September Cashout Requests / Click Fraud & New Tricks

Firstly, let us say that we have been listening, and this is our response. In some cases, we have responded personally on certain blogs, however we feel that a more public explanation would be beneficial, and justified to our valued bloggers.

In Short: The Resolution
- September 2007 Cash outs will arrive to both Malaysian & Singaporean publishers within 1-2 weeks. Yes, we are aware that this is longer than usual, and we apologize. A detailed explanation is after the jump.

- Ad load time could be improved. A recent increase in the number of members and more visitors from countries other than Malaysia and Singapore has put a considerable strain on our servers. Although we are now already running on three dedicated servers, we will be upgrading our resources further to serve your better. An upgrade will be in effect within this week, with approximately 15-30 minutes of downtime required. This scheduled maintenance window will be announced shortly.

The Long Of It: The Issues & Reasons
When we first launched the Cost Per Click Ad system for Advertlets in 24th May 2007, we were excited at the fact that we would be able to serve 100% of all the blogs that have signed up with us and have installed our code. Which means that it would not be hundreds of blogs that get ads. It would be thousands. And it was a fair exchange, where relevant ads were served on all types of blogs, however, each blog would be given a chance to prove themself with the advertiser paying accordingly.

Unfortunately, some people spoil it for the rest. Recently we have had a few publishers in particular who have been attempting to profit from fraudulent activities - which is largely responsible for the delay in processing payments, but we are not making it an excuse. Usually, in the past, we would process the cash out requests as a group per month, and then send them out when all for the month have been verified.

However, we understand that our honest publishers are definitely going to be frustrated at the delay - which would justify a change in our process flow, so we’ve taken the decision to release the legitimate cheques this week, rather than take more time to process and clear the more doubtful cases. This change in policy will also apply to all future requests from now on. Hence, all valid earnings for September should reach publishers within the next 1-2 weeks from today. Please let us know if you face any delay receiving your payments.

We’ve spoke about this issue before, but it has come to our attention that there are new “tricks” being pulled in addition to click fraud, including hiding Advertlets ad units under graphic layers (effectively, hiding the ad) and impression fraud through use of proxies and botnets. We do not recommend trying these any under circumstance, and it most likely will result in an immediate ban. One more discouraging trend we’ve noticed recently: please refrain from scrolling Advertlets ad units using javascript animation, as obscuring the ad through movement does not justify the amount the advertiser is paying for a fixed spot. And of course, don’t ever put notices such as “please click on my ads!”. Its rather dissapointing to see cases like this happening, especially within the blogging community - sometimes even people that we have met in person. But we have to be fair for the good of all, and take action for the benefit of many.

Please take note of the following terms: Irregular clicks, which may be caused by accidental refresh requests, timeouts or server errors, non-excessive accidental clicks, and are usually “not your fault”. Impression fraud relates to using artificial methods to increase traffic. Click fraud is a proven case where we have established with great surely that someone is attempting to game the system. Naturally, we would need to assess the extent of which fraud has been commited, before deciding on further action, which requires human intervention - to audit if the amount is low or to ban if the amount is excessive. And in most cases, if your cash out function is disabled, it means that the system has automatically detected fraudulent activities.

As said before, its generally accepted that blogging is one of the most free, honest forms of expression available today. Apply the same philosophy to earning through your blog, and you can’t go wrong. We will continue to try our best, and listen to your feedback, and evolve as needed. Lastly, if you have any questions at all, do contact us, or if it ever goes unanswered, contact me personally. Thanks.