Store your files in a safe place, they say. “Things happen. Your phone goes for a swim. Your laptop takes an infinite snooze. No matter what happens to your devices, your files are safely stored in Google Drive.” Yea, RIGHT!

Check this shit out right from their own damn Terms of Service…

Your Content in our Services

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

BUT THEN THEY GO…

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.

You can find more information about how Google uses and stores content in the privacy policy or additional terms for particular Services. If you submit feedback or suggestions about our Services, we may use your feedback or suggestions without obligation to you. https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/terms/

Now what was that about Google not liking duplicate content?  

Syndicate carefully: If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.

And that doesn’t warrant the usual message? 

“In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the ### already displayed.

If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

 This goes on for eight pages.  Word for word.  Video for video.  Viral syndication at its finest.

I came across some really screwy Google AdSense behavior the other day.  I Googled something.  Can’t remember what it was.  For conversation’s sake, let’s say it was for lawnmowers.  After that I was doing some work on one of my fitness blogs.

The AdSense ads I have on my blog always display ads relative to my fitness content.  After I had written a post and published it, I visited the post to make sure everything was OK.  Guess what shows up in place of the usual fitness ads?  You got it, lawnmower ads.

It just happened again.  A friend of mine in IL said her brother was moving to Orange County, CA.  She asked me what was there.  So I Googled it and told her.

Then I was reading an article on www.ezinearticles.com about metal detectors.  I followed the link to the metal detector site.  That site had sectioned called Free Backlinks.  Right under the section header is an AdSense link unit displaying a few links about backlinks, relative to the article on the site, as it should be.  BUT, take a look at what showed up as the 4th listing…Orange County.  What the fuck is up with that?

UPDATE:  August 30, 2010

As of this morning, I now know what’s happening.  I read it in the paper this morning.  Funny how shit just falls into my lap within hours or days of an event.  Happens to me constantly.

This whole thing is called “remarketing” and Google’s, per se, is not doing it.  It’s a feature of AdWords that is available on the campaign level via the Audiences tab.  Creating an audience list is a lot like getting code for displaying AdSense on your site.  An audience list is nothing more than a title and an optional description assigned to some code that Google generates that you insert into your web pages.  This code is called a “tag”.

For every page that includes a tag, a visitor’s computer gets cookied.  So if I’m running a website for adult toys, not that I would ever do something like that, as the visitor went about their business surfing other sites that displayed AdSense ads, my dildo ads would display, hence, the remarketing of your website.

This has some pros and cons.  The whole thing about AdSense is to get paid when someone clicks on the ads on your site.  If you do your homework, you can create highly targeted niche websites that attractive some very expensive advertising and it can be quite profitable.  I know of several people who generate well over $400/day just in AdSense revenue.

Anyhoo, so lets say I’m a niche marketer and do my homework and get $2.50/click per ad on a site.  This actually is something I’m already doing on one of my sites and yes, each click is getting me $2.50.  Then let’s say someone on my site gets remarketed for dog collars because they were on the PetsMart site looking for dog collars.  And let’s say that dog collar ad only gets me .10/click.  That’s fucked up!  Remarketing has the potential for pushing out the high paying ads on MY site.  It’s basically some other business forcing THEIR advertising on MY site.

AdSense is supposed to be about displaying ads relative to MY content, not traipsing mud across my website from some shithole mud puddle on some other asshole’s website the visitor just came from.  Leave your fucking boots at the front door, fucker.  It’s stealing traffic.  It’s graffiti on my site.  It’s like some band plastering their posters over the top of some other band’s posters on fucking Sunset Blvd.  It’s evil and there are a lot of ad networks doing this, not just Google.  Get the shovel.

Lately when clicking of sites found on Google, I get sent to the wrong website.  I’ve noticed this in the past week or two.

Here’s how to repeat the problem I’m seeing.

1. I open a new browser session.  IE or Firefox.  Doesn’t matter.
2. I search for something in Google.
3. I click on the listing in the SERPs that is NOT an AdWords ad and I’m taken to a completely different site, not the site I clicked on.
4. I hit the back button and try it again and this time it goes to the right site.

If I close the browser and do it again, it won’t do it right away.  It does do to the wrong website several times a day, but it’s like there’s a timer on it.  Like it only does it if it’s more than x number of minutes since the last time it did it.

It’s like a new type of IRRITATING AS F*CK advertising method that’s been rolled out.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Is it Google or are my browser sessions being hi-jacked by some evil, unknown running-in-the-back-ground program?

UPDATE:  I did some more poking around, but this time I searched on “google redirect” and found out is was a damn trojan causing the redirects!  In fact, I had several of them.  McAfee didn’t find them. 

MajorGeeks.com said to run SUPERAntiSpyware.  I ran SuperAntiSpyware, the portable version and here’s what it found…

See those last four entries?  It was one of them.  After it removed them and I rebooted, I can now type in online forms and ESPECIALLY in WordPress, without the keyboard skipping letters.  That was like a thirsty man finding water because I live my entire day in WordPress.

I’m really upset about McAfee not finding it anything.  That sort of lowers my faith in it.

So, how did I get these little buggers?  I think it may have something to do with the fact that I disabled Vista’s User Account Control some months ago because of the EXCESSIVE alerts it throws every time I want to download or run something.  So I did it to myself.  I turned UAC back on and won’t be screwing around with that again.

In the meantime, do I owe Google an apology?  Mmmm, not at this time.  I still have plenty of other things to blame them for.

2nd UPDATE:  I ran MalwareBytes after that and it found a whole bunch more.  And after all this, now my keyboard skipping letters problem is gone, too!

3rd UPDATE Oct 13, 2010:  Thought I’d post this update.  PCMagazine has a new article about this Google Redirect.  Norton wasn’t catching it either.

Anyhoo, it wasn’t the solution I was looking for so I turned the button off, but the fucker kept translating.  Extremely annoying.  However, I figured out how to turn it off.  Thought you might like to know if you’re having the same issue.

1. Go back into the toolbar options by right-clicking on a blank spot on the toolbar or by clicking the little wrench icon.
2. Click on Tools in the menu on the left and locate the Translate thingy.  See that disabled Edit link?  That’s the source of the problem.
   
3. Check the checkbox to the left of Translate to get the Edit link to activate.  Click on the now active Edit link.
4. See the problem?  Those checkboxes are still clicked and active.  Apparently, unchecking the Translate checkbox only hides the button from the toolbar, but any checked options are still active.
   
5. So uncheck all three of those boxes and save.  That should disable it.  Bob’s you uncle.

I use Google Gmail, but not as a main email account.  I only use it when I need to supply an email address for something where I feel there is a risk of betrayal from the person receiving it.  I keep my real email addresses close to my chest. 

It behooves me how my real email address gets around, but I have an idea.  One possible place is when making blog comments.  I think some of those blog owners don’t give a rat’s ass and they sell them for fun and profit.  People, if you make blog comments, it would be wise not to use your real addy.  Ok, I’m getting off topic.

I work on my computer all the ding dong day.  I know Windows has tons of shit running in the back ground, but there are times when it really slows down – sorta like when McAfee antivirus is updating, but it’s not. 

When you run Gmail, you have the option to run the the Gmail notifier in the background and send the blue envelope icon to the status bar in the lower right corner of your screen.

TIP: Gmail is not a mission-critical application for me so when my computer starts to runs like a slug for no apparent reason, I right-click on the blue Gmail icon and click Exit and I immediately get an increase of speed. BAMM, Bob’s your uncle.

On a side note , I will say it has always bothered me to rely so heavily on Adwords.  If Google has some new come to Jesus meeting, I could lose my income.  It’s a damn scary thought.  So, I have been branching out more and I am noticing an increase in non-Adwords sales.  Ok, back to the story.

Case in point:  I have a pretty successful site in the fitness category.  I’ve been running it for about a year now and it has always been very profitable.  The fitness niche that I’m in is fairly competitive and my keywords are very competitive, yet I have managed to do very well with Adwords.  I have ranked in the top 1-3 positions for my keywords ever since I unleashed my ads.  I pay pennies for my clicks.  No, I’m not going to tell you what they are, dumbass. 

About a week ago I sparked up a new ad group with a rather popular keyword in the same fitness campaign.  Not a very competitive keyword, but a popular one.  I had a lot of impressions, but my CTR was low and no one seemed to be buying my the shit like they do with the other ads.  Too broad of keywords was my guess.  I was getting lookers, but not buyers.  However, my quality score on that keyword was 10/10.  DAMN!  That’s outstanding for a brand new ad.

My ad was very specific.  In fact, it was an exact replicate of my other successful ad.  And now that I’m saying it out loud, I’m beginning to think most of the clicks were prolly from competitors.  Anyone who plays Adwords roulette knows what I’m talking about.

My quality score on all the other keywords in all the other ad groups in that fitness campaign were 7/10′s, but mostly 10/10′s.  Make a note of that because it’s going to come back into play here in a minute.

Now, here’s where I fucked up.  I decided to built a new landing page to give people what I thought they wanted.  Instead of split testing and creating a new ad with the new destination URL (I got cocky), I changed the destination URL of the existing ad.  All I can say is son-of-a-bitch!  I will never, ever, fucking EVER (I stole that phrase from Frank Kern) do that again.  It was an expensive mistake.

The quality score of the keyword went from 10/10 all the way down into the bowels of hell to 1/10 and it stayed there.  So about a day later I put the destination URL back the way it was hoping to reclaim my 10/10 quality score.  Well, guess what?  It only went to a 3/10.  The same exact ad, the same exact destination URL, the same content on the page.  Nothing changed.

I don’t get it.  I created that brand spanking new ad last week and right out of the box I get a 10/10 with no impression or CTR history on it?  Then I broke it and it went to a 1/10.  Then when I fixed it instead of going back to 10/10, it goes to 3/10.

But wait, this gets even better.  This morning I noticed that NONE of the ads in my fitness category where getting clicks.  That’s unheard of with the history that I have for them.  That’s when I noticed there were only a handful of impressions, too.  WTF, Chuck?

So I started drilling down into the ads looking at the keywords.  Every damn one of those 7/10 and 10/10 keywords were bottomed out at 1/10.  PLUS, due to that low 1/10 quality score, I got a message I had never seen before on those ads:  “Below first page bid due to low quality score”.  I got fucking Google slapped and now my ads aren’t displaying.

Ok, Sam I am.  All you Adwords experts out there, explain to me why one tiny stupid mistake on my part blew up not just that one ad group, but hosed my entire profitable campaign that I have been running for the last year?  And don’t try to sell me your ClickBank ebook.  Leave a comment.

Some visitors double-click on the ads because that’s just what some visitors do.  We’ve been taught we need to double-click on an icon to execute it.  Some people do that with hyperlinks, too.  AdWords ads are no exception.  I have proof in my server logs that Google does not charge for the second click.

However, and here’s where my argument is, Google DOES charge for a second click if it’s not immediately following the first click, but it IS within a few minutes of the first click.  This morning I had yet another such incident.  I was in the middle of documenting it and by the time I was finished, it was 3.

In summary, here’s what happened and then I’ll get into the details.  As I write this, I have been charged for 9 clicks on my ad.  I am an affiliate selling “widgets”.  When I go to my affiliate back office at the widget company to check my visitor stats, it only reports 6 visits.  It shows me their IP addresses.  Why only 6 when Google is charging me for 9?  Because my widget stats are for unique visits.  That means some of my visitors clicked my ad more than once.

Hmmm, let’s have a look.  I am running AdWatcher click fraud software on my web server.  When I go to the fraud report, lookie, lookie what I see…

3 of the IP address click twice.  Notice the First Click and Last Click columns.  The numbers I wrote in red are how many minutes difference between the first and last click.

So, let’s do some math.  6 unique visits + 3 visitors clicking 2x = 9 clicks that I got charged for.

This goes on almost every damn day.  You can’t imagine how many HOURS I spend pouring over my web server logs, AdWatcher fraud reports, Google AdWords charges, and anything else that I can get my hands on to prove that I’m being charged for multiple clicks from the same IP.

Today was the 3rd time I wrote Google about this and I better not get the same damn canned paragraphs pasted into their reply.  Here’s how it always goes down…

Take note how nebulous Google’s answers are. 

Google:  – Return visits: Individual users may legitimately click on your ad more than one time when comparison shopping or returning to your site for more information. 

What I think:  What G fails to define is the time between clicks.  Hours later in the day or the next day is a “return visit”.  Clicking within minutes of the first click is NOT a return visit.  Unless it’s a competitor clicking up my bill (which is hard to prove on it’s own merit), OF COURSE THEY ARE COMPARISON SHOPPING.  You’re a search engine for crying out loud!  They’re looking for shit.  I can tell they are shopping because I can see the keywords they are searching for in my server logs.

But here’s the thing of it, I already went through my ad testing, all the SEO on my both my landing page and ads, and have tested a ton of keywords.  I have kept the best of the best.  I have one landing page, one highly tuned ad, and only a handful of very profitable keywords.  When those visitors click more than once on my ad, THEY KEEP CLICKING THE SAME DAMN AD BECAUSE I’M ONLY RUNNING ONE DAMN AD!

I could be flexible on that stance IF I was rotating ads or displaying different ads for different keywords, but I’m not.  I’m running one damn ad for the whole shebang.  That’s it.

Or, OR, here’s another explanation.  Maybe they ARE my competitors and they KNOW that I’m going to be charged again for a click becuase they know that they only have to wait 3 minutes as they’ve gone through the same damn thing themselves! 

Google:  – Shared IPs: Multiple clicks from a single source may be due to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) assigning identical IP addresses to multiple users. Certain ISPs, such as AOL, distribute a relatively small number of shared, rotating IP addresses to a large number of users. As a result, multiple visitors may access your site from identical IP addresses, giving the impression of repeated clicks from a single visitor. 

What I think:  BULLSHIT!  Bull f@*&$%* shit.  Google cannot look me in the eye and tell me that AOL or any other ISP is turning out IP addresses within 3 minutes of the first click to another computer, again going to Google, again running the same operating system, again using the same browser, again searching for widgets, and again clicking on my ONE ad.  What I just described is NOT going to happen.  The odds are astronomical, especially since my miniscule amount of traffic doesn’t even warrant it.  What a crock of shit!

Google:  – Web server logs: Your site’s web server logs include data for all visitors to your site, not just those who arrived after clicking on an AdWords ad. You may also see ‘Google.com’ referrers from users who reached your site via the Google search results. Please be assured that your account would only be charged for clicks your ads received.

What I think:  I KNOW all of my traffic goes into my server logs.  I KNOW how to read my damn logs.  I know how to tell a Google.com search visitor vs. a Goggle AdWords visitor.  I’m looking at the raw data logs I can get from cPanel.  You see, while the server logs do contain all visitors, it does it in a nice and neat chronogical order complete with timestamps.  My visitors can’t fart on my site without me knowing about it.

You see, when my ad is clicked, Google tags the hit with a unique ID string in a variable called “gclid”.  If a person refreshes the page and reloads it, I see duplicate gclid’s.  I KNOW about that.  I see them from time to time.  The same thing can also happen when a person bookmarks the page when coming from an ad.  If they access the bookmark later on, I’ll see the same gclid.  But what I’m describing here is NOT a refresh to reload the page.  I am seeing another unique gclid on the 2nd clicks in question.  These are NOT page refreshes. 

Oh, well here’s an interesting turn of events.  I started writing this article with 9 clicks on the ad.  I have now had 18 clicks and 0 sales.  5 of those clicks are duplicates.  I average 1 sale out of every 3-4 clicks.  My bill for that ad is now $32.09.

Here is the updated AdWatcher click fraud report.  I am being charged for these 5 extra multiple clicks.

How am I supposed to convince Google that they are WRONG in charging me for these extra clicks?  I’m not talking about sales conversions here.  I’m not talking about the quality of the ad or landing page.  The problem I want resolved is what in the hell do I have to do to convice Google that I should NOT be paying for those multiple clicks that are within minutes of each other?

The answers they gave me the first 2 times I contacted them were to passify me.  The casual user isn’t experienced enough to know that Google is giving them a snow job.  More often than not they prolly don’t even get a 2nd peep out of people when they hear that shit.  They’re trying to blow us off with their bogus “well here’s maybe why this could happen”.  BULLSHIT 

I want answers.  I want Google to LOOK at the data.  They can see the IP addresses on there end.  They’re hoping I’ll go away.

Day after day, month after month this happens.  I can’t sit here and monitor these damn server logs all damn day.  What the hell am I suppose to do?  Conduct month ends and send pages of data to Google showing proof and demanding that I get my money back?

What’s it going to take?  A class action lawsuit?  There are others out there in this very same boat. I KNOW you know what I’m talking about.  If you have had the same problem as myself, post a comment.  Let everyone know what it took for you to get your money back.  If you’re using click fraud tracking software, tell us what kind and if it’s helped you out.

I say get the shovel.  The Big G is going under.  Google WILL refund millions of dollars when the shit hits the fan.

UPDATE – February 23, 2009

I received a reply from the AdWords team yesterday.  Here’s what they said:

Please allow me to inform you that I’ve decided to escalate your issue
concerning getting duplicate clicks on your Google AdWords ads from
certain IP) addresses to specialist team, which will perform a thorough
investigation into this issue.

However, these investigations can take some time, but please be assured
that we will contact you to let you know about the conclusions of our
investigation.

I sincerely appreciate your patience while we investigate for you.

I hope that this information is helpful for you. Additionally, you can
please visit our Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support, where
you’ll find answers to many frequently asked questions. We look forward to
providing you with the most effective advertising available. 

Now I wait.  Perhaps supplying hard evidence like IP addresses and timestamps is the way to handle this.  Maybe that’s why this time I got a rise out of them.  One thing I would like to add, when I went to bed that evening the double-clicks had increased from 4 to 6.

SUB ROSA:  I’m going to start doing “month ends” on my logs.  I shouldn’t have to do that!  It’s like turning on a hidden video camera in the livingroom when you leave the house to make sure the babysitter isn’t abusing your kid.  It’s like sneaking hair strands from your kid’s hairbrush to have them drug tested.  It’s like hiring a detective to follow your wife around to take pictures of her kissing another man at their secret meeting place in the local park.  IT’S LIKE CATCHING GOOGLE CHARGING ME FOR CLICKS THAT I SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR.

This would all be resolved if Google would allow its advertisers to turn on an option like “unique visitors only” and then specify how many days you’d like to do that before those same visitors are allowed to see your ad again.  Like this:  ClickThru.com has that feature so your points don’t get gobbled up a handful of point happy collecting scum. I can set my account to block out duplicates for, say, a week.  That way visitors won’t see my ad in rotation for a week after they see it the first time and I keep my hard earned points longer without waisting them on the same perps day after day. 

Can you imagine how much money that would save advertisers in AdWords expenses?  It’s mindnumbing.  Can you imagine how much money G would lose, yet rightfully so?  Those double-clicks do NOTHING for me but drain my bank account and fill G’s.  It’s sooooo evil.

Oh, OH!  Something else that Google tightens the screws on to make sure you keep feeding their cash cow - they allow you to block individual IP addresses on a campaign, but they limit it to just 30 IPs!  I just want to spit blood on these bastards.

I’ll let you know what G says after their investigation.