Shocked to See Many Sites Using My Adsense Code

Using others adsense code. What is the catch?

[matrix_neo]

After many months i was checking my adsense stats and in the report i found many sites that I do not own. I went to check those sites and found different type of sites.

01. Sites that copied my content, design and adsence code, simply duplicate site.

02. One site was blocked by DNS due to phising nature of the site.

03. Only my adsense code is used (I Earned a few dollers as well)

04. One site is now being redirected to google.

I would like to know what is the catch?
Am I In any sort of danger?
What to do in such situtation? Report Google?

[alika]

It may be tempting to just let this slide as you can "earn a few dollars as well."

What's the catch?

If the other site violates the Adsense policies -- e.g. they click on the ads using your code -- you can be the one terminated

There is a setting under Adsense Setup called Allowed Sites where you list your allowed URLs. That way, Google knows that these are the sites where your income should be counted

There is a section underneath where Google will tell you where your ads have appeared outside of your allowed sites, so you can track easily who has stolen your code

[Lame_Wolf]

There is a section underneath where Google will tell you where your ads have appeared outside of your allowed sites, so you can track easily who has stolen your code

I don't see that option. :(

[tangor]

White on rice. Deal with that first. Even if a few bucks are made. Problem is if left unattended, not addressed, options are cut off at the knees (google view). Don't delay, make noise, get it noted. Then scream bloody murder.

Just make sure you have notified G that there is something fishy in Denmark....

[matrix_neo]

Thanks Alika it is really helpful to know allowed sites stuff, let me check out where that option is hidden ;)

Tangor thats right I am not going to leave it, will take some action. Soon. I have initiated dmca against the ones copied the content. Will update any progress. Thanks a lot.

[wyweb]

I wouldn't allow that at all. I wouldn't even think about allowing that.

Make a list of your own sites and put them in "allowed sites."

Then start cranking out DMCAs.

[JasonDX]

There is a setting under Adsense Setup called Allowed Sites where you list your allowed URLs. That way, Google knows that these are the sites where your income should be counted.

Do you need to include both the "domain.com" and the www prefix domain, ie. www.domain.com?

[Broadway]

Lame_Wolf, I think it's only the "new" Adsense interface that shows the list of sites on which your ads were served. (If this isn't true, someone please tell me where to look for this info in the old interface.) (I thought it was ridiculous YPN never made it out of beta, how long will it be before the new adsense interface is out of beta and the rest of the accounts can use it?)

JasonDX - Agreed, the examples Adsense shows for declaring domains shows the URL's without "www" but in the (new interface) reports section it shows both www and non-www URLS's. I put both forms in my declarations box. I'll look at my stats later today to see if I've screwed something up. (Now I realize why the new interface is still in beta, no one at Adsense is putting any effort into it, cleaning it up, making it user suitable.)

[alika]

I don't see that option. :(

I think this appears only when the Adsense code is used outside of your allowed sites. It is labeled as

Unauthorized Sites. The following sites are not on your Allowed Sites list but have displayed ads using your AdSense publisher ID within the last week.

Funny thing is that for us, it includes a Russian site as well as legit ones like

Bing Translator
translate.google.com.hk
translate.google.com.pe
translate.google.co.in

We have the old interface, and it is in Adsense Setup --> Allowed Sites, which is broken into two sections: Allowed Sites and Unauthorized Sites

[matrix_neo]

I have created the allowed sites list. And found some unauthorised sites one of them is the below one.

translate.googleusercontent.com

The interesting note is that the other sites i found using my code is not lited here under the unauthorised sites though it was previously showing in the google adsense site list, strange.

Can we send dmca for coping our adsense code alone? I am not sure, moreover whether it is required. Thanks to all.

Please let me know where can i find information on editing my adsense ads, I dont want to create new ads for each site just to match my left panel text link and link unit colour. I hate this new adsense code.

[Lame_Wolf]

matrix_neo, have you tried Googling your Pub-ID
I find a number of sites that way.

[Brett_Tabke]

01. Sites that copied my content, design and adsence code, simply duplicate site.

02. One site was blocked by DNS due to phising nature of the site.

03. Only my adsense code is used (I Earned a few dollers as well)

04. One site is now being redirected to google.

That is a classic AdSense attack. Someone is trying to get you kicked out of AdSense by linking you to a bad neighborhood.

Getting a site listed on a block list such as repetitive email spammer, malware host, or phising host will get a hand check on that site 100% of that time if it is in the AdSense program.

[kaz]

That is fair to say, but hypothetically with an adsense attack like that if your account were to be disabled because someone attacked your account then the case is your own site meets the tos and you could enable another accounts ads on your site asap. That scenario would be a mess when it comes to your account, but from an adsense revenue standpoint an interim solution based on the realities of how google handles their "accounts".

As a publisher and advertiser I'd like to see use of the allowed sites feature become standard. New to me, but I will be using it from now on. lesson learned.

[directwheels]

sorry for the dumb question, but how do you tell what sites are using your adsense code?

[alika]

I also did not use the Allowed Site feature before, not knowing if it's useful or not.

But after my entire site was copied -- Adsense code and all -- I realized the huge risk and started to make use of that feature.

It's hard to prevent someone from copying your site and Adsense code, so at the very least, tell G which sites are yours and where your codes should only be found.

how do you tell what sites are using your adsense code?

1 - search for your Adsense code
2 - look at your analytics to see if any site is suddenly bringing you an abnormally high traffic
3 - routinely search for some sentences in your site

In one instance, a visitor emailed us to let us know that he came across another site that has the exact site design and content of our site.

[Go60Guy]

Just for your information, Allowed Sites doesn't permit listing of more than 100 sites.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Add Google to your ALLOWED list if you use the site filter, unless you don't want to get paid for clicks from places like Google images and Google content. Might want to add Bing and Yahoo too, or any other site that you don't mind framing your content.

[DeVille]

I've had an adsense account for 4 years that has tanked and I Google my publisher ID and can't find it. I've been getting someone to develop sites for me when it started to tank and I can find his id no probs but not mine. Any ideas on why my id wouldn't be found?

[martinibuster]

And found some unauthorised sites one of them is the below one.

translate.googleusercontent.com

translate.googleusercontent.com is the URL used when someone is viewing your content via the Googe Translation tool.

webcache.googleusercontent.com is the URL used when Google displays the cached version of your page. Those are both generally a legit display of your adsense ad.

[alika]

My question is -- are we supposed to include in the Allowed Sites

translate.googleusercontent.com
webcache.googleusercontent.com

[Broadway]

Does anyone know if you need to list the www and non-www versions of the URL in the declarations box. You would think not but the new adsense interface list of "sites showing your ads" lists both url versions separately (as individual entities).

[Jaideemaak]

Some excellent questions and observations here. I just checked and sure enough:

translate.googleusercontent.com
webcache.googleusercontent.com

were showing as disallowed sites that were showing my ads. So presumably I've been losing income if my pages were showing through either of these and someone clicked on an ad?

After I added my allowed sites a long time ago, I never went back to check again. I only did so today as a result of this thread.

I've now added the two Google URLs. My assumption is that not having them in my allowed sites list means I won't get paid. I also assume that adding Google sites won't cause me any problems.

A numerical URL was also displayed, which turned out to be the Yahoo search page. Yahoo uses different domains depending on country, so it's going to be difficult adding all of the various Yahoo search pages.

And then there are the other search engines ...

I'm not sure what to do now, apart from checking the Adsense report regularly from now on, determining whether a site is valid, and then adding it accordingly.

I would also be interested in the answer to the 'with and without www' question.

[netmeg]

I would like to be able to do this, but #1 I have a lot of sites and #2 questions like the above are never answered by Google, so I fear going too much in the wrong direction.

As far as www vs non-www - if you're set up correctly where one 301's to the other (whichever way you choose to go) then just showing one *should* do it. If someone comes in on the "wrong" version they should be redirected to the right one. But probably best to put both in just in case.

[Go60Guy]

But probably best to put both in just in case.

Which, again, raises the question of what to do if you have more than 100 sites carrying AdSense. If you fail to list sites, as I read it, your impressions and clicks for the unlisted sites won't be reported. Must we assume this means there will be no earnings realized from unlisted sites, as well?

[Broadway]

One of my listings was a DNS number thing, which was Yahoo (Like Jaideemaak state above).

Would you just put the number in the declarations box? Or would yahoo.com suffice?

[netmeg]

See, there's no clarifications on these questions, and that's why I don't do it.

Technically, www and non www are different urls. And yahoo.com and its IP numbers are different urls. So you have to come up with every possibility for every site, not just your own, but caches and translators (if you want to go that route) and if you've got even ten sites (let alone a hundred) it's just impossible to manage.

[Go60Guy]

I agree, it's too vague, and I'm not doing it either. I ran my pub-id on a big G search, and can't see where I currently have anything to worry about.

[alika]

In our case, we've had several instances where our whole site, including Adsense code, were copied. Hence, we very much welcome this feature and has been using it.

Luckily for us, I suppose, we don't have a lot of sites so a 100 limit is not a problem

It all depends on what risks you think your site faces. But if you've experienced being copied or someone duplicated your site, this is a must-use feature

[Jaideemaak]

Technically, www and non www are different urls. And yahoo.com and its IP numbers are different urls. So you have to come up with every possibility for every site, not just your own, but caches and translators (if you want to go that route) and if you've got even ten sites (let alone a hundred) it's just impossible to manage.

This is what I thought ...

[Jaideemaak]

Hence, we very much welcome this feature and has been using it.

I can see the benefit as well, but it would seem to create another issue (unless I've got this all wrong).

If someone comes to your site through cache or a translator, then the top level domain displaying your site (and Adsense) isn't your normal domain.

If you don't have that domain in your list of allowed sites, then you won't get paid if someone clicks on an ad.

As Nutmeg pointed out, there are so many possibilities that it is impossible to maintain. And even if it were, we can only put 100 domains in the list, apparently.

One of my sites in particular has high international interest and people visit from all over the world. Sometimes they use a translator of their choice; and sometimes they use the Google translator I have included on each page to help international visitors who can't read English.

If my assumptions are correct, then I could be losing out on quite a bit of Adsense revenue.

Another site I manage has zero interest to non-English speakers. No one ever visits via a translator so there is no problem. It depends on your content and where your visitors come from.