Google Adsense says no to Traffic Exchange

I covered a story about StumbleUpon and Google Adsense here over two months ago. Last week, The official Google AdSense blog has posted another advisory about the use of Traffic Exchange programs:

As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers.

We occasionally receive questions from publishers interested in using traffic exchanges to bring traffic to their site. While these services may help advertise your site, we don’t recommend using them, as they may also result in similar invalid activity. We realize that you may have questions about a specific traffic service and whether it could potentially create invalid impressions or clicks. However, please understand that we’re unable to comment on any particular third-party service.

Although the Google AdSense Team does no directly comment on a specific 3rd-party programs, I’m assuming services like Blog Explosion, StumbleUpon, BlogMad and similar ones are flagged.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

14 Comments

lansing disability says:

10 years ago

Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your weblog?
My blog is in the exact same area of interest as yours and my users would
truly benefit from some of the information you present here.
Please let me know if this alright with you. Many thanks!
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netline tv says:

11 years ago

Ako ay may fun page sa fb i have thousand of likers sa page ko evry time na mag post ako sa blog i popost ko yung link sa page ko sa fb in one day nasa mga 1000 yung viewers ko kaya tataas ang cpc ko… consider kaya na iligal traffic yung sa fb sana naman hindi
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ticz says:

15 years ago

Stumbleupon should not be considered a traffic exhange site. I have been a stumbler for years, and i do not consider it as illegal. If i have stumbled to a page with adsense and i click it, that is because the adverisement interests me not because i was told to click it. Nothing but a good and legit way of earning traffic. Geez, google, you are stepping on the line..
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Terrence Taitt says:

15 years ago

I don’t think that StumbleUpon should be against the Google Adsense terms of service, unless the advertiser using StumbleUpon is not selecting the right category. Then that should be a problem.
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Bob says:

15 years ago

Oh! naku. kakatakot naman to member pa naman ako sa traffic exchange program where I added my website na may adsense ko.

Paano na to?
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Jehzeel Laurente says:

17 years ago

while searching for traffic exchange programs sa TOS ng google naisip ko na bawal cguro ang entrecard because it’s a traffic exchange program.. bawal ba entrecard? hehe
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James Marcus says:

17 years ago

I dont think they should consider traffic exchange being harmful but o well thats they’re call .

http://www.videosearchtool.info
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John mannu says:

17 years ago

Really??But how can they know about that?
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Manuel Viloria says:

17 years ago

From the actual traffic that some prominent bloggers have gotten via BlogRush, we see that we won’t get an abnormally high number of ad impressions.
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juantanamera says:

18 years ago

Darn Google.

http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_Control_Four_Reasons_it_is_getting_too_far
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Abe Olandres says:

18 years ago

@ L.A. – Thanks!

@ Hezron – it’s not the actual membership or submission to these 3rd-party traffic sites that could get your account banned from Adsense. Even Digg or Slashdot can send a red flag to the AdSense Team. What I believe they are trying to explain is that with these traffic exchange sites, you could get an abnormal number of ad impressions and ad clicks which might result to getting banned.
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Hezron says:

18 years ago

I think stumbleupon can’t be consider as a 3rd party that can bring problem to your adsense account regarding those invalid impressions.

A site will only be included if its reader have submitted it to stumbleupon. Like Digg.Com!
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Marcvill says:

18 years ago

@L.A: Oonga!!! What’s Adsene?
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L.A says:

18 years ago

Opps…Mali yung speeeling nung SENSE sa title :)
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