This is a Guest Post by Saqib
I registered my website back in 2007 (www.justvb.net) to help fellow Visual Basic 6 Programmers. Later on, I decided to monetize it using Google’s Adsense, and hence applied for the program. Those were simple days (as compared to today) and getting an AdSense approval wasn’t hard, hence I got it with-in a week or so.
Just in case if you don’t know, today popular thinking amongst Pakistani bloggers is that one should wait at least six months before applying for Adsense. However, there are websites that get approval a lot earlier than that due to good quality and unique content.
As the time passed, I was collecting regular payments from Adsense using Western Union quick cash retrieval method to receive my earnings.
All of a sudden one day, I was unable to log into my Adsense account because it was disabled by Google. I got an email from Adsense team saying my account has been disabled due to invalid click activity. It further stated that all the money in my account will be returned to the advertisers, so all earnings gone.
A quick search on Google revealed that my account was disabled because Google had evaluated that I was clicking on my own ads. Which of course I wasn’t.
Further investigation revealed that Google uses some declared and some undeclared methods to evaluate click activity. They examine IP address, time of click, duplicate clicks and a number of other click patterns to judge the validity of the clicks.
Google does this at two levels. At first level Google claims that it analyzes clicks and impressions at real time from known sources of invalid click activity. And in addition to this automated process, Google claims to have a team deployed to examine the data when the system tags an Adsense account for invalid activity.
If the system has tagged a click on your account as invalid then you will not get banned instantly but repeated offender account will be disabled in time.
One sure sign of invalid click activity as pointed out by Google is that you will see a click in your Adsense account but no earnings in front of it in your report. Invalid click activity will bring down your daily earnings exponentially as compared to previous days. If you see both of these signs in your account then you have to move quickly and trace the specific user’s IP which has caused the invalid click activity.
If you have access to website logs directly then it will be easy to find the culprit’s IP. In case you are tracking your blog using www.statcounter.com or similar website widget then you can also easily trace the IP by looking at the reports generated by such websites.
Once you have identified the IP then you should report the IP and user agent details to Google. Google has a separate page where you can submit details of the suspicious activity in your Adsense account.
Invalid click activity is not the only reason to get an Adsense account blocked. The recent disabling of Pakistani users of Adsense can be attributed to many things. As it turns out Google’s motto of ‘Do no Evil’ is reflected into terms and conditions of usage of Adsense too. Following is a list of most popular ‘Don’ts’ for Adsense
Clicking on your own ads:
In order to inflate one’s earnings, some people do click on their own ads. Some use open proxies or other means to click on their own ads. Google can evaluate easily that you have clicked on your own ads and give you a penalty for it.
Asking others to click on your ads:
Everyone today has friends and family with Internet access. Encouraging others to click on your ads seems a good idea but it isn’t. Just consider that dodging Google isn’t possible, in any manner. So just avoid clicking your own ads or even asking anyone to click on your ads.
Just imagine the amount of resources they spend to track clicks – it’s in millions, with plenty of team to take care of such things. So simple avoid it.
Using scripts to click ads
Using automated scripts for clicking ads by using open proxies or changing user agent of your browser would also land you in hot waters with Google.
Auto-blogs
A lot of PHP scripts can generate content for you by copying content available on other websites and publishing them for you. These type of blogs are not allowed to have Adsense.
Changing Adsense script
By default, when a user clicks on an Adsense ad, they are taken to the advertiser’s page. Some people change the Adsense code so a new window is opened for the landing page. This and any kind of change in Adsense script is not allowed.
Hiding or obscuring parts of Adsense ads.
Some people try to trick users into believing that the Adsense ad is part of their content by hiding some parts of the visible ads. This is not allowed.
More than three ads.
A single page cannot have more than three Adsense units for content ads. Moreover, a maximum of three link units and two search boxes are allowed on a single page.
A page without content cannot have Adsense ads.
You cannot have Adsense ads on a page if it is blank, meaning there is no user content. The concern being that a user might think that ads are your website’s content and click on them.
Paid traffic
One way of earning tremendous amount of money is to get paid traffic and have them land on your Adsense ads pages. Some users will click on the Adsense ads and you will earn money through it. But if caught, you will get banned.
Privacy policy
Google has made it compulsory for publishers to display privacy policy related to Adsense ads and its ad network partners on a page of your website .
Stuffing keywords or bloating content using keywords.
In order to influence what kind of ads are displayed, it is prohibited to stuff keywords in your content. People do this in order to get ads for keywords with high CPC (Cost Per Click).
Sharing Adsense data
Google does not allow you to share its Adsense data publically, specifically CTR (Click Through Rate) and CPC (Cost Per Click).
Stolen content
If you copy paste content from other websites and publish it as your own or without giving credit to the original author, then Adsense ads are not allowed on such websites.
Ads in popup
Some users place Adsense code into a popup to get more user attention. This is not allowed as per Adsense terms and conditions.
More than one account
Adsense publishers are not allowed to maintain more than one account under the same payee name.
Adult content
Adsense is not allowed on adult content websites.
Casino or gambling websites
Placing ads on casino or gambling websites is a big ‘No’ for Adsense publishers.
Illegal content
If your website promotes prohibited content such as drugs, weapons, cracking tools, cracks, hacking tools, hacks, alcohol, trojans, viruses, exploits etc then you are not allowed to use Adsense on such website.
Linking to harmful websites
You being Adsense publisher cannot link your website to harmful websites e.g. containing illegal content, which spread malware etc.
Sending Adsense ads in emails/newsletters
Adsense ads are not allowed to be used in email or newsletters. However, Adsense premium publishers can. Premium publishers are those which receive more than 5 million queries or 20 million content views per month. Another exception is, ads placed in emails through Adsense for feeds product which enables publishers to distribute content through emails.
Trick a user into clicking on ads
Some publishers hide an ad in the content in such a way that the user is tricked into clicking on ads.
These are just main instances which can have your Adsense account disabled. To completely view the list, please look into Adsense terms and conditions www.Google.com/Adsense/localized-terms
Now, we come to the point to discuss the status of Pakistani Bloggers. There could have been a number of reasons why Google blocked the accounts but one sure thing I found was that most of the content of Pakistani bloggers is copied from somewhere else.
You can also check it yourself, just go to www.pakistanibloggers.net which shows a list of popular bloggers from Pakistan. Open any blog of the people mentioned there. Choose a blog post and select one line and copy it to Google it (by selecting any random complete sentence from the blog). Google search will show a number of websites with the same article with dates earlier than that of the blogger’s post.
I am not claiming all of Pakistani bloggers steal content but more than 80% do, I believe. This is a violation of terms and conditions of Adsense. Google may allow copy/pasting for a while but as soon as someone complains to Google, your account will get blocked.
In a nutshell, do no evil and you shall prevail.
Good News:
One of my friend got his AdSense request approved just today, which means that Google isn’t shutting doors for Pakistan. All you need is to follow their terms and conditions, and that’s it.
Wishing you luck.
Good Article
many pak blogger are Copying others’ data but why genuine users also became victim
ProPakistani is Pakistan’s No.1 Copy/Paster Website. But with a Good Traffic which hides its Choori…
Agreed. :D
Not a copy paste. Amir is doing good job
Agree with you M Tariq, Propakistani has team of authors, why they should copy n paste. Their content is real and I am inspired by their writings since 2005.
Blogging is all about writing things that you like or in which you get intrest on. Its not about copy paste.
Long Live Pakistan. Happy Blogging
You need to realize that there is “copy and paste” and there is “fair use.”
Copy and paste happens when you pick sentence-by-sentence articles. Fair use is when you use someone’s material to write your own.
What was the adsense tos violation (“Evil”) at your end?
I got banned because a lot of visitors on my website were from PTCL network which I was using to log into my adsense account.
So did you get your money back?
what about the site like forums where people do share things from other webs ? second thing is how to know if someone copy your thread how to stop it ?.
Useful information you share with us.Thanks a lot
@ProReader can you give reference site where propakistani copy content,
i think this is like cheap joke because if they has lot of writer then why they copy content from other websites.
and if they are doing like others then this is not fair.
WTF! You are sharing Trojan source code on your site and have adsense ads without any problem. Is it google policy ‘Do no Evil’?
The page does not contain any download links or even adsense ads for that matter.
Unfortunately many Pakistanis do violate adsense rules.
AOA
aik Video site kay baray main ap ka kiya kehna hai.
mera matlab hai keh aik video site jiss main srif youtube ki video hain os baray main google adsence ki kya Policy hai.
thnxs for sharing…. nice article
What I believe is that, PTCL dynamic IP assignment is the major reason for tagging the adsense account for invalid click activities. PTCL refreshes IP every time you connect to internet. Every service of Google including gmail, web history logs you IP address for click activities and web history. Web history is enabled by default on every gmail account. What do you say about it ?
Example:
Like a person A is involved in invalid click activity and is logged via IP address 1 and a person B (blogger) without any click fraud gets same IP the adsense team notice it.
Secondly, PTCL Trippe play project also renews IP address for EVOs and other network device too (Once disconnected). So when you log in to your account, Google notes down the IP and in all of sudden you restart router or Electricity fails you reconnect you refresh you account from browser cookies are same but IP is refreshed so Google Adsense team notice this too, same account logging in one hour from multiple location (IPs).
I believe its Electricity and PTCL that has 80% role in creating Google Adsense issues for bloggers rather than blogger’s content.
Long Live Pakistan
Very unlikely case. Dynamic IP addresses are given out by ISPs worldwide.
IPs are dynamic.
Cookies, MAC ID, Browser Version, OS Build, are static :d
MAC addresses (layer 2) don’t go over the internet (layer 3).
I dont agree with the term “Sending Adsense ads in emails/newsletters” there is million of websites including propakistani which use this,
everyone use feedburner, and feedburner has option of adsense in itself,
there is more than 21000 subscriber for propakistani, its mean that when someone receive email he also receive adsense adds by email,
Websites are allowed to have ads in email only if they use adsense for feeds. The matter mentioned relates to sending email to users with embedded adsense code in html by the user.
nice sharing. welcome to write articles on engrz.com
Ad-sense privacy policy page is must to have
The reason I feel for all account closures is the page full of ads. Usually, these webmasters filled their pages with loads of adsense and lack of content. Morever, it should be avoided to place ad blocks on unnecessary pages like Faq, Contact us etc..
Hopefully google re-activates all the genuine blocked accounts soon. This process surely would have pruned all the spammers.
what are the other options instead of Adsense…
infolinks ???
what are the other options instead of Adsense…
infolinks ???
For your reference.
September 6, 2011 1,890 45 2.38% $0.08 $0.15
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 1,859 47 2.53% $0.17 $0.32
Thursday, September 8, 2011 1,982 61 3.08% $0.2 $0.39
Friday, September 9, 2011 1,848 52 2.81% $0.08 $0.15
Saturday, September 10, 2011 2,063 38 1.84% $0.07 $0.15
Sunday, September 11, 2011 1,840 62 3.37% $0.32 $0.58
Monday, September 12, 2011 2,079 54 2.6% $0.11 $0.22
Tuesday, September 13, 2011 2,244 45 2.01% $0.12 $0.27
clicksor is a good alternative and they send payment cheques to pakistan regularly
You can use Infolinks instead of Adsense but it’s CPM is very low in compare but if your has good traffic than thats not a big deal.
Guy’s Any other option ? If yes then reply to me, i need it urgently..!
I have played a lot and personally experimented google adsense in different ways. I also got my 2 accounts blocked and now using third account.
Im now getting paid approx USD 1200/month by google adsense. I must say that Google is biased for Pakistani websites.
I would recommend that ask your any relative/friend to setup your account in any European or US country and use it to get google benefit.
Mr. Saqib nice and informative post about google ad sense my frined recently rejected from ad sense i refer your post to him
Hey i got a say thank you for giving a hope
Infolinks is fraud….
Boht se Hacking site pr me ne adsense ads daikhy hai…:-(
Google is simply banging Pakistan due to the amount of spam PTCL users are creating, first of PTCL uses proxies which makes almost all the users look identical to Google, also most of the PTCL users are infected with trojans, viruses which also generate malware based clicks.
I dont believe adsense is the way to go anyway for a new site as Google will always find some excuse to ban you or not approve your site even though your content is par with most of the big site.
At the moment they only want sites that have good traffic, their ads are even running on sites that are illegal according to Google’s TOS, but they dont give a crap as they are giving them good traffic.
@ProReader: i dont think how blogs and news work mate, it is not called copy pasting if you give reference to the original article and also summarize the story in your own words
Well dear, its not working in this way. my all users are from usa. not even a single user from pak. the only thing my account is from pak. so dont give me this shit.
did you ever care to read your comment before you speak???
arent you are user from Pakistan? although you say that you are operating your site from pakistan you are still complaining about my comment?
And by the way have you tried reading your OWN comment below? you are basically saying the same thing i am saying but i think most of the guys who learn to speak English over here like to use the word shit in their conversation just to look smart.
Grow Up mate.
Mr. Usman,
You should know that propaksitani.pk and http://learnpakistan.com are the sites that have authority on their niches. ProPakistan.Pk has Telecoem Niche and LearnPakistan has education Niche. These both sites are serving their niches and filling the gaps. These sites are authority sites in their Niches. If you are from USA then you should’nt be worried, you are getting traffic from USA, BTW if you post your blog address here, I can tell you the reason why GA block your account. Google is unbiased company. So no more”shit” words here in comments.
Grow Up Bro, You are too young even to comment
My website is on the top with several keywords in google. even in no 1. all my traffic is origanl and from us. no copy content . 100 percent original traffic and unique stuff. thing is that we are pakistani and they just give us any shit whatever thet want and block account. their own search engine give me no.1 ranking and then they block my account. just because i m logging in from a pakistani ip. and then give me mail that invalid click . its a crap man.
Try this publisher network for advertisement on your site.
http://www.inadda.com
LOL. looks like google employees commenting here, trying to divert all blame on PTCL. LOL how can an ISP be a reason of ban? very funny comments above.
PTCL is the only ISP that is KNOWN to filter all users Facebook and Twitter traffic through transparent proxies. No one knows what other sites are also filtered.
How do we know? last year, the proxies were misconfigured and users could login to other users accounts.
For all we know the misreported clicks are due to those proxies.
I am not part of PTCL staff. I am the normal Webmaster like yours, What I do is to research things that makes sense. Mr. Shahid Saleed is right. Proxies can be a reason for this. Same as Every Google Adsense Unit has a channel and Adsense has the pub id, every ad has the id, if you ever noticed it in the URL “gclid”. When same ad id gets many clicks from single IP then that ad id is forwarded to the special team of Google to track the clicks. Google doesn’t block accounts on computer based algorithm. A company that spends million of dollars in research has a real human team to manage click frauds. What I am going to say here is not that the PTCL is responsible, but PTCL has many factors that leads to suspicious click activities to Google Adsense/Adwords program.
i agree with the comment above and would also like to state that due to spam PTCL ips and email servers(pop, smtp) are now blocked with leading firewalls like baracuda etc
I nid advertising
Advertiser
Ads are not shown on my blog but my account is opening…. what i do now??
what if we follow all these rules and got banned, than post in google adsense forum for help and one of the contributor shows up and in the end said ” Google policy is they can take any account with or without reason at anytime “. Then what? Its simple There is no career in Running your own website no matter how hard you work.
my blog also got approved yesterday but then got a email tht your adsense account has been disabled sp sad naaaaaaaaaaa
But Ads are still showing in your site “www.justvb.net”
I can’t understand that many websites with disabled adsense are now showing ads in their site… Are their adsense havee been reinstated by Google, just curious.