Someone replaced my Adsense ID

[leonwf]

Hello,

I purchased couple of PLR sites last time. The PLR sites come with a facility called "Admin Center" that allows us to login and edit a "config" file that records our Adsense id, clickbank id, eBay id, etc.. So everytime after I set up my PLR site, I will immediately change my Admin Center password.

Yesterday, I discovered that my Adsense ID in some of the pages of my live sites has been replaced by another Adsense ID.

I have written down the guilty Adsense ID.

Now, my question is.... how do I go about and report this to Google? Would Google care to help me track whose this Adsense ID belong to?

There are ONLY 3 parties who can access the "config" file: myself, people who have access to the PLR admin center, and people who manage the hosting server.

I normally use meaningless words for my password (only me can understand and remember). So I don't think someone could have guessed my password.

Please advise how do I track down this guilty adsense ID.

Thanks.
leon.

[keithngu]

Hi Leon,

It could be the members of the PLR site that you purchased. It's because they are the people get the exact same package as you did. They know your admin page, and default password. So, might change the adsense id even before you change your password. That's my opinion only.

I think you should report it. It should be easily tracked whose id is that, and they might get the proof that there is impression or click of your site in that account.

[leonwf]

Originally Posted by keithngu

Hi Leon,

It could be the members of the PLR site that you purchased. It's because they are the people get the exact same package as you did. They know your admin page, and default password. So, might change the adsense id even before you change your password. That's my opinion only.

I think you should report it. It should be easily tracked whose id is that, and they might get the proof that there is impression or click of your site in that account.

I already got the guilty Adsense ID written down. But how do I report to Google? Do you know?

Thanks..
leon.

[naughtyneo]

I don't think google is going to help in this matter.

The guys who coded the PLR site admin area might have left a loophole to enter inside and change the adsense id. You might want to protect your admin folder using cpanel.

Also is the "guilty adsense id" is same as the default adsense id which came along with the plr sites when you boght them? In that case you might have forgotten to save the edited config settings.

[Simon_Sezs]

I can't remember where I saw it but I believe I heard a guy chatting on an irc about a backdoor to a certain article marketing software. You should definitely contact the person who you purchased this from and find out more about it.

On a side note, if the guy changed the adsense id site-wide, then you have a newbie hacker. Most of the pros who do this sort of thing will only change a couple pages, making it a complete mess to figure out, (especially if you have hundreds of pages).

If I were you I would do this:

1. Contact the person who you purchased this from. Chances are he knows it exists and has a solution.
2. Check ALL your pages to make sure the adsense ID is your own. Make the changes.

It sucks but it happens. The important thing is you caught it.

[leonwf]

Originally Posted by naughtyneo

I don't think google is going to help in this matter.

The guys who coded the PLR site admin area might have left a loophole to enter inside and change the adsense id. You might want to protect your admin folder using cpanel.

Also is the "guilty adsense id" is same as the default adsense id which came along with the plr sites when you boght them? In that case you might have forgotten to save the edited config settings.

They don't come with a default Adsense ID. We need to manually enter our adsense ID when we set up the PLR site for the first time.

[dburk]

Hi leonwf,

You would need to go through your sites scripting line by line to look for vulnerabilities. Programmers often build in a back-door in case the admin loses their credentials.

These guys have built a basic tool that will check you publisher IDs site wide: Adsense Pub ID Checker I haven't tried it, looks a little too basic for my needs.

If there is enough interest I will be happy to build a similar tool that can do the same, but add automatic analysis so you don't have to look through thousands of lines of results to spot a problem. I can see many ways to improve this tool.

[captivereef]

The last thing i would do is tell google i bought a bunch of PLR sites for my adsense account, they may not ban you but they would probably sand box all your sites especially if its unedited PLR

[yaji]

I would not exclude that your hosting company may get involved as there are so many cheap hosting companies there even some provide for free. But I always doubt how they can protect your data and privacy. Need a reputable hosting company who takes your data and privacy seriously and have proper process in place to enforce this.

Data nd privacy is so imprtant so when research hosting companies don't just chase the cheapest ones. Period.

[leonwf]

Originally Posted by captivereef

The last thing i would do is tell google i bought a bunch of PLR sites for my adsense account, they may not ban you but they would probably sand box all your sites especially if its unedited PLR

Hi captivereef,

Thanks for your advice. Yes, I was so stupid last time that I fell for buying PLR sites. But this is part of my IM learning process.

If I were to start all over again in IM... I will just focus on building a professional-looking "review" sites with some well-written articles. And then just focus on submitting quality articles to EzineArticles (I started to submit at least 1-2 articles perday and starting to get the hang of it).

And after one short month, I have seen results that I have never seen before. My affiliate sales and adsense income increase dramatically. That's why I started to monitor my adsense income; and discovered that some of my adsense ID had been replaced. But fortunately, these are those low-traffic PLR sites. Yes, it's a mistake to buy PLR sites because the quality of the articles are very very LOW. Unless of course you re-written everything. So, I reckon it's much better to build my own site with few QUALITY and well-written articles by myself.

rgds,
leon.