AdSenseAdvisor Says:

Sorry for the delay - I needed to meet with our payment team to get accurate information for you. There is no delay for AdSense payments, so checks are going out on time. I was told that every month a small number of payments take longer to approve - this is part of our regular process and is not cause for alarm. As a result, you'll probably see a later date on your Payment History page. I can't be sure if your accounts in particular are affected, but it is a possibility.

jonathanleger is correct when he mentioned that you would be notified by email if there was an issue with your account and TOS compliance.

I should also add, for the benefit of others reading this thread, that you will only see an update on your Payment History page if your balance was in excess of $100 at the end of the month, and if your tax information has been properly submitted :)

You can contact the support team for more information about your specific account - I'm afraid I don't have the ability to look up that information myself.

ASA.

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

"ASA - Is this the issue here? Did google simply not carry over the tax information collected upon account activation, is this the reason so many of us are not seeing payment this month? "

Fiver, the tax confirmation language is somewhat buried in the first paragraph of your tax info page. It's easy to skim over it - it's the second sentence, as Jettie quoted:

"Our records indicate that you have already submitted the appropriate information."

You shouldn't have to enter your tax info more than once, but the page remains active so that you can update your information if necessary.

ASA.

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

Let me try to address a few of the questions that have come up so far...
First of all, the changes did indeed go into effect today.

The email talks about 'pages' rather than 'sites'

This is correct - the pricing for a particular ad will take into account the keywords/concepts on the page that triggered the ad, the context of those keywords/concepts on the page, and the system's calculation of the value of that combination. The value is calculated based on a large number of factors, and is constantly updated as information is fed back into the system.

The photography example was only to demonstrate how this may work - review sites across the board are not necessarily going to provide higher value to advertisers. It's a case-by-case calculation.

So, you may find that your revenue goes up, goes down, or stays the same. It may take some time to see a pattern emerging.

In the end, as many of you have pointed out, we expect it to drive growth in the advertiser base for content sites, which can only be a good thing :)

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

Thanks all for the heads-up! I checked into this - the certificate did expire today, but has already been renewed. You shouldn't see the warning any more.
I'm very sorry for the worries that we inadvertently caused you all.

Thanks again for bringing my attention to this.

ASA.

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

"Can ASA give us an answer as how the channel data is included and for what day. Are numbers added retroactivly 2 days later? Are daily earnings for a specific day only available two days later now with channels enabled? "

I'm sorry not to have given you your answer sooner...

Aggregate reports are updated throughout the day, and there is no 2 day delay for any column of your aggregate reports. This type of report includes all instances of your ad code, with or without a channel assigned. Basically, an aggregrate report is an AdSense report as it was 'pre-channels.'

Channel reports, however, are delayed 2 days. This means that all of the channel data for, say, March 20, will only be visible on March 22. Once the 2 days have elapsed, the stats will show up for the correct date - clicks that were made on March 20 will show up in your reports next to March 20. They won't be 'tacked on' to the current day of March 22.

Finally, on a related note, if you create a channel report that includes ONLY the last 2 days, your report will show 'No data available.' If you create a channel report that includes the last 2 days as well as days for which stats are available, the report will show all days with available numbers, and simply omit the rows for the last 2 days.

I'll be around throughout the day to help with any questions :)

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

ken_b,

To filter out all ads from a particular domain, you can simply enter domainname.com in your URL filter list. Note the absence of the "www." prefix - leaving this out will allow the system to block ads from www.domainname.com and domainname.com, as well as any of their subfolders.

You don't need to add the entire path to the filter list.

ASA.

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

I’m going to concentrate on the “dreaded email” issue this evening, as it seems to be the number one concern for most of you. I'm just back from a meeting with the invalid click team, to learn more about their techniques and their processes. Here's what I learned...

The AdSense invalid click team uses a combination of automated systems and human reviews to uncover fraudulent activity. As jomaxx stated, there's no algorithm that can completely filter out all fraudulent activity, so human reviewers pore through the data as well, and review each case from all angles before taking action. I’ve seen these people in action, and the data that they review - they work extremely hard to make sure that fraud is detected on one hand, and that valid clicks are recognized on the other.

If it's decided that fraudulent activity exists, the next step is to send a warning email to the publisher, not a termination letter. Immediate terminations only occur when severe fraudulent activity has occured. In cases where invalid clicks are coming from some outside source, you will be sent a notification, not a termination - this gives you the opportunity to check your server logs for suspicious activity, take appropriate action, and respond to the AdSense team.

Finally, there's always the opportunity to appeal a decision. If you feel that you've been warned or terminated unfairly, you're encouraged to send supporting information to the team, and they'll definitely take another look at your case and take any new information into account when doing so. I can understand the frustration with the limited information that is given to publishers who have been warned or terminated. Unfortunately, this is a necessity - we can't make this sort of information available without helping some people to develop ways to try and fool our systems :(

So, to summarize:

- Accounts are reviewed by automated systems as well as by human specialists
- Warnings are sent before termination, except in clear-cut cases of severe fraudulent activity
- You can appeal any decision by sending your information to the team, and it will be carefully re-reviewed

Hopefully this will help everyone to breathe a little easier :)

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

Thanks again for such a warm welcome! I'm very excited to be able to join this community.

It may take me a while to get to everybody's questions, so I want to thank you all for your patience as I come up to speed. I'll do my best to answer in good time.

And thanks AdWordsAdvisor for your support!

Regards,
AdSenseAdvisor

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

I'm going to do my best to answer your questions as soon as possible. Generally, I'll be posting in the early evening PST, when I can grab some free time at the end of the day, so you can expect to see me around then.
Thanks all for your patience!

AdSenseAdvisor

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

Thanks to everyone for the welcome, and thanks to GoogleGuy, Jenstar, and Brett for their support.

I'm looking forward to joining in on this forum - hopefully I'll be able to provide useful information to all of you, as well as pass your feedback to the AdSense team. GoogleGuy and AdWordsAdvisor have paved the way, and done a great job at it too, so I will try to live up to their standards.

And I promise not to take anything personally, JollyK! Thanks for the warning :)

Thanks again everybody.

Regards,
AdSenseAdvisor

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AdSenseAdvisor Says:

Time to roll up my sleeves! I won't be able to get to everyone's questions right away, but let me try to answer some of the main ones. In future, I think I'd prefer to respond to posts in the context of existing threads, rather than as a Q&A session... but I know that these questions have been lingering, so I'm more than happy to share what information I have :)

First of all, I'm afraid that I won't be able to give ETAs on features or changes. I know that detailed reporting and expanded payment options are being anxiously awaited, but I can only confirm what you already know - that they're in the works.

In regards to support emails, there is some language that's available to the support crew for answering common questions, and if they misinterpret your question or miss some of the history of your exchange, it's possible that they'll send you the same information again. It's definitely not encouraged! and they work very hard to get the right information to everybody. I'm sorry that this has happened to you, JollyK.

PSAs are always an issue, and I encourage everybody who is seeing high levels of PSA (or alternate ad) activity on their pages to contact the tech team. They're usually able to resolve the issue at least partially, often completely, and every email that comes in with specific URLs helps the team to teach the system to better access and comprehend the information. So it's definitely worth your time. I don't know the details of the "site.com" vs. "www.site.com" issue that bzprod mentioned, but I'll check with the tech team for more info.

Finally (for now!) in regards to the quality of sites, there is a team of quality specialists who are increasing the monitoring of existing sites. They're reviewing all sites running the AdSense code, and sending warnings to anyone not in compliance with the policies. This is an ongoing effort to weed out those who are abusing the system. As far as advertisers being able to select the sites that they run on, or having a hand-picked "select" network, I would have to check with AdWordsAdvisor to see if he has any information. I'll let you know!

Thanks everybody - I can see that I'm going to have to keep my thinking cap on at all times :)

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