Admob fighting click fraud and banning sites

At the moment lots of people are setting up mobile ad networks and admob is the leading player in the market for them to catch.  However, one area where admob has a real advantage is fraud... just as on PC based adnetworks like adwords and adsense click fraud is a massive problem for any ad network.  This is particularly true for mobile where a lot of small publishers are involved and have a real incentive to create fraudelent clicks to raise earnings.  Admob has been brilliant at extending its platform to smaller publishers and helping them make money on mobile.  However, this has also left them open to click-fraud.  It is pretty clear that admob have a lot of detection measures in place to find click fraud and are banning sites suspected of it - much to the fury of those they suspect, check out these quotes from the admob forums:

"I registered a account with Admob this month and started sending traffic.. I have accumulated a reasonably large amount.

However today when I check,

1) No adverts are showing.
2) Cannot log into my account.

From what I have read here I have gathered that this has been happening to alot of people?

I have also spoken to a few publishers in my country and most "Big" ones with Admob seem to be having the same problem.

Is it not possible that Admob is Scamming "Big" publishers out of their earnings and paying the smaller ones so that no-one will catch on?

My website has not broken any rules which is why I find this very strange.

However I have submitted a query to Admob Support and I am now awaiting their response.

If their is anyone else that can shed some light on this issue, please do."

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"Hi i get banned or somethink my ads are showing but i cant log in to my account it says invalid username or password i have banned or somethink also on other account its also cant log in to account but ads are showing I DIDINT BREAK RULES. .lt also susport dont reply to me ..."

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"Hi, my friend owns a few wap site and he as been with admob from early 2007 he had over 3000USD in is account and recently he try to log in and cant log in, thats not fare.. and he showed me the email that admob sent him about some payper click ----, and i can gurantee that he isnt doign any cheating, admob staffs are not being fare.. with the publishers...and i have heard of smilar complains publishers account being disabled.. i my self have been a victim a few months back.. i just wana oopen publishers eyes. that one morning you might get up and your account disabled permanently. "

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"As of today I have been unable to sign in to my admob account, I have requested a password change and this is reporting as successful however I am still unable to sign in.

I have emailed support regarding this, and am yet to receive a response. I'm just trying to find out if this is a generic problem or one which is affecting my account only. Does anyone else have a problem logging in at the moment?"

Whilst there are lots of ad networks around, only the biggest and best like admob can afford to really invest in areas like clickfraud prevention.  As awareness of this becomes larger it can only help the leading players in the market such as admob. 

Comments

[Peter Glaeser]

Ad networks that pay publishers on a per-click basis are always subject to fraud. Therefore we at Sponsormob are happy to work performance-based (pay-per-lead or pay-per sale).

[james (mjelly)]

Hi Peter - good point - CPA based mobile advertising has got to be the future - I believe its how things work in Japan

thx for the comment

[Fuckadmob]

Fuck admob seriously I was suposd 2 be payed my biggest amount ever just short of 4000 dollars and they disable my account with no warning and no response to my emails they are a big scam, they are happy with my account as long as im advertising it all back out to them but as soon as i feel its time to start getting some money out just before the end of the month they disable my account please can someone post on here that has had their account disabled and got it back up... and how they contacted admob please