AdSense trap
A few days ago I tried putting Google AdSense ads on my site again, and I quickly realized that it would be an easy way to cover the hosting costs in the future and still get a good amount money over every month. The same day, a few hours after I added the ads, a website visitor e-mailed me through my contact form and told me that many of the AdSense links led to completely unrelated sites which contained nothing but new AdSense links. A few examples were listed, and it looked really bad. The e-mail suggested that I would review the ad links and then use the competitive filter to remove them, because they are not only fooling Google of money - they are crap in every other way as well. I thought that it was a good idea, so I followed the instructions in the e-mail without realizing that it would cause trouble…
I logged in to my AdSense account to make it make it obvious that the clicks were my own so they wouldn’t be counted, and then I went through the different pages of my site and clicked the links. Many advertising sites were really interesting, and I even signed up at some of them just to get more information about products that appeared to be interesting. But I also got a big list of completely crappy ad-sites which would soon be filtered out to give room for real advertisers. Everything looked great. But a few days after I had reviewed the advertisers, Google closed my AdSense account because of “invalid clicking activities”, refering to a limitation in the terms that says that a site owner may not click any of the links on his own site - which I of course knew very well. And they did this without giving me any kind of warning or any chance to explain myself, which is something I find incredibly stupid and extremely disrespectful. It feels like a personal insult to be pointed out as a cheater when my intention was to secure the quality of the ads on my site. And the fact that Google will also keep the $250 that I had earned this month (with the day I clicked my links excluded) makes it even more stupid!
I realize now that the e-mail I got was an ugly trap, a form of economical sabotage that I should have discovered and not paid any attention to. But like all good traps, it made perfect sense in every way - until it was too late. I made a big bummer, no doubt about that. But I’m sure that I’m not the only person who has been tricked this way, and since I think that I don’t deserve to be completely kicked out because of this I have sent an e-mail to the AdSense support at Google, telling them that I can explain every single click I made that day. I have formally requested to get the account opened again, or that I should atleast get the money that I have earned paid out to me (except for the amount made at the day of my clicks of course). It would make most sense to me, really.
I have always seen Google as good-guys that actually care for their users (unlike many other major companies) so it will be very interesting to see if they care about this at all or if they have grown too big to listen to a single user. Depending on their move now, I will either become an even greater fan of Google - or I will lose all respect for a company that I have admired for so many years.
I will find out soon, and I will make sure to let you know what happens.
Tags: AdSense trap