I've been helping my friend Bree run a wedding related blog. She handles the content. I take care of all the technical aspects for her. When the blog was just starting, I recommended Adsense as a way to just bring in a few dollars each month while we waited for the traffic to pick up.

She kind of settled in to having Adsense as her full-time advertiser and was okay with making a few bucks each day. The earnings weren't Earth shattering, but they did provide her with a nice little bump in income each month.

Until this email came in...

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

It struck us both completely out of the blue. All of her content is original, there are no shady SEO practices happening, she wasn't encouraging any one to click on her ads, and she wasn't clicking on the ads herself. Her CTR was surprisingly low as well.

The most concerning line of that email was when Google said Bree's account "poses a risk of generating invalid activity." What does that even mean? Did she even violate the Terms of Service? Did she only pose a risk? What kind of risk? This email raises a ton of questions.

So I helped her craft an appeal and we sent off the email, not expecting much. Google isn't exactly known for their customer service.

While we waited to hear back, I took to the web and even spoke with a few WA members. Bree's case wasn't an isolated incident. There are quite a few reports around the web of publishers losing accounts that have been established for years, have always been in good standing, and have made quite a bit of money. No publisher is going to risk losing a major source of income to click on his or her ads. And yet, no one could get an answer as to why they were banned.

It wasn't long before Bree received this automated reply...

Hello,

Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you’ve
provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program.
However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your
feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we’re
unable to reinstate your AdSense account.

Please know that, once we’ve reached a decision on your appeal, further
appeals may not be considered, and you might not receive any further
communication from us. Note that AdSense publishers whose accounts are
disabled for violations of our Terms and Conditions are not eligible for
further participation in AdSense. For this reason, you may not open new
accounts.

Also, accounts disabled for invalid click activity will receive no further
payment nor any reissue of previous payment. Your outstanding balance and
Google’s share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the
affected advertisers. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

We understand that you may want more information about your account
activity. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary
detection systems, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any details
about their account activity.

This email was worse than the first! They refuse to tell Bree why she was banned and pretty much told her not to email them again. Is that how you treat your publishers?

I've always been a fan of Google and frequently tell others not to fear them, but here we have a publisher that was working within the Terms of Service and doing everything right and was banned for "posing a risk" to Google's advertisers. I don't quite get it.

We decided to cut our losses, and move on. I'll came back to Bree in a moment, but I want to share with you some advertising networks that I've used and recommend.