I previously posted about AdSense click fraud that was targeted at me on Caffeine Enthusiast. I had several e-mails back and forth with the AdSense team — most, if not all of theirs being form letters — and I thought that was pretty much the end of it.

Well imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from Google three days ago telling me that my AdSense account was disabled! I was mostly mad, both at the person who targeted my ads, and at Google for pretty much ignoring my messages to them about what occurred despite my evidence. Their form letter that informed me of my account closure also directed me to a form on their site where I could appeal to their decision. I was upset, and my e-mail no doubt reflected this, but here is a (slightly censored) copy of what I sent them.

I had a series of emails I provided to AdSense support informing them of click sabotage by another AdSense user. The fact that I provided so much information about this user attempting to sabotage my account only to have my own account closed is absurd. If an account should be closed, it should be the account of the user who committed the click fraud.

I cannot sincerely believe that this was really researched appropriately given the great amount of detail I provided in a series of emails prior to receiving word that my account has been closed. I have attached the emails to this message such that they can hopefully be read this time.

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From: Matt Huggins
Subject: Invalid Clicks Form
Submitted Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 13:31:38 -0800

I sent an earlier message through here earlier to report click fraud for my site CaffeineEnthusiast.com. It related to a post I made at a forum (URL at bottom of this message) to get feedback and input from other site developers on the layout of my new site.

One of the members today decided to click all my ads once, assuming he was helping. I filled out this form to report the click fraud, and I posted a response on the forum basically saying “thanks but no thanks for the ad clicks”, stating that it is against AdSense policy. Given a negative response he made on the forum, I believe it is he who provided even more ad clicks on my site, resulting in a CTR of 117.39%.

If there is a way to ban this user’s IP address from clicking on my advertisements, I would appreciate it. I hope this one person’s behavior will not result in any negative consequences for me or my AdSense account status.

Thank you for your assistance in this matter!

Sincerely,
Matt Huggins

Forum Thread URL: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Number=8782334

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Hi Sean,

Thanks for the response. In addition to the information I was able to supply in my last message, I discovered through Google Analytics that this person also requested members of b9board.com to generate fraudulent clicks on my site. Here is the URL for the specific forum thread where this occurred:

http://b9board.com/viewtopic.php?t=308676&sid=92d4c735b22088d3d61a999247e5bdc8

I understand that my earnings figures will likely change, but I am simply hoping that the immature actions of others online will not result in any issues with my AdSense account being suspended. Thank you for your assistance in this matter.

Sincerely,
Matt Huggins

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Hi Sean,

Upon looking further, I’ve found that the person who decided to sabotage my AdSense with link clicks from himself and others on the b9board forums (as per my previous email below) has several sites of his own that utilize AdSense. I didn’t see in the AdSense TOS where it explicitly states against sabotaging others’ ads; however, I can’t imagine that it is something that would be considered appropriate for its account members. In case you are curious, here are two of the sites he references as owning:

[URL's removed]

In addition, here is his Google Ad Client ID extracted from his site’s code: [Google publisher ID removed]

If you’d like to know how I determined that these sites belong to the same person who attempted to sabotage the ads on my site, I can elaborate further. Once again, I appreciate all your assistance in this matter.

Sincerely,
Matt Huggins

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Hi Matt,

Thanks for letting us know about the activity on your account. We appreciate your honesty and your continued efforts toward avoiding invalid click activity going forward. Please rest assured that your account will be properly credited for all valid clicks and impressions.

Sincerely,
Sean The Google AdSense Team

I received a response from Google yesterday thanking me for the additional information and informing me that my account has been re-opened. I checked, and I found that my ads were displaying again. (Empty spaces were showing where my ads were during the period that my account was closed.)

After receiving this information, I thought I’d take a look at the websites belonging to the guy who committed the click fraud against me. Well wouldn’t you know it, but his ads weren’t displaying! This leads me to believe that Google went ahead and closed his account after reading through the information I provided. Justice is served!