New Delhi Times - Gaurav Bhatnagar reporting from New Delhi, India: "Do no evil" they said

I have never been a Google fan boy (or a fan boy for any other company for that matter) but I might have actually developed a little contempt for GOOG last weekend. Just a couple of weeks after I introduced adsense on my blog with much fan-fare, I got the dreaded "letter" from the big G.

Hello Gaurav Bhatnagar,

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.

A publisher's site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including but not limited to clicks generated by:

- a publisher on his own web pages
- a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
- automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software
- a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason

Practices such as these are in violation of the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

I was quite surprised that I was summarily booted out. For one thing, I wasn't making much money at all from adsense. So I didn't exactly get a feeling of loss on losing out the moolah. But all the same, I felt it was extremely unfair that I was accused by Google of a crime I obviously did not commit. So I sent them an email and also filled out the online form and assumed I will hear back in a day or so. However, 4 days have passed since then I have not heard a word back.

I had heard stories of Google's arrogance but I experienced it for the first time just now. To summarize
1. Google accused me of click fraud but provided absolutely no evidence.
2. Then they terminated my account without giving me a warning.
3. Worse, they simply kept all the money that had been accrued in my account
4. And then they gave me no chance for appeal.

Wow, that doesn't sound like a company that shows much love for its customers or partners. But I would have still taken all of that lying down. After all, its a big company with all its slow moving machinery and they can be forgiven for trampling on some folks here and there.

BUT BUT BUT then I came across this: http://www.readablog.com/feed15942.aspx

Now here is a website that is COPYING EVERY WORD OFF MY BLOG verbatim AND DISPLAYING GOOGLE ADS and making money off MY CONTENT! And that is legitimate according to Google but my displaying ads on my own website with my own original was not cool! I call BS on that.

So here is my message for the folks at Google (not that anybody is listening but whatever) - I love your search engine and it really does make my life easy. But what is with this heavy handed arrogance? I am not sure if there are many companies that lasted long by treating their customers like this. I (ironically) googled this and founds dozens of other people grumbling about how they have been treated unfairly in the adsense program. Many of them were making their living from it. There is a whole website dedicated to ripping on Google. And wasn't your motto "Do no evil"?

Oh well, I guess my dreams of a Nokia 9300 will have to be realized through more honorable means. Meanwhile I have this empty space on the right column of my blog to fill up. Any suggestions what might go in there?

Comments

GOOG is all bull. Their search engine has not made any significant improvements in the last 2 years. If you haven't noticed, check out the new msn search or the new yahoo search. Their search results are way better now.

STOP USING GOOGLE!!!

Posted by: The Big G | May 11, 2006 12:50 AM

Another case.. Last year they did the same to my and a friend's adsense account. And we lost $50 :(
I am waiting for similar services from Yahoo/MSN in India.
Meanwhile, you an use http://www.crispads.com/
I have 'heard' it works better thn stupid f**kin google.

Posted by: Chirag Gupta | May 11, 2006 01:51 AM

This also happened with me 1 years before ,and i also lost 46$ .

Posted by: James | May 11, 2006 03:24 AM

Welcome to the club Gaurav ;-)

This happened with me around an year back. Now I use a friends adsense account and google does not mind displaying ads on my sites.

Posted by: manik juneja | May 11, 2006 08:35 AM

You might still be able to get the earned money from Google Adsense. But termination by Google, I have no idea of. Still this post might help.

Posted by: Chetan | May 11, 2006 09:34 AM

I heard about Adsense acount terminations before, but I wasn't expecting that the problem was that huge.

Posted by: Matija | May 11, 2006 06:55 PM

Probably your talking about incorporating AdSense on your blog in the post titled "Google ads on my blog", lead to this. Anyways it's not fair, and who the hell operates that website which basically cloning yours and making money off it as well.

Google is a great organization built from scratch by its founders and prides itself in the kind of people they hire, Phd's and superbright people from the best universities in the world.Maybe that's where the arrogance comes from

Posted by: Kris | May 11, 2006 09:11 PM

Did you make sure that someone who doesn't like you didn't screw you up by clicking on the ads you have put up? Many people from India have faced similar issues. Maybe these guys are paranoid due to few bad apples. Anyhow I was expecting Google to go the Microsoft way soon. They are definitely on track to achieve the honor.

Posted by: Krish | May 11, 2006 11:07 PM

BTW, the link you have given is a blog search engine. Since that guy has clearly acknowledged you by giving your link, he is not doing Kaavyagiri. If you want to stop him, I suggest that you block his searchbot on your server side. He is playing the game on the grey area but I will not say whatever he is doing is illegal. There is nothing wrong in Google allowing ads on his site too. I suggest you check the server log and see if someone had messed up with your Google ads intentionally. It is very bad that you got booted out but many others who intentionally misuse are still getting money to buy their Nokias (I know about people forming groups to click on each others google ads to generate revenue. When I was in India three months back, one of my friends told me about this industry).

Posted by: Krish | May 11, 2006 11:15 PM

Thanks for your response guys. Looking at the comments, its look account termination is even more commonplace than I thought it is. I am surprised Google has been able to get away with this for so long.

Well since Google doesn't share from which IP addresses the ads were clicked, I have no way to determine if somebody just screwed me over. But eiter way, my daily earnings were so small that I doubt there was any suspicious activity at all.

Krish - its NOT a blog search engine. Blog search engines like Technorati don't copy the entire content of a blog and replicate it on their site. They only index blogs and send people over to the actual site for the content. Besides, all content of my blog is clearly my copyright and it can not be reproduced elsewhere without my explicit permission (with or without attribution).

Posted by: Gaurav | May 12, 2006 02:02 AM

I agree that it is your copyright. There is no question about it. Thatz why I told that he is operating on the grey area. I was just trying to give justification on why Google was not wrong in giving ads to him. They may take it out if somebody complain against him or if they notice it.

Posted by: Krish | May 12, 2006 05:17 AM

Short answer to your problem. Microsoft AdCenter with it's demographically targeted ads

Posted by: DL | May 12, 2006 10:46 AM

Gaurav,

1) This seems to happen to Indians more frequently (although it happens to a lot of Americans as well).
2) The fact that you blogged about adsense meant that some "high-value" ads were probably on your site. The clicks on those ads may have attracted attention. Ironically, one organization in google rushes to put ads anywhere where someone uses high value words. Meanwhile, another organization at google runs arround treating anyone who uses those valued words in content with suspicion. It's a funny / peculiar kind of situation.

I agree we need more competition in the online ad space. In fact, India needs it's own blog ad network! Anyone feel like starting one?

Posted by: Jonathan Boutelle | May 12, 2006 11:21 AM

In fact, I was about to suggest Gaurav to look into this aspect targeting Indian customers and Indian media.

Posted by: Krish | May 12, 2006 12:16 PM

hmmm... I wonder why it happens more often to Indians. Makes no sense.

Creating an ad network targeted to the Indian audience is an interesting concept. It will make for an interesting story too - little guy somewhere got booted off Google and went ahead to create his own ad network which then overtook adsense ;-) Need to give that some thought!

Posted by: Gaurav | May 12, 2006 02:20 PM

this whole ad business sucks, mine have also stopped making any money even though the counter shows clicks everyday.

Posted by: Jatin | May 13, 2006 08:30 AM

Haven't posted here before, but been reading you

Posted by: Matt | May 14, 2006 08:50 PM

Haven't posted here before, but been reading you for a while.

Mentioning Adsense on a blog is usually dangerous. What often happens is - if you add Adsense on a blog and keep quiet about it, pretty much nobody notices it. Fine. But when you mention it in a blog posts, you are tempting a lot of friends and enemies.

Someone who doesn't like you, or who is just a total nutcase, may decide to go click-happy on your ads. Even if only one person does it, and you being an Adsense publisher with no history with Google, their algorithms identify that as a risky pattern and boto you out automatically. Of course, don't expect them to ever come out and say so directly.

Secondly, dumb friends. Especially because you mentioned your plans to buy a Nokia, an idiot friend could just decide to, "hey, let me help him buy this phone, click, click, click". It has happened to, oh, thousands of adsense publishers before. Adsense forums on the Web, till 1 year back, used to be full of stories of publishers who got booted out due to friends. And those were just the ones whose friends admitted to clicking.

Usually, adsense publishers with some standing with google (a few years) do not face such a risk as their account history with Google makes any minor click attack insignificant.

What are your options? A polite mail to google, vouching for yor own character (!) with an offer to make your site logs available to them for further examination and identifying of any suspicious behavior has helped - occasionally. Or else, YPN or Adcenter. If you have a large number of visitors, Kanoodle or Tribal Fusion or Burst Media.

Best of luck.

Posted by: Matt | May 14, 2006 08:59 PM

Matt, thanks for your comment. I did send a polite email asking Google why I was booted out. Unfortunately I got back the standard regret reply. Anyway, I might try out adCenter at some point. For now, I will let my readers enjoy my blog ad-free :)

Posted by: Gaurav | May 19, 2006 05:58 PM

On the same topic, there is a new service called feedpass where people can monetize out of other people's work (similar to the one Gaurav has quoted above). I can create a RSS feed for Gaurav's blog and link it in my website. Feedpass runs Google adwords on the landing page of feedpass feeds for Gaurav's site and shares the adsense revenue with me. What a ridiculus concept!!

Posted by: Krish | May 22, 2006 11:41 AM

Adsense is very tough for entry level publishers. Because the page hits of every month is too low. So the Googlers doesn't matter to ban our account. If they are finding fraud clicks on massive hit site they dont boughter about it. Because they revenue increase but small publisher cant make like that.This is true.... But re apply another blog and use that a/c to your site.Don't worry

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