Did you read the Mea Culpa? Unless Mr. Winter is lying, Zak's question still stands. It seems like there is a potential for injustice when the reviews are held in secret like they were. All Google put forth was that there was a risk of generating invalid [click] activity.

As one who, like you, pays for that invalid activity I am glad to see Google do what they can to stem it.

But it gets very serious in my mind when they can also take the cash from the account. They should be required to show explicitly their justification. If that means that their business has to change because their algorithms are exposed, so be it. What they are doing does not seem to be a fair business practice to me, and I worry about the precedent they are being allowed to set.

It is obvious to you and me that a 6% CTR is supernaturally high, at least in my experience.

If Google's algorithms are so great as to detect AdSense "cheaters," why don't they just throttle down the CPC for "cheaters" down to 1 cent (or less)?

I think we're basically discovering that Google is defending their immature AdSense algorithms by banning users rather than adapting to different behaviors.

It's not that simple. Real cheaters will react, and devise counter strategies to whatever you are tying to do.

I can understand that Google is strict about this, that's their core business, CPC and conversion rate are what makes them the best advertising platform in the world. They have to protect that fiercely, even if some unfortunate users are thrown under the bus along the way.

Is it possible in the AdSense scheme to set up multiple accounts? It seems if he'd had an account for the YouTube site, and another one for his sailing stuff, he'd at least have kept his money maker.

They actually have been doing this for some time with Smart Pricing.

It wasn't working too well.

heh, "immature algorithms"

These are the algorithms that every man and his dog want the key to, the holy grail of net commerce.

I was going to write something more sarcastic but instead I'll ask: Who has better algorithms and how are they doing with them?

That's not necessarily true. Google sends out different emails depending on the method in which it banned you. The message that was sent out rules out a few automated systems, but doesn't tell the cause. Having high ctr doesn't mean its bad. There are accounts with 20% ctr which are fine.

-Ex Google Spam

Perhaps I did not read carefully enough, but I didn't read anything that made it seem like he directly or indirectly asked anything. He simply makes a point of being 100% transparent in how he runs his business; part of that was explaining that ad clicks improve his revenue. Did Google expect him to lie?

Effectively, yes, if you consider keeping secrets to be lying. Saying "clicking on these adds gets me money," could easily be considered indirectly encouraging people to click on ads. And that's against Google's rules... and for good reason.

I don't particularly like Google's lack of transparency, but all this stuff is in the terms you're required to agree to before you start using an AdSense account. Yes, it's a big scary legal document, but you can't say they didn't warn you.

> Saying "clicking on these adds gets me money," could easily be considered indirectly encouraging people to click on ads

How many people believe otherwise? If you cater to any audience with a 3-digit IQ, they know you get paid when they click.

On my current arrangement I have payments on conversion (it's working well enough) but it requires a bit more work than AdSense did.

"How many people believe otherwise?"

That's kind of the point, I think. Stating an obvious fact is often used to suggest some kind of action. And it sounds like that happened here.

I feel bad for the guy, surely. He made a small mistake and paid disproportionately. But once you get branded as a cheater, even if by accident, then advertisers will run away from you.

TV isn't a good analogy, because it's a different business model, so this kind of cheating is impossible.

They may think you only get paid if a) they click and b) they buy...

I wonder if that part of the ToS would hold up in court. This guy could have achieved the same effect by simply publishing some of his financial records, especially if he was going for transparency; anyone would be able to see his revenue report with an itemized entry that looked like "Ad Click Revenue - 152,380 clicks @ $X per click = $Y (50% of total revenue)". Can you actually sign away your right to publish such reports without redactions?

Maybe, but this happened on his site, and Google withheld the money from the Youtube ads, which constituted the bulk of his revenue. That's just not fair.

And they continue to run ads next to his Youtube videos; they simply stopped giving him his share. That is even less fair.

Maybe the lesson is: have multiple accounts with Adsense so that if one has a problem then the others are unaffected.

Isn't it against Google policy to have multiple AdSense accounts?

yes

Exactly. Also, why isn't he trying out with different keywords. Placing all the eggs in a single basket wont get you much. If he diversifies ad campaign across different categories, he will see better results. If he not happy with cost per click mode, he can switch to CPM advertising where ther are lesser chances of fraud.