Need advice: Google is refusing to pay me ~$450 ad revenue from my site (icanhasmirror.com), even though it was all legitimate traffic from hitting the front page of reddit.

Also, every website that runs Adsense must have a Privacy Policy (Stuff about targeted ads, user IPs etc). It is in the TOS, I was surprised that I had been without one for quite some time.

Also, the OP should go with ad Brite. They let you get away with much more stuff than Google. Google has to cover their ass from being sued, Ad Brite just wants to make profit. You won't make as much from Ad Brite (maybe), but you can transfer to paypal I think.

so is reddit allowed to put adsense between its stories since it doesn't necessarily have the right to 'monetize copyrighted content without the right to' ? i'm no lawyer but that's what i get from your explanation..

Lol. If you could do this, you would just put up the mirror site, and then promote it through another site that links to it, and get the ad revenue there. Google's not that dumb.

even though they are not profiting from it

That is the difference

You have no idea how businesses work, do you.

http://searchengineland.com/remember-that-adsense-publisher-that-sued-google-won-well-he-lost-20663

Note that while he won the initial judgment, he lost the appeal.

I'm sure your site is fine and you are being unfairly treated by Google, but can you confirm that your site contained none of the following:

1. content generated by content creation or article writing software
2. content written by article writing sweat shops usually based in Asia
3. private label rights articles
4. content taken from article directories - either reproduced as is or rewritten
5. rewritten content from any other source
6. lots of pages containing few words
7. content that makes little or no sense to human visitors
8. content that provides little or no value to human visitors
9. content that is not relevant to the main subject area of the site
10. content that encourages visitors to click on Adsense ads
11. content that in any way tricks visitors into clicking on those ads
12. lots of repetitive content.

I wonder... if they don't pay you, do they refund the money to the advertisers that spent cash on "fraudulent" clicks?

I bet they don't... I bet they keep that shit for themselves.

Don't be evil, my ass.

Why not sue them now?

well played, although Greenspan admits he violated the terms of service. if OP didn't, he should have a better chance of success.

Or they could just...act in concordance with the rules they create and not try to weasel their way out of paying for legitimate things.

Doing nothing? In order to get money from Adsense, you NEED visitors. And visitors just don't fall from the sky you know.

no i'm mad because they are getting paid, but not paying the people that make it possible for them to get paid

Don't worry. The current story in the higher levels of hard academia (math, CS, physics) is that Google doesn't have nearly the brains it likes people to think it has. It's selling you a very specific image by being very specifically opaque.

On a semi related point; Apple have a history, with the iPhone/iPad platform to be specific, of using third party developers to test the waters on what's marketable and what's not.

Imagine having 20,000 companies and many more individuals pooling their ideas and then hand picking specific areas to (ab)use their monopoly to move into.

Yup, that's Apple™

Just to rebuttal a couple of points.

If you write an Android app you KNOW it will be deployed.

As a customer I know that I am more likely to get a safe app on iPhone then on Android. That is what it says to me as a consumer. "Android allows any crap". Truth is they both do, although apple are pushing back on scam apps (not sure about Androids stance).

They charge a fee for the "privilege" of developing for them

You can develop for OSX for free. You can download the development kit for free. You can also develop iPhone apps for free. You only have to pay to get the certificate to sign the app (so it runs on a mobile) and be able to submit it to the apple store.

they force you to switch to OSX to use their developer tools

They relaxed the contract recently so you can use any other development tools to create the iPhone app as long as it does not download code.

and they wait until you finish your project before they tell you if they will even accept it or not.

If you follow the guidelines to the appstore then you shouldn't have an issue. They also changed the rules to make it more transparent when your app is rejected so you can correct it.

This isn't quite so relevant anymore, with the recent relaxing of application guidelines. Hell, Google Voice was finally approved.

As long as you don't include porn or use private frameworks, there usually isn't a problem. If they do reject an app, at least they give a REASON. Google's AdSense program doesn't do that unless you take them to circuit court.

Would you develop win applications on osx?

Anyway, the fee isnt that huge. Don't know how the fee is for making nintendo or playstation games. But I suspect they are a little higher.

Btw, your fart app didnt get approved because it downloaded external code.

AdMob is decent, but the best in-app ad program for iPhone development is Apple's own iAds.

I disagree. In my own experience, Apple has done nothing but good for me. At every level from their personnel in their retail stores to the people that run the App Store to Jobs himself.

I think they are a great company that truly innovates, takes risks, and deserves to reap the rewards.

You could go with some Adsense alternatives too. There's others like AdBrite but I honestly only have experience with their adult advertising: BlackLabelAds.

If you were on the up and up, just go to small claims. Get $200 just for showing up in court for a few hours.

Yeah, it's not fair at all to the victim and you need to explain it to Google to get another manual review (lol good luck there). My guess would be that this doesn't apply to huge publishers with a good track of bringing in quality leads to their advertisers.

Lots of good info on it if anyone reading this hasn't ever heard of the term: http://www.google.com/search?q=click+bomb

Well be careful crazybones, you are taking a single comment author's word for it. There are numerous protections against click fraud, for the advertiser and publisher and almost all of them are propriety.

From what you do know, that the very big successful Google.com company relies on Adsense to make bank, well does it seem logical that they would allow such a primitive system to manage one of the most vulnerable areas of their business model?

Without casting my own opinions, I have my doubts. I am not saying they are angels, I just don't think they are incredibly stupid either. It is asking me to assume they made 0 progress or adaptions on click fraud from around 5 years ago, to this day.

This is from experience and years of research and participation in adsense. Take it or leave it. I've been with Adsense for many years and many websites running adsense. If you do not follow the golden rule: Content is king, users come first, you are termed. When you hit the $100 a day mark, if you have shit content or are running MFA (made for adsense) web sites you will be terminated.

Review any blackhat forum out there.

OP, you can also get a new Adsense account. Register a business or register a relative. If you run blackhat, made for adsense sites, keep all of those on separate accounts and keep you whitehat money sites on your money account. True, unique articles and content whitehat type sites.

There's also many other little rules you need to look out for. Such as 3 adsense ads per page, no ads near images and things of that nature. Those will all be overlooked by Google if you are a huge publisher that brings in quality leads to their advertisers though.

It's just the nature of the game. You force Google to refund clients, they'll terminate you. Whether or not it is your fault. Read plenty of horror stories about people getting click-bombed by competitors in niches and losing their accounts.

This is the problem with people and Google, because Google don't let you see the gears turning, people try find patterns in the noise; "I changed my forum when they did it" - well then the two events must obviously be related.

Or some black hats on a forum; "I was earning over $100 a day", "omg me too" - well, then without a shadow of a doubt, there must be a threshold of $100 where they review your site!

Evidence and hearsay are two different things, and whilst I am not saying it is or is not this way, I am saying cause and effect is the same thinking that makes people superstitious and hardly a replacement for cold, hard evidence, at least not for myself.

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Erm, why don't you just find a relevant affiliate offer instead of AdSense? The Google Ads probably just link to landing pages using affiliate offers anyways, so you might as well get paid by with dollars instead of a handful of change.

EDIT: To do that just create a subdomain like support.whatever.com. Then create your own "ad text" under the pretense of supporting the website, and how the money will go to developing other web apps that better serve the community.

Pretty sure you would need to sue them in CA per their terms. You also pretty much signed your rights away to their terms just by participating. I know you won't listen to this, but the best thing you can do is consider it a life lesson and just let it go. $450 is not worth the time you'll sink into this, even if you don't have a job. Spend the time and effort learning a new skill/technology, or work on some other project. You'll be happier in the long run.

They will send someone to show for them. You will not win.

Additionally, you agreed to their ToS, which states that they have full and total control over everything.

Additionally, your site is not using original content whatsoever, which is another issue against ToS.

Wait until they appeal, state that the information on why you were banned would harm their business if disclosed and then charge you costs while bullying you into non-disclosure agreement.

They are such vindictive monsters appealing his decision simply because he wrote an an article about it. I can't believe people blindly trust them with 90% of their online activity when they will certainly misuse it without hesitation.

Also, read the terms and conditions, I have no doubt you'll be vaguely in violation of some e.g. content guidelines

"Sites with Google ads may not include or link to [almost anything]"

Sounds good man. Will be a good deposit for your personal experience bank.

Also you can tell people that you sued google and won. :)

I like your style, dude...

Nothing beats el-boeing people in the ribs when they do you wrong.

No complaints here yet

Then just file a small claims suit. Someone will contact you, believe me.

Do not threaten. The minute you do it becomes a legal issue that must be referred to the lawyers, and you'll never get anything out of them in good time.

If you plan on pursuing your options in court i wish you luck, otherwise you're pretty much out of luck as it seems they've successfully removed the human element from the appeals process. Perhaps that's where press comes in? good luck toward that end too!

That won't help. Do you realize how many threatening letters they would have received? The letter will be discarded before even anyone at Google see it.

Search for the right people on linkedin, send them a message through that.

lawyers aren't usually allowed in small claims courts.

$3.8CPM is pretty fucking insane, screams click fraud.

Wait. Did you open an adsense account with this site or with another site and you used the same adcode in this new site (which is obviously allowed)?

I only ask because that would shift me to believe it may be that this new site that was never manually reviewed may have a tiny violation (could be anything really) and they took issue with that, as opposed to click fraud or something similar (which is where my head was at before).

I know it sucks, and you are right in being frustrated, but deep down you know they have a reason.

I don't think so. Redditors are among the tech savviest people in the world, and the tech savvy people don't click ads. They probably don't even see the ads (with ads blocker).

You have to read the fine print carefully. There might have been a forum clause in the agreement that you signed with them. If not they probably do enough business in your home state that you can file where you live.

You do not have to sue where the resident resides, Google does business across the entire USA in sufficient quantity that you may take them on in any venue.