Google AdSense Leak

I didn't read it all but it seems pretty unlikely that a company the size of Google would be banning people who are close to their first payout to save a few bucks.

As I said, didn't read all of it so I'm not sure if there was anything more damning but I would not pay much attention to this.

It doesn't make financial sense to do this. Why kill the cow when you can milk it everyday, i.e. getting paid from the publisher to host your ads and further your brand (Adsense).

It probably does occur before payouts because this is when things tend to get analzyed. Your boss checks if you finished the work (if not hourly, checks with managers, and affiliates make sure the traffic and conversions are legitamate). Same is most likely true for Google Adsense. Fly by night bs sites that enduce fake clicks are probably the victims here, otherwise it doesn't make sense to withold 1 months payment (threshold easily met by larger publishers) then make it XXX per month for life from a client (publishing partner).

I calling BS on this one. It reads more like a disgruntled ex-publisher than an ex-googler.

While no one can establish the substance of the letter but one thing remains common and true about Google adsense: they ban you when you are about to receive a payout.

All the people i have personally interviewed got banned a few days to their payout, that's a big red flag.

Seems fake. Pay attention to the terms he uses. Compare it with the terms Adsense uses. Probably an adsense publisher that got the business end of the ban hammer.

The leak is short on proof, but it sure matches the experience we had in 2012, which left us with a real distrust of Google. I'm going to follow this with interest and, if it turns out bad for Google, more than a bit of schadenfreude.

This author is anonymous, but it correlates with everything I have experienced back in the days..

Google AdSense Leak - Pastebin.com

Very revealing details. I would think VERY Hard Twice before stacking a living off of Google Adsense..

There was a huge increase in bans after 2009. Even some VERY big adsense publishers got banned including people who joined Adsense when it first launched.

2009 was also just 1 year after the stock market crash and stocks were trading at very low prices. Lots of angry shareholders for Google to please and they probably need a quick and easy way to boost revenue without attracting more advertisers.

I believe this 100% because my adsense revenue went from $500 per month to barely $20 in a couple of months with similar traffic. Now my clicks are for pennies in the financial niche. Unbelievable.

Adsense is good for starters, but when you get more traffic reach out to private advertisers and sell your own products.

What can I say -- anonymous post, conspiracy theory, and a purported "follow-up" that does nothing to validate the conspiracy (except to those who wish to believe it.)

The policy of disabling accounts just before payout occurs for two reasons. For small accounts, there isn't any reason to bother checking until the $100 or equivalent threshold is reached -- for larger accounts, there are often fishy things with the traffic and these are caught by the bots as the payout process approaches.

The other side of the story is that Google is fighting organized click fraud rings who seek to operate under the radar.

Are there some unjustified disablings? Probably -- the law of large numbers suggests that would be the case. But virtually every "innocent" disabled publisher I've looked into has had some skeletons under the closet -- and I'm not working with any private information that Google might be accumulating. I've seen plenty of disabled publishers come to the threads on the help forum, complain they've been disabled unjustly, and then uncovered smoking gun evidence of -- guilt. (Like open and visible exhortations to "help" by clicking the ads, on the published websites or videos.)

The disabling process is brutal, impersonal and not very much fun. I've been through it and thankfully survived. But this isn't a grand conspiracy to defraud publishers -- look, Google is spending a small fortune tracking down old accounts with small balances, to pay them out -- because it needs to under state escheat laws (requiring unclaimed personal property, including incomplete accounts, be returned to the individual or be paid into state government accounts.)

Anyone who builds a business primarily on AdSense is a fool, nevertheless, because no one should rely on a single client for more than a modest fraction of business revenue. But the program isn't some giant scam --although plenty of scammers live outside, on its edge.