Watch Your Proxies! Google has warned thee!
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It seems that alot of Proxy Owners are getting warning emails from Google regarding the infamous “fake click”, “click fraud”, and “illigetimate impressions”. I would like to write this post for all the people that still have their adsense accounts or have not yet recieved the infamous email from adsense “support”.
What Is Going On?:
Recently while doing research on Proxy.org regarding proxies and adsense I came accross this post. If you want the short version it seems that someone has created a bot to use proxies against them! This person or group of people are targetting proxies either because they want to shut down competing proxies or they want to piss off Google. Who the hell knows.
As we all know most proxies are making money via adsense. If we didnt have adsense we wouldnt have enough money to cover the server bill.
Some of the people that have recieved these emails have also now logged into their accounts to see that there payments are now on “hold”. So, if you opened a proxy site be very weary of days with a unusually high CTR.
What can I Do?:
The best advice I would give someone in a situation like this is to use adlogger. The problem though is this:
- The people doing this are actually using i.p. based proxies to do the dirty work. (At last count there were 15 i.p.’s doing this)
- The clicks are few and far in between. AdLogger is good for obvious Click Fraud like someone trying to click a ad 100 times. This “Botnet” is using different i.p.’s and only clicking 1-2 ads a time.
What do I suggest you do? The paranoid idea would be to take all adsense ads off your site and wait for the situation to settle down. This happened before about 4 months ago, and than went away, it seems to be back with a vengance. If you cant’t afford to do without advertising take a look at this post and find some other ways to monetize your proxy.
Don’t think it can happen to you? Good. I like the way you think…
April 14th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
yes, Inside AdSense of google had given out a note for webmasters:
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/04/note-on-traffic-exchange-programs.html
so, just take care your accounts.
April 14th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Do you have the IP’s?
If so let everyone know, that way they can be blocked via .htaccess.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Sorry, I dont have the I.P.’s I will try to get them.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Thanks for this mubin, very helpful
Love the blog!
April 15th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Mubin, please let me know ips when you get them..
Also, are you using adlogger?
Thanks,
Saad
April 15th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Sadly I was one of the ones to be banned by adsense.
Very sad. I have decided to put my proxies on hold for now.
April 15th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Thanks for heads up
the ip’s would be with no doubt very usefull
April 15th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Damn Adlogger is stupid tool i have used it.. so you better do not advice people to use it. it count click when u hover the ads. I think AsRep is good tool but it is paid but it is good for tracking its evaluation ll let you use their tracking system but not click fraud protection.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:54 am
[…] thread on proxy.org’s forum. You could read also this blog post of a fellow proxy webmaster Mubin, which is giving valuable advice for people new in the proxy […]
April 16th, 2007 at 2:37 am
I am the person responsible for Google’s involvement in this proxy (proxy.org) Adsense situation. My account was terminated on March 24th, shortly after running ads on proxy.org.
I have tried on numerous occasions to recruit “Baron” to assist and/or cooperate with Google Click Fraud and to date he has refused.
I am willing to do all that I can to assist those that have had their accounts terminated as a result of this fiasco.
Contact me at jcollins@lakotaoffice.com
April 16th, 2007 at 5:50 am
FOLLOW UP
I posted several messages on the Proxy.org forum earlier this evening. Most of those messages were asking Baron to cooperate with the investigation that is underway at Google. I also sent Baron both a PM through the forum and an email. Not only did he ignore my public and private requests but he deleted all of the messages from his forum.
Something “not quite right” is going on at www.proxy.org and if you continue to stand by and ignore it while you send more money to a system that Google has shown to have a SERIOUS fraud issue then you deserve whatever bad luck might befall you.
If I were you, I would ask Baron what he is trying to hide.
April 16th, 2007 at 10:23 am
Frogman are they not willing to give you your adsense account back if they proved it was through no fault of your own?
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Too bad for proxy sites. Is there any good adsense alternative for proxy sites?
May 4th, 2007 at 8:36 pm
Links Hut, try azoogle.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:40 am
Hello
You are The Best!!!
G’night