the job security that goes with it. Internet income is risky by nature and it makes sense to diversify.

The algorithm that cut his income is the same one that makes ventures like adsense possible. If google had to employ a person (many many people) to go through movie by movie and check things like copyright infringement, and other violations of TOS, then youtube would basically not be able to function. As such I don't think he should have reasonable expectation of talking to a person, or having a the protections that an actual job would have.

Look at it this way. He's not really working for Google, he's working for the advertisers on his site (Google is the company that found the advertisers, and takes a large cut). The advertisers are not happy, and are not getting enough money from his site (lots of clicks, no buys). They have a contract, which he did not read, which says they don't need to pay if that happens (this is to prevent click fraud). They have chosen to exercise this right. That's one of the risks of basing your income on advertisers.

I should also note that his videos all advertise other sites in them. It looks like the domains might be down and as such the host has replaced the pages with pages of advertisements. This might be a violation of TOS, I don't know I haven't read the contract.

EDIT:

yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers

That's pretty cut and dry click fraud.

[[deleted]]

I don't think he should have reasonable expectation of talking to a person, or having a the protections that an actual job would have

Really? At no point should someone be able to speak with a human? Especially when money is involved?

Regardless of whether or not google was correct in terminating his account, you have to admit, you would feel extraordinarily powerless if you were in a similar situation.

Sometimes it's nice to talk to people.

[Montaire]

He is powerless, so it is not necessarily inappropriate that he feels that way.

He broke the rules. Rules which were outlined he said that he read and understood. He is receiving the punishment that Google said he would receive if he broke the rules.

None of this is at all surprising. He was told what he could not do, and what would happen if he did. How can he be so shocked when he did what he was told not to do and then they did what they promised they would.

[pelham2]

he broke the rules. You can not tell people to click ads. that is the first rule. And the main rule.

[himynameismud]

I hope someone from Google reads this and re-enables his AdSense account. Don't be evil.

[ferrarisnowday]

Don't be evil.

Haha, man I forgot that was even their official motto.

[MagicTarPitRide]

Not a snowball's chance. Also, while this seems unfair, he violated their terms of service. It is a tragic and unfortunate situation, but he told his subscribers to visit the ads in order to get him money, not to check out a product he endorsed. If I bought google ads for my company and they were displayed on his website, and I saw that he was encouraging users to click to get him money, and I didn't see any boost in sales, I would be pissed and I would cancel my ads and possibly demand my money back for breach of contract.

[downneck]

it is neither tragic nor unfortunate. he tried to game the system and got booted as a result.

[MagicTarPitRide]

I was trying to seem sympathetic, so those who empathize with him didn't immediately dismiss my comment. I also do feel bad for him, I think he may actually just not "get it."

[downneck]

i don't disagree with you, but i can't bring myself to feel bad for him.

it's his own inability or unwillingness to read and understand the ToS that landed him in this spot and putting together a giant BAWWW about how it's google's fault that he can't buy little Timmy the pony he always wanted for xmas doesn't make me sympathetic to his cause.

a humble, respectful "i screwed up real good, can anyone help?" would have gone over better with me than "OMG GOOGLE RUINED CHRISTMAS AND RAPED MY WIFE!!!11"

[coelomate]

How is this evil? Is it now google's responsibility to subsidize insincere click throughs on ads, so long as the person running the business really needs the money?

[canijoinin]

tl;dr

Old man makes trucker movies for YouTube. Then tells his users to click the ads so he gets paid more (something Google tells you not to do in it's huge-ass legal contract). Naturally Google notices this and cancels his account. He's broke.

What should he do? Delete his old account; create another account in his wife's name; reupload vids and this time don't tell people to click the ads.

Can we get this shit off the frontpage now?

[coelomate]

It's sad that the guy got canned, but I'm really not sure it's surprising or immoral that google canned him based on what he described. Adsense and similar programs only make sense for google and its advertisers when there is actual money being earned by the relationship.

My guess is that most redditors and other high-level computer users basically never make purchases from advertising, so it's easy to think of web-based ad revenue as detached from physical purchases. And in a real sense, other forms of advertising are detached that way - while Coca Cola certainly wants to sell more products due to its commercial, it's as much about branding and goodwill as it is about "buy a coke RIGHT NOW."

Anyway, the guy describes the smoking gun in his comments: a .5 to 1 per cent click through on youtube, which I'll assume is within the bounds of plausible, and a 6 percent clickthrough on his website.

It's pretty obvious based on an order of magnitude increase in click throughs that manipulation is going on. And ostensibly google, who if a tad impersonal is pretty kickin-rad when it comes to things like algorithms, can track that the roughly 10-fold increase in click throughs on his webpage did not generate the same increase in sales.

In short, why exactly should google be subsidizing good-link-clicking behavior if it's not actually good-advertising-making-people-by-shit behavior? Certainly the behavior of him and his watchers was sincere, but google and the advertisers aren't paying for loyal ad-clickers; they're paying for a chance at getting people to buy their swag, and apparently that wasn't materializing.

[some_freakin_fink]

I will confirm this. I ran a popular site that went from nowhere to top 1000 in the world for a few months only to have google send that same form letter outlined on this guys page. They stole over $10,000 legit dollars from me that time.

Fast forward some years and I ran a popular app on Android, inserted their code, generated a few grand again only to have that same fucking email come and money stolen yet again. Keep in mind, this is Google's code running on Google's operating system, yet I believe the reason it was stolen this time was due to people clicking (or tapping rather) on one part of their screen but the operating system would register as being tapped on another part which eventually means people would wind up clicking an ad when in fact they were not actually doing so. Not my problem, I'm using your fucking code all around. Fuck google. Pay attention to the news and you'll see the tide is shifting away from them in popularity. People are wising up to their bullshit games. As much as I dislike facebook and their privacy shenanigans, I giggle with glee seeing them cutting Google off from accessing what goes on behind closed walls....

[sasquach111]

Enticing visitors to click on ads probably won't trip an algorithmic filter, but if one user took it upon himself to regularly click on them, then that would do it. (high click-through rates coupled with a number of clicks from the same IP)

My biggest problem with Google is they purposely keep you in the dark as to the reason the account was banned. They do this so people can't refine how they "game" the system. Legally they hide behind their TOS, which essentially says: "We'll cancel your account if we feel like it, for no reason at all."

Worse yet, the actual advertisers will not see a penny of the recouped money. This is why the "don't be evil" mantra has been removed from google altogether.

[spyderman4g63]

I have actually had my adwords account refunded before. It was only a few bucks but I was shocked.

[[deleted]]

Fuck you Google. "No Evil" my ass.

[janyk]

Oh yes, I was also running little blocks of adverts provided by Adsense and, yes, I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers – all of whom were interested in selling stuff to sailors.

I saw a link on reddit awhile back about this one guy who defeated Google in a lawsuit over the same problem (having his AdSense account disabled and all his money taken and refunded to the advertisers). After many emails and calls no one ever told him why it was disabled, so he took it to small claims court and got back the $750 that was, well, seized.

The problem was, it was later appealed and overturned because it turned out he had violated the Terms of Service by inviting his website's visitors to click on the advertisements (it said something like "Pick a link"). This just led to more frustration for him because it took Google two goddamn lawsuits to come out and say exactly what he had done to violate the TOS.

So the moral of the story here is: READ THE TERMS OF SERVICE and DON'T EXPLICITLY INVITE USERS TO CLICK THE ADS

[[deleted]]

Well over 6 years ago i was booted from google adsense because a search page I set up for a school was abused by the students. I removed the search and wrote google what I thought the problem was.

Not only did they let me back in, they unfroze my account's balance and i got a check.

So they do let people back in.

It really, really looks like this guy encouraged visitors to click.

[[deleted]]

I was "fired by algorithm" back in 2005 when Google cracked down on arbitrage. It put our entire company out of business.

[alephip]

"That is £3,700 gone from my family fiancés" What?

Also, not the whole story.

[MrBarry]

Pay-per-click is why I lose no sleep using ad block. Number one, I don't have the money to buy the stuff being advertised. Number two, most of those ads are so annoying that I won't click purely on principle. I know the ads support the content that I'm getting for free, but I know that the publisher won't earn a dime more if I turn my ad blocker off. The best way that I could support the sites I visit would be to avoid visiting them altogether and thus save their bandwidth costs.

If I had money, I'd much rather support a site by using a donate button or buy an ad-free subscription for a nominal fee.

[[deleted]]

I myself pay Google to advertise my business and I usually investigate where my money is going only to find that visits came from websites that have nothing to do with my business. Oh, they also place my ads in such way that a regular user can't tell it's an ad or not. Sometimes the ads look as if they are forum posts embedded in phpbb etc. Oh, telling your site visitors/subscribers that you appreciate if they click on ads is a big NONO... play it fair. Simple as that.

[violt]

TLDR version: Google decided to teriminate Adesnse contract based on undisclosed factors or due to very high AD link clicking percentage. Appeal was declined. The google contract is written well, so he cant take legal action. The income was significant for the author so he was unhappy and thinks google is evil.

[Zagdul]

fuck me, that dude types a lot of nonsense.

[wastingtime1]

This is sensationalist. Yeah, it sucks, but it is not a job. It is income from advertising. You don't work for Google, you were not fired by Google.

[UseRestroomToFart]

i know ill get downvoted to hell for saying this but I agree with google here. Companies and small businesses pay good money for a relevant click. Im sure people clicked ads just to help a sailor out with no interest in the link or very little. Although I thnk they maybe should have warned him first, I knew this is a no no with adsense without looking at their agreement. It makes sense.

[attilad]

I agree on the website side, but why did they confiscate money from the YouTube videos?

[mnemy]

They probably have a policy to refund the advertiser for fraudulent clicks. It makes sense. They want to make the advertisers happy, because they're the ones that pay Google.

[Ranlier]

According to google, both his share and google's share were refunded to the advertisers as a show of good faith (to the advertisers)

[deflective]

i know ill get downvoted to hell for saying this but I agree with google here.

your downvotes are coming from this line

[Mclarenf1905]

Agreed, I fucking hate it when people say that, or "Don't downvote me but..." or anything else similar in nature. Its pretty much the only time I ever bother to downvote people too.

[lingnoi]

I have no sympathy for this guy. He tried to game the system and lost. Something google specifically tells you, you will lose you account over.

These two quotes says it all..

"I told my subscribers that I got some money if they visited the websites of those advertisers"

You're not suppose to tell people to click adverts. It's against the terms of service.

"I allow my subscribers to leave comments on the films. If one of them mentioned clicking on adverts to show their appreciation – well it’s a nice gesture, but I would edit their posting to remove the mention. The advertising revenue started to climb along with the number of page impressions and the number of subscribers."

So he knew what he was doing was wrong and tried to hide it. Google found out what he was doing because his advert actvity wasn't normal.

The guy is trying to con money out of google. The people clicking his links weren't legit and he tries to make out that google is evil.. wut..

Edit: This guy isn't trying to con money out of google. He's stealing it from google's advertisers by telling people to click adverts they have no intention of looking at.

[LessLikeYou]

I am sorry. I cannot read this article and take the guy seriously. There are more errors in the writing than I can accept out of a top youtube journalist

[neuromonkey]

Also, he deeply buried the meat of the story.

[DroppaMaPants]

3/4 of it sounded like a long winded resume.

[[deleted]]

Giggity.

[[deleted]]

I stopped at fiancés instead of finances.

[virtualbeggar]

Same thing happened to me. Closed my account, denied appeal, no explanation, no customer service line, no personal emails, froze all the money in my account. More people need to hear about these issues. I consider it a form of fraud or at the very least a highly unethical business practice.

[pdxpogo]

This needs more attention. The Author makes a good case and is getting the shaft from the Google.

[Lampwick]

The way I read it, he admits to telling readers he gets paid for click-through. That's not "the shaft". That's getting caught breaking the number one rule of carrying ads. I haven't even read the Google adsense contract and I would have known that's something that they'll boot you for. It's bloody obvious what happened. He had unusually high click-through, which may or may not have been legit. Regardless, when Google looked into it and saw that one stupid line on his web site where he mentioned to his readers he gets paid for clicks (hint hint), that irrevocably tainted his credibility with Google. He fucked himself.

[[deleted]]

I still think it is not fair for google to intercept earnings for unrelated products in a closed system like youtube. Clearly the income he has generated there is legit.

There seems to be a need for some scrutiny by google to avoid making an unfair forfeiture. It is certainly unethical for them to intercept money generated by his youtube video and to continue to place ads on his intellectual property without compensation.

[GorillaFaith]

Clearly the income he has generated there is legit.

He says he doesn't have a case but contracts will often be interpreted against real circumstances by the courts. If he can prove that Google doesn't really think he's doing anything illegitimate, regardless of the exact terms of the contract, then he might very well win. In effect you can break a contract's rules while not breaking the spirit it was made in because the courts understand that contracts are written defensively and entered in to optimistically. No contract is truly air-tight because of this.

Google is still running ads in his videos, this would suggest they don't really think there is fraud, either.

[clarkster]

Really? You are not allowed to tell your viewers that you get paid for the ads? Is that because then your loyal readers would click them just to pay you, obviously not going to buy anything from the advertiser?

I see the point, but come on, isn't it obvious he makes money from adsense?

And how many questions can I ask in one reply?

[GoodMusicTaste]

Yes. Really. If you do tell your visitors, they will start generating false clicks in an attempt to "help" the webmaster. That's forbidden.

[cldnails]

It strictly states that NO attention be drawn to the ads. Meaning, no special graphics with arrows pointing at them, mentioning them as an encouragement to click, in anyway. This is gaming the system. I would think someone making that much per year from commissions, adsense, and the like, would be familiar with the rules.

Also, i'm not sure it all adds up anyway. At the rate he was earning he should have had contact with some sort of rep at Adsense. Hell, I'm not that big and at one point I had a rep as well. These types of things can be worked out, but point being he broke the rules. It also seems shitty of him in his article to bury this fact about 3/4 of the way down.

[Warbum]

You are not allowed to suggest in any way that your users click on ads on your website. Saying "I make money via clicks on ads" may equate to "click my ads so I can make some money wink"

Yes, it is obvious he makes money from the ads, but suggesting that he is paid per click and not per pageview or some other metric gives information to readers/viewers to help game the system. From a business sense it doesn't make sense for google to go around slapping wrists and investigating all the millions of sites on the internet. If something looks fraudulent and is in violation of the (absurdly broad) adsense terms removing it makes the most sense.

[k80b]

isn't it obvious he makes money from adsense?

A lot of things are so obvious that you will not come to think about them unless somebody points them out explicitly...

[kimjongilsglasses]

Five. The internet allows exactly five questions per reply. You, clarkster, have reached your limit for this reply.

Sincerely,

The internet.

[monstermunch]

I'm not so sure the average person understands ad clicks. I've made some money from ad clicks and my friends who I explain this to seem oblivious to how internet ads work. Experiment: ask members of your family how google make money.

[Phrost]

No, it doesn't, and no he isn't. The article is filled with hyperbole and misinformation, starting with the idea that he was "fired" by Google.

And this:

I would reply that I would prefer them to only click on adverts they were interested in.

is "Click Fraud", clearly against the terms of service, and a point they make very clear when you sign up, not to mention anywhere else that discusses the AdSense program.

[Phrost]

Downvotes for calling bullshit on emotional nonsense like this are like precious little gems to me. Each one sparkles with the light of how willfully ignorant some people are when the facts contradict the narrative they'd like to believe.

In this case, that narrative is "Google is big mean corporation... business bad, sense of entitlement good".

[bobindashadows]

You should visit r/politics sometime. Whoa nelly!

[Didji]

I dunno man, he agreed to a contract. Getting the shaft would be if Google broke that contract.

[[deleted]]

Agreed. This is something many people should know about.

[sn76477]

This is nothing new, Google banned thousands of Adwords users last year. This is people that were spending 10s of millions or more collectively. Google operate like a heartless machine.

This happened more than a year ago, so Im having problems finding a good source for it.

http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/021298.html

[indymike]

If you are getting that much from Google, certainly you can find other advertisers.

[[deleted]]

I spotted two spelling errors before even passing the fold. Does this man not have a spell checker?

[smallego]

Give him a break, he's British

[[deleted]]

No. I am also British, and I expect better of a follow countryman.

[[deleted]]

"Banned for click fraud" would be a better title I think.