Why don't more Amiga sites use Google ads?

[boris_f]

(Before I get accused of being a one hit troll, I had a login here years ago and I've been trying to get in all night to give Wayne a suggestion, but for whatever reason I couldnt log on and kept getting blank screens.)

Hi Wayne, google arent monsters. Mail them, tell them what happened, give them whatever evidence you can. Theyll restore that google advert thing in no time. If they dont then there not worth doing business with.

Its sad that theres idiots around that do this kind of stuff, but playing the blame game only makes things worse. I can see your angry, but attacking ppl like that and then dismissing them as off topic when they answer you is really poor. Its just not nice.

Being insulting to a group who have never done you any harm isn't helping you.

I don't know how this got started again, nor why -- all the sudden -- it's about a group of people that I neither care for, or about.  This morning, after a month of inactivity, this thread was resurrected by someone (I forget whether ikir or itix) just wanting to bump it to invite trolling based on the Moobunny trolling going on at the moment.  That post was removed.

I then thought to tell everyone about the google adsense problem which was created by at least one member of this site intentionally trying to attack me on a personal level.  Here's the thing...  *I* never mentioned AmigaZeux (this morning).  It's "Itix" and "Gelb" that took this conversation (which is, and should be about Google ads) completely out of context and warped it to be about them (based on month old comments) to --apparently-- irritate the hell out of me about old crap that doesn't matter.

I wasn't even slamming them a month ago if you'll bother (which most people don't) to read things in context.  "DJBase" said "I don't like ads", to which I simply pointed out that -- in fact -- his avatar is an advertisement.

(God forbid Wayne mention AmigaZeux in a sentence -- regardless of context -- without that whole little gang showing up like the marketing guerillas they are and slamming him for it...)

I guess the it was just my turn to be attacked by the trolls, since Christian Kemp isn't around at the moment.  In essence, I don't care about this conversation at all, but if one of them wants to admit to having Amiga.org (and more specifically me) blacklisted at google -- which is what their intent seems to be -- then I'm all ears.

Wayne

[boris_f]

Hi Wayne,

I think its just the fact that you cant ever mention amigazeux without getting that little sly insult in. Whatever the history of you and morphos, theyre not the scapegoats you make them out to be.

cheers

[itix]

This morning, after a month of inactivity, this thread was resurrected by someone (I forget whether ikir or itix) just wanting to bump it to invite trolling based on the Moobunny trolling going on at the moment. That post was removed.

It was me. I jumped into thread and after hitting the submit I found out it was old thread actually. I removed my rambling but it was too late already.

"DJBase" said "I don't like ads", to which I simply pointed out that -- in fact -- his avatar is an advertisement.

I see. One moment, I'm gonna change my sig again.

[Piru]

This morning, after a month of inactivity, this thread was resurrected by someone (I forget whether ikir or itix) just wanting to bump it to invite trolling based on the Moobunny trolling going on at the moment. That post was removed.

[...Stupid question edited out...]

[Ok, itix explained it. I only saw '. . .' myself]

I then thought to tell everyone about the google adsense problem which was created by at least one member of this site intentionally trying to attack me on a personal level.

I don't claim to understand what the adsense problem really was, but IP spoofing sure doesn't sound very credible to me.

"Bots" just don't go about spoofing IP addresses, even if they did, it's very very hard to spoof the connection these days, mainly because ISN no longer are simple 64k rulers and because of the proper ingres/egres filtering. Certainly it's pretty much impossible to maintain full blown TCP/IP http traffic with blind ip spoofing.

[adz]

Wayne wrote:

You might notice that we're no longer running google ads on Amiga.org.  The reason for this is that someone apparently thought it would be funny to set up a bot spoofing my IP address and click on the ads hundreds of times.

Now thats just f***ing pathetic, not to mention cowardly, if I knew who did that I would literally beat him/her (I don't discriminate) into a bloody pulp. Its no wonder the Amiga community is in shambles, this is the kind of thing that makes me want to pack my bags and leave the Amiga community altogether.

[Targhan]

Losing advertising, both the dollars and the recursive advertising for our little community have both been lost.

On the other hand, I did learn something today.  There are things that I cannot fix, bridges I cannot mend, and people whom I cannot help to reach a peaceful agreement.  And, that is that.

Just to be very clear here (God how I've tried to be clear throughout this ordeal)...

I got a note saying that "your account has been terminated for violating our terms of service".  It went on to say something about the section for "creating invalid clicks by deceptive means" (which I did not do). The thing is, when Google claims this was occurring, I was literally 600 miles away in New Orleans on business travel and not at my machine (which was on).  

I have written them roughly a dozen times and get three rotating stock answers, including one which says that "explaining to you why you were terminated would disclose proprietary information" (gee, an IP address..)...  There is no contact number (that they will answer), there is no one listening, and I'm fairly certain that the big bad Google couldn't care less.

I'm just putting two and two together here, and may be coming out with the wrong answer, but I can only assemble the puzzle with the few parts I've got.  

Several friends have suggested possibilities including IP Spoofing and my machine being hacked into, but neither really makes sense.  If it were IP spoofing, it would have conflicted with my connection to the Web.  (I *have* had continual -- verifiable -- problems with my connection for about two weeks where it simply drops the connection at random requiring a modem hardboot to fix).  I can't believe however that someone in the Amiga community would hate me enough to literally break into my machine (which would be difficult) then use it to continually click on my banner advertisements.

So...  That leaves two real possibilities that I know of;

1) Someone (one person) here was "trying to help" and clicked on the banners several hundred times per day. (768 or so per day according to the click counter)

2) Someone (one person) hates me, the advertisements, and/or this site enough to literally work at getting me banned from Google (remember, this affects me far beyond Amiga.org).

I don't know what's going on, but when the thread on Moobunny started, then the thread got bumped here, then things got crazy, it seemed very much as though certain people were stepping up to claim responsibility.

I am still appealing to Google for a second chance, but whomever did this went too far.  Not only did they hurt Amiga.org, but it hurt the Amiga platform as a whole.  We were making GOOD progress attracting new members by placing ads (which were SUPPOSED to be paid for by displaying the ads but now have to come out of the donation money -- sincere thanks to those of you who've helped out).  

Far worse, if I believe that this was intentional sabotage, someone made this personal and screwed me out of the ability to generate a dime off of the 15 other sites I had either in planning or operation.  Let me state again, Amiga.org (and I) wasn't making a dime off of Google Advertisements for Amiga.org itself, but the ads I placed were getting people onto our site and from here, it was to be a gateway to other sites (such as whyzzat.com, amigaos.info, spyzero.com, etcetera).  

Given that this smeghead has disrupted the very core of my plans, I take that action quite personally so forgive me if I seem a "little upset" over it all.  It would be very much like if you bought a car so that you could drive to work and I snuck over in the middle of the night and ripped out the distributor.  Bad form..

Wayne

@Targhan,

At least you did try.  If nothing else, it was a lesson in objectivity.  Specifically that there are three sides to every story.  Yours, theirs, and the truth.

:-)

[boris_f]

Hi again Wayne,

Glad things seem to be calming down. I think there is just a lot of crossed wires here. Maybe you believed amigazeux were to blame because they appeared in this thread. Or amigazeux thinks you were blaming them because you cant mention their group without trolling and insulting them. If you troll less and be more sure of your facts in future before you say anything things like this can be avoided and it will be better for everyone.

The idea of someone clicking lots of times on the banners to try to help you and the site sounds a lot more reasonable than an attack by somebody out to get you, doesnt it?

cheers

[Piru]

I got a note saying that "your account has been terminated for violating our terms of service". It went on to say something about the section for "creating invalid clicks by deceptive means" (which I did not do). The thing is, when Google claims this was occurring, I was literally 600 miles away in New Orleans on business travel and not at my machine (which was on).

This is the thing. I believe they don't blame you personally for this action, but since they have no way of determining who it really is and for what possible purpose, they assume it's you trying to generate income. I believe they did not get the "clicks" from your IP address.

I have written them roughly a dozen times and get three rotating stock answers, including one which says that "explaining to you why you were terminated would disclose proprietary information" (gee, an IP address..)... There is no contact number (that they will answer), there is no one listening, and I'm fairly certain that the big bad Google couldn't care less.

Whatever the reason (someone "helping" or someone maliciously trying to screw you over), google really sucks here for not having proper way of sorting things out.

Whatever it is, it sure sucks. While it could be that someone delibirately did this to hurt your business, it's still just one possibility. Considering the willingness of Amiga users to "vote" in random polls with Amiga selection in them, I wouldn't be surprised to learn someone just tried to "help", without malicious intent.

[odin]

FWIW, something similar happened to the website of my study's student association. That site also had google ads on it and suddenly google terminated the whole ad thing because there were too many clicks. I think the problem was that it all originated from the uni's IP range (and to put into perspective, this association has about 40 members...).

So it seems google is *very* sensitive to 'unfair' click-usage.

[Karlos]

Maybe it's a stretch too far, but is it possible there has been no actual 'abuse' and just a bunch of overkeen site users following each link that comes up?

It's certainly possible that there were "simply too many clicks" but there's something about Google's response -- I will have to research what -- that specifically suggests that it all happened from one or perhaps two addresses.

The problem is, they've instituted a "zero tolerance" policy, so they must be blaming me for something.  I need to be reinstated, even if I don't put Google ads back onto Amiga.org (which would be prudent).  The reason I believe it was intentional was the trolling on Moobunny {bleep}ing about the advertisements.

Wayne

[itix]

You are paranoid.

Sure.  We are all a bit paranoid, or you wouldn't have both sides of this sillyness jumping to conclusions with the mere mention of a name.  Neither of us is evil, but we're so sure that the other is out to get us that such assumptions are easy.

Wayne

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Human beings have an innate goodness.  (Especially when grilled over a low heat with a little lemon and butter sauce).