Our adsense account has now been disabled after using this module. I would not suggest using.

Comments

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented

Google will not reinstate account nor give reason

jcnventura’s picture

jcnventura
Primary language English
commented
Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)

Reported installs: 10909 sites currently report using this module.

I've contacted Google before and they've known for a long time that the module exists.. I have serious doubts that your account was blocked only because of using the module.

However, can you provide your Adsense publisher ID? I can try to contact my contact at Google and find out if it was really because you used the module or not. If they confirm that they're blocking people for using the module, we would have to retire it.

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Active

@jcnventura Thanks for the help. I will PM you the publisher id. We had been using the module for months without issue. The reason that we were making this conclusion is the moment we added the adsense module code to our node we were banned about a day later.
We have been seeing a significant increase in our traffic so we wanted to test what a difference it would make add it to our nodes too.
1. The email was for invalid click activity
2. We never had more than 3 ads on any page at any time.
3. We were not clicking on our own ads.
4. We appealed with details of what we thought it could be
(we had a few sites, loan and junk sites setting up users and posting content that looked real but had junk links in them, yes we use Mollom etc.) We made sure to remove these users, delete content and block their ips then an ip range as they were on several spam ip sites. We also had (think it is related a site called newseytype setting up accounts and re-posting their articles verbatim.
5. We only accept original content by users and any editors.
6. We wonder if they were pissed and did a click bomb or something
7. Our issue is our appeal said thank for the provided in for but we cannot re-instate. So we re-appealed and did get read receipts but no further replies.
8. We tried to call Google Corporate as well as Adwords and we had no luck reaching anyone at adsense so we wouldn't to help us get this sorted out.
9. We use Googleanalytics and were planning an AdWord campaign but that is a no go if we cannot get this fixed.
10. We have finally broken through the Quantcast 100k site mark (last check was like 97K rank not visitors)
11. We get traffic from Google OG Search Facebook, Twitter and other social shares.

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented

@jcnventura just checking in Sent you the info. thanks for the help

jcnventura’s picture

jcnventura
Primary language English
commented

I've contacted Google.. I'm hoping for more info from them..

If they confirm your suspitions, I'll retire the module. In any case, I don't think I can do much for getting your account re-instated. That will have to go through your ongoing appeals process.

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented

Thanks for the update. We are getting nowhere with appeals they keep being denied and they never said we HAD invalid Clicks it said "After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity" poses a risk NOT had invalid clicks. Good luck let us know what you find, we have called emailed etc.

jcnventura’s picture

jcnventura
Primary language English
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

@venusrising: I got a reply from them that states that they normally only take action against more serious offences that threaten the advertiser and user experience.

However, and as detailed in the module's homepage:

Strictly speaking, this module is not in compliance with the AdSense TOS, since you're not exactly copy-pasting the script code in your site. No one has ever reported being banned because of using this module, and Google knows of its existence, and seem not to mind.

My impression is that it's not in the interest of Google (or their lawyers) to authorise the use of such a tool or they could risk opening a breach in any possible defence of their AdSense TOS. So you CAN get banned simply by using the module, but from their not-so-explicit reply, I guess you got banned for a more "serious violation". Based on that, I won't discontinue the module and you'll still be banned for some (unknown) reason anyway..

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented
Status: Fixed » Active

Where did they say we got banned for a more "serious" violation?
After re-reviewing our emails from Adsense, it never said it was for Invalid Click activity but rather the "poses a risk for generating invalid click activity." We had a really huge spike in traffic which caused us to have a increase in clicks so we still have no idea why this account was banned as we always followed the TOS and only use original content. They have never replied to our last appeal nor any follow-ups either. It is really crazy that they don not even give any explanation. We have had this account for years and running on a few other sites via adding the code with no issue. It was only until we started using this module that we got banned so it seemed like the only correlation we could find and with their lack of communication it is impossible to know.

jcnventura’s picture

jcnventura
Primary language English
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

I'm sorry, but I don't think that I can reproduce their complete e-mail without their permission.. As I get it, the policy team _normally_ only takes action against more serious offenses.

As you said, they're not providing any further info on your specific case.. I take it that they're not blocking AdSense accounts just because of using the module, but they'll also not approve it, as it would mean approval of TOS violations (which you'll understand is something they can't do).

Unfortunately, you seem to have two parallel events: huge increase in clicks and use of the module.. It's not possible to say it was because of any one of them. However, from their reply and the fact that you're the first of 10.000 users to report a possible ban because of using the module, I am leaning for the conjecture that you got banned because of the huge spike in clicks.

venusrising’s picture

venusrising commented
Status: Fixed » Active

I guess it is really impossible to know why the account was banned. It just seems really odd they would provide personal information to you about our publisher account that they will not provide to us. Seems like quite a conflict of interest.
What would be very interesting to know is what a general collective site ranking is for most of the sites using the module. Obviously there is no way to know that but would be interesting to see if site traffic and visitors cause any greater awareness or irritation by Google. I can totally understand if they said hey you violated due to invalid clicks but a "potential" just seems weird - especially how many bogus weird sites have adsense ads on them. Not sure how they think anyone can follow a rule for hypotheticals, sad they don't communicate better.

jcnventura’s picture

jcnventura
Primary language English
commented
Status: Active » Fixed

They haven't provided any personal information about your account to me.. In fact your particular case is not even referenced. All they said was that usage of the module is not a "serious violation" and that USUALLY they don't go after stuff like that.

Although it would be easy to create a spider to index the Alexa top #1M and check if any of them is using the module, I haven't created one..

And please, can we leave this as fixed... There's nothing more I can say about this.. There's only two ways out of this:

1) The module caused you to be banned. This means that the module should be discontinued, forcing the other 12540 users of the module to change their sites. Which weren't banned. Based on my conversations with Google, I don't think this was the case.

2) The module was not the cause of your ban.. Google AdSense can ban you based on subjective criteria and they're not forced to explain to you anything.. You can appeal (which you did), but in the end they decide. If this was the case, I can't give you any more information, and the module doesn't need to be modified because of your case.

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

programiz’s picture

programiz commented

I think, I discovered official page from Google on whether you can you adsense module with Drupal or not.

From support.google.com
The following content management systems (CMS) use third-party plugins or add-ons to insert AdSense ads on the webpages generated by the system. Google does not endorse or support these plugins. However, you can use these plugins/add-ons as long as the ad code displayed on your webpage remains unchanged and is not altered by the plugin in any way.

  • Wordress
  • Drupal
  • ...

If you want to read full article, visit this page

I don't think your Adsense got banned only because you used Adsense module. Hope you have already found a good advertising company by now.