A Reponse from Google.

Well, I received a response from Google (original post) and unfortunately the answer wasn’t very helpful. Except for a short paragraph at the beginning of the email the rest was a cookie cutter answer (same one I received once in the past). View their response after the jump.

My Email to Google:

Hello,

I know that Google cannot provide me with the details of this account, however it does raise a concern.

http://www.richtwinpoortwin.com/banned-from-google-adsense-lost-200000.html

Rather than taking the word of these individuals and the other stories online about being banned without warning I would prefer to hear from Google directly.

Can you comment on the various stories online in which people are claiming that their sites are not violating (or unknowingly violating) Google’s TOS and without warning their adsense accounts are shut down?

Does the site diagnostics located in the adsense account provide accurate information in respect to giving me a warning that one of my sites is violating your terms?

Will Google notify me if my account is triggering any invalid click filters? I would like to be notified that there’s is suspicious activity on my sites so I can research my logs and block access to these sites from the offending visitors (bots, scripts, ips, etc). These type of visitors are not wanted on my site anymore than they are wanted by the advertises. These visitors not only cost advertisers money by invalid clicks, but they cost us publishers money in wasted bandwidth as well.

If the story of the twins above is true and these individuals did not violate any terms of service, I can’t understand why Google would shut them down. If Google shut them down due to invalid clicks that were not a result of the actions of these individuals and possibly the result of an attack, I think it’s really unfair. It would be much more beneficial to both the advertisers and publishers if Google would communicate first before action. Most publishers are not out to deceive Google and are more than willing to work with Google.

Thanks,
Shannon

Their Response:

Hi Shannon,

Thanks for your email. I understand that you’d like more information about
invalid clicks. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary
detection systems, we’re unable to provide any details about how our
monitoring technology works.

I see that you’re worried about the possibility of invalid clicks being
generated on your site, so I’ve provided a couple of solutions below that

- Show quoted text -
I hope will address your concerns.

1. We encourage you to regularly review your site’s traffic logs for any
suspicious activity and notify us of your findings at
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_contact.
Please note that there’s no need to alert us of all instances of invalid
activity, so we ask that you use your best judgment when reporting unusual
activity on your site.

If you need help logging the traffic on your site, we recommend trying
these Google search terms:

Webmaster resources
Website tracking and logging
Site traffic analysis

2. You can find tips and guidelines for keeping your account in good
standing by visiting our Help Center at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921.

3. Another good way to ensure that you don’t generate invalid clicks is by
reviewing and remaining in compliance with our Terms and Conditions and
program policies:

https://www.google.com/adsense/terms
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies

I realize that you may have questions about what Google is doing to
prevent invalid click activity. Rest assured that our specialists
carefully monitor clicks and impressions on Google ads in order to protect
your interests as well as those of our advertisers. To do this, we use
both automated systems and human reviews, analyzing all ad clicks for any
invalid click activity that may artificially drive up an advertiser’s
costs or a publisher’s earnings. Please note that according to our Terms
and Conditions, Google will use its sole discretion when determining
instances of invalid clicks.

Thanks again for contacting us. We look forward to working with you in the
future.

For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help
Center (http://www.google.com/adsense_help), our complete resource center
for all AdSense topics. Alternatively, feel free to post your question on
the forum just for AdSense publishers: the AdSense Help Group
(http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help).

Sincerely,

Becky

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