Heads Up! Check your adsense!

1. 0

   daflaposted 14 years ago

   Well, the plot thickens on the adsense mischief.  From a couple of emails I've gotten from other hubbers, I'm not the only victim of this adsense fiend.  A lot of the people who commented on my hub about the picture hubs have had their adsense accounts attacked.  It's being handled, so I won't go into detail as to what is being done, but everyone should check their adsense accounts, and if you see a day with what looks like fraudulent clicks (I had over 1,000 in one day), contact adsense and tell them.  They are aware of what is going on here, and aren't going to be closing any accounts, but it's still best that you tell them so they can track this guy and shut him down for good.

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2. 74

   thranaxposted 14 years ago

   Better watch out then! Thanks for the Heads up!
   
   ~thranax~

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3. 66

   Lissieposted 14 years ago

   There seems to be a bit of this going around. Some people are having their adsense IDs hijacked and used on adult hubs.  Someone pointed out a good feature in adsense where you can select teh allowed urls for your adsense id e.g. hubpages.com!
   I did that a week ago and it also tells you if any OTHER url is using your code: useful when you forget which sites you own LOL

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      daflaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Yes, I chose all my "channels", and that is how adsense knew I did not have the site where that adsense was used.  That, and that I've had adsense for over two years, and have never had any porn sites, I suppose.

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4. 81

   Shadesbreathposted 14 years ago

   This is just not the kind of thing I am ever going to thing to watch out for.  I hope adsense sends an email if my account starts acting wierd. I just write.

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      daflaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      The problem with that is, they DON'T always send you a notice.  Many people have had their accounts suspended for no reason they can ascertain.  It's best to be proactive.

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         Shadesbreathposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         The problem with proactivity is that it doesn't adequately take laziness into account.

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5. 72

   Just_Rodneyposted 14 years ago

   Thanks for that info, will check the adsense a bit more carefully.

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6. 60

   premsinghposted 14 years ago

   Its true. My adsense id was pasted on an adult site at blogger. I received an email from google about it. This all is being done by the hubbers who are publishing picture galleries and if you write something against them they will adapt illegal tricks like pasting your code on porn sites, illegal clicking and posting your hubs on other sites by other names. I wrote a hub against these picture hubbers and was threatened by them and as a result I have withdrawn that hub. Even then they are doing such silly things. They are running a syndicate and publishing picture hubs in thousands.  All hubbers may take a note of this and best way is to use their adsense id only on hubpages and list hubpages in allowed sites.

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7. 88

   gamergirlposted 14 years ago

   OH NO!! My adsense was disabled!!  -fretting, runs to check her email-

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   mulderposted 14 years ago

   unreal  thanks for the heads ups   .

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9. 88

   gamergirlposted 14 years ago

   My adsense account was disabled.
   
   I sent information through the online help form thing on the FAQ page, and now just have to wait for a reply. 
   
   *sigh*
   
   Whoever did this is not a good person, is vindictive and mean, and doesn't deserve the half a penny per click that they currently earn with their "sexy pictures hub."

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      SirDentposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. This is about the lowest thing a person could do. So sorry GG.

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      mulderposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I hope karma bites their arse  thats a terrible thing to  do to you  .

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      daflaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Oh no!  I'll write on your behalf if you want.  We really need for staff to get involved with this.  Maddie said that she would talk to Paul about it, but next thing I heard, they said they couldn't do anything.
      
      Like I said before, those picture hubs make them a lot of money.  Sad.

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      1. STAFF

         pauldeedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         First I'd like to advise anyone that is concerned about this type of attack to use the AdSense Publisher White List.  Simply place 'hubpages.com', and any other sites that you use AdSense on on the list.  If enabled, Google will not run ads with your publisher id on any other domains.
         
         Dafla, you sent us an IP Address that you somehow came to believe was the one used by the person that excessively clicked on ads, but you did not provide us any evidence of that.  I'm not sure what action you'd expect us to take from that.  It is google that has a record of what IP addresses have clicked on ads.  They also presumably have some record of who has created pornographic blogs on Blogger and place your AdSense code on them.
         
         If you have communication from Google that you'd like to share with us that includes information that we could use to identify a HubPages account that is responsible, then we'll definitely take action.  But, we're simply not going to act without credible evidence.  Unfortunately, Google has a monopoly on the all the information in this case and therefore they are the ones that are in the best position to do something -- which is what we told you.
         
         Lastly, hubs that contain photos are not a violation of our rules.  Therefore we allow them to be published.   If you think these authors are violating other rules (such as copyright), there are remedies available that have been discussed extensively before.  In the mean time, you are free to continue to advocate for any change in our rules you'd like to see made.

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            daflaposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            You know, Paul, I'm not trying to cause trouble.  A lot of other people here don't like those hubs either, and they happen to be some of your best hubbers.  This really makes me angry, because I just gave you information, thinking you might like to check it out.  I don't know jack shite about computers, or IP's, or any of that.  I was concerned that something like what happened to Gamer Girl might happen to others of us.
            
            Evidently, those picture hubs that make you so much adsense money are more important to you than we are.  You've showed us your true colors, right here, Paul.  $$ before Hubbers.
            
            If you read my hub where I took a poll about the picture hubs, you'd see in the comments that you are losing some good hubbers over this. I guess you just don't care as long as those big ole' adsense checks keep rolling in, do you?
            
            I've written my last hub, and posted my last post.  Goodbye hubbers.  It's been real, and its been fun, but you know...it just ain't real fun anymore.  Money before morals doesn't work for me.  Anybody who wants to stay in touch, you can contact me through my profile.  I'm outta here.

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10. 85

    Whitney05posted 14 years ago

    Did you guys receive an email about your accounts being disabled? I just ran to check mine and didn't see anything out of the ordinary that I could see. I never really check how many clicks I get, but assumed that bc I didn't get an email, it's ok. I didn't have near 1000 though.

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11. 0

    daflaposted 14 years ago

    Whitney, you don't have to have 1,000.  If it's anything that Google thinks looks like click fraud, they'll disable your account.  It could be that you normally get 5-10 clicks, and now you're getting 100 a day.  If you see anything unusual, it's best to contact them and let them know you're on Hubpages, because they are aware of the problem. 
    
    Once it's disabled,  it hardly ever gets reinstated.
    
    The worse part of all of this is that if enough HubPages accounts are getting all these fraudulent clicks, the people doing it will just be shooting themselves in the foot, because Adsense will simply not allow HubPages to put adsense ads on here anymore.
    
    The culprits don't know whether they're clicking our ads or HubPages ads either, so HubPages is probably getting a lot of fraudulent click activity as well.
    
    Just shows how stupid these people really are.

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    thranaxposted 14 years ago

    Could the attacks be coming from another online writing site, I tend to ponder. Hubpages is very successful so therefore maybe thats what there trying to do, shut it down and not shut down the hubber's account per say. Because, think, if Hubpages gets blacklisted, most of its authors would seek a new answer.
    
    Thats just my guess.
    
    ~thranax~

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       Whitney05posted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Gotcha.. I'm not sure what my normal clicks are but the revenue seems to be about normal.
       
       
       
       This makes since... Sort of... I mean they did just launch their versus of HP, but at the same time wouldn't the attacks, so to speak, affect all other writing sights like squidoo, ezine, etc.

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13. 87

    Dorsiposted 14 years ago

    As of yesterday my adsense report showed no clicks, now today there is no report at all!! I thought it had to do with my pin but now I think something else happened, like hijacking or something!

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14. 88

    gamergirlposted 14 years ago

    So my appeal is in.  No word back yet.  If they don't reinstate me, I'll probably be very mad and abandon hubbing for a bit.  Just a warning. ><

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       Ryan Hupferposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Whaaaat?!?!
       
       Now, let's not get crazy...I'm sure that Google will figure it all out.
       
       (crosses fingers)

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15. STAFF

    pauldeedsposted 14 years ago

    The way I see it, having a clearly stated set of rules and enforcing them consistently is the very essence of morality.  As the purveyor of an open publishing platform, it is my job is to protect people's freedom to publish what they see fit within the boundaries that we've established.  Changing the rules well into the game isn't fair to anyone that has invested significant time and effort into HubPages, and it isn't something we're likely to do without significant thought.
    
    The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.  --HL Menken
    
    You may think it's about money, but that's really not it.  Traffic from India pays about 1/8 what U.S. traffic pays, and the click through rate on photo galleries is lower than most other types of content.  Good luck in wherever your online life takes you next, Dafla.  You'll always be welcome back here at HubPages, should you change your mind.

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    premsinghposted 14 years ago

    This is a serious problem. Day is not far when serious hubbers will leave hubpages. These picture hubbers are targetting the best hubbers. They have pasted my google publisher id on a porn site at blogger. I receieved an email that I saw after 3-4 days and after reading mail I came to know that my id has been pasted on an adult site. I immediately informed google adsense support that I did not own that site. I came to know in the forum that there is provision to add site in the allowed site. Unfortunately, in the meantime I receievd email from google that my A/C has been disabled. Same thing has happened with gamegirl and I doubt daffla is also a victim of this fraud. Like others I also thought to withdraw from hubpages but then I changed my mind. I am not leaving hubpages. If hubpages is really interested to take action against these hubbers I know the name of these hubbers who are doing all this nonsense. I can provide their names if hubpages is really willing to act hard. They are few in number but they have multiple accounts and their plan is to dominate here and eleminate the good hubbers.

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       Whitney05posted 14 years agoin reply to this

       How do you know that it is hubbers that are doing this. It really could be anyone who is able to pull the codes. I forget how, but I know my dad showed me a LONG time ago how to pull up the html coding on websites.
       
       It doesn't mean that it is a hubber just because hubber ids are being pulled. And, why would a hubber do that to another hubber, as it has been stated previously in this thread that if google wanted, they could easily blacklist HP bc the ids are coming from people participating on the website, which would in turn mean that hubber/those hubbers would lose HP as a revenue source if the site was blacklisted... If I understand that correctly.
       
       I would just say to keep a close eye on your google accounts because it's not HP's fault or the team's fault for what has happened. They can only do so much, and I, personally, think that they're doing a great job.
       
       I know that I usually don't check my affiliate accounts but once or twice a week, but I have been making a point to check near daily, at least my Adsense account to check for fraudulent clicks, and I'd say that that's about all that you can do until something happens.

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       Maddie Ruudposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       If you have some sort of actual proof, as Paul said above, we'd love to see it.  Simply asserting that you "know" who did this to you and putting forward usernames or IP addresses does not constitute proof.  Dafla did just that, but could not tell me how she deduced who these people were, nor forward me any direct communication from Google, who are the only people who would actually be able to tell who it is who did this.

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    jyuvaposted 14 years ago

    I think this is nothing to do with picture galleries. Because i am posted most of the picture galleries. My account also disabled, giving the the same reason, i think my id is also hijacked and pasted on some adult blog, for this reason my account was closed.

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18. 60

    premsinghposted 14 years ago

    Why outside people will paste your publisher id on adult site? What they will gain by doing this? I am saying it because I have some arguments with these hubbers and they have threatned me to face consequences. At that time I dragged my feet back but I could not imagine they can go to such an extent. Some of them even copied my articles and posted it on their sites within a hour of publication of my hub. They  copied my content and blamed me to be a spammer.When some old hubbers defended me then they surrendered. Why the hubbers who are opposing obscene/indecent picture hubs at hubpages are being targetted?
    
    Anyone can easily know your google adsense id just by right clicking and looking at page source and pasting it on other sites is not very difficult. These picture hubbers are experts and they can easily paste adsense id on any site. Its not difficult to know the pincode of your area and last five digits of your phone can be worked out by using different combinations. Unfortunate part of whole incidence is that google can easily detect who is the owner of site and what ip address has been used to make the site on blogger but they don't make efforts to do it or even if they knew who is doing it they don't take action against the culprit but make a publisher the victim. I think it is the easiest thing to disable a publisher account. When they disabled my account I asked them why they are allowing that porn site on blogger. After few days that blog was removed from blogger.Its not sure whether google removed it or owner ?
    
    jyuva, I know you are not of that kind and you could have been targeted just because you were a competitor in the eyes of those hubbers. I beleive they are so shrewed they will not say a word in such discussions.

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    Whitney05posted 14 years ago

    Ok, so a non-hubber has absolutely nothing to gain by stealing an ID, what exactly does a hubber have to gain? Nothing. He won't be making any money. He's getting someone else in trouble and potentially getting HP blacklisted, which he loses that source of revenue from his picture hubs, if that is truly what he's doing. A hubber has more to lose than a non-hubber.
    
    Fight it out with Google. There's not much HP can do, except block the IP address which I wouldn't see necessary without proof.
    
    I don't see a problem with the picture hubs, as long as they follow the rules, and why punish everyone with picture hubs because possibly one or two people with them may have stolen a few  ID's? Punish those people if you actually have proof... Do you have proof that it was those people?
    
    Either way it doesn't make since to me, and it's a situation that should be taken up with google.

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20. 63

    Mishaposted 14 years ago

    Wow, I did not come here for a few days - and what a drama!
    
    Those who got affected - I really feel for you and hope this thing gets resolved ASAP with no significant damage to you!
    
    I actually took a note immediately as I saw the thread, and I did configure my white list right away - but then, I was not the one who tried to run out of Hubpages all chick pics.
    
    Just to let newcomers know - we had quite a few forum battles on the issue. Try to search forums for them, you'll see where people stand on this. I think Dafla is mistaken when she says most of the serious hubbers are against allowing for that kind of hubs being published here. In fact it is probably the opposite.
    
    I for one don't oppose them for exactly the reason Paul stated, and many more hubbers agree to that. Top hubbers, mind you - Whitney05, Mark Knowles, Isabella Snow, Embitca, JimmytheJock - just to name a few. We all support current Hubpages stance on the issue, and I think this stance is both moral and reasonable.
    
    This is not to say that there are no top hubbers who are against those hubs. There are quite a few of them, too. The point I am trying to make is that opposing those hubs is not unanimous  among top hubbers - as could be concluded from Dafla's post.
    
    Given the list of affected persons, I tend to believe this is a retaliation attempt from some pic chick hubber(s), but I agree that Hubpages just don't have reliable information to interfere. Trying to solve it here is highly likely to wreck havoc on innocent people. Google has all the info, and Google is the right place to deal with this issue, even if the wrongdoers are members of HP community. Good luck! I mean it

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    gamergirlposted 14 years ago

    It's been a few days, and all I've heard back from Google is that my appeal is still under review.
    
    I have absolutely nothing to say about my suspicions, my concerns or my thoughts regarding the matter otherwise.
    
    Hubpages is receiving 100% of any clicks from my hubs, however I have begun to slowly remove hubs to files on my desktop.  So far I figure I've lost out on about 6 bucks worth of click time, average.

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    Marisa Wrightposted 14 years ago

    Charlotte, I do hope you manage to get this resolved.
    
    Dafla, Misha is right in that there has been lots of discussion about borderline "adult" Hubs.  Although I'd prefer they weren't here, I understand and respect HubPages' stance on it - for a variety of reasons which I won't go into here as it's been gone through so many times before.
    
    I'd love someone to explain it to me, though - why are people doing this?   What can they possibly stand to gain by putting someone else's Adsense code on their site?  After all, they can't make any money from it, so there seems no point unless they're being vindictive.

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       Lissieposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       
       Yeah I've asked the same thing and no one has answered.  That's why I am sure the permsingh and dafla are wrong. The only thing I can think of is that perhaps they as the people who are below you in the search engine listings  - who hope by doing this you will freak out and take your hub down thus improving their own ranking - this is the only logical reason I can think of.
       
       I did exactly the same as Misha- immediately whitelisted my allowed domains in adsense so only they can run my adsense code and I even get a list of unauthorised sites running my code  - which was helpful for the ones I forgot!
       
       I am really sorry for people like Charlotte who have caught up in this but the evidence seems to be the Google is reinstating accounts  when people appeal which is not generally what Google does- so it sounds like they recognise it as fraud - Charlotte just give them a few days - Im sure it will be OK

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    Marisa Wrightposted 14 years ago

    I'm confused by the Whitelist thing - I just checked mine and although I have put HubPages on there, it gave me a warning that hubpages.com had used my ID.  I'm worried that may mean some of the clicks from HP may not have been recorded.

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24. 66

    Lissieposted 14 years ago

    If you read the fine print at the bottom of the page the "unauthorised use" list is only updaed weekly - so for the first week it will include sites you have whitelisted - I must have done mine 8 days ago because all the violations just disapeared!

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       weblogposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       I had the same doubt. Thanks for the explanation

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25. 60

    premsinghposted 14 years ago

    I make few corrections here. All the picture hubbers are not involved in this and I would not prefer that all picture hubbers be blamed for hijacking others Id and paste them on adult sites. I know only three hubbers are involved in it. I'll mail their names to HP. I know HP can't do much in this regard but  such people need to be exposed. Atleast, HP will take a note of this. Personally speaking I am also not against of publishing picture galleries if photos are decent and these don't have adult photos. The only question arises here is related to hijacking of Ids of hubbers who have criticised these picture hubbers either in the forum or through comments. Being diplomatic is a good thing but supporting the people who are doing such things is not nice in any way. Top hubbers who have not been targeted yet are lucky enough. They will feel the burns if something of similar nature happens with them in the future.

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       Maddie Ruudposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       Just to be clear: we can do something when presented with proof.  We cannot do anything based on allegations or cicumstantial evidence.
       
       I've said several times, and so has Paul, that Google is the only one who can tell who it is that's using your ID, or clicking on your ads.  If you have information from Google, please do forward it to me.

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    premsinghposted 14 years ago

    Yes, google has the IP addresses of the computers from where these adult sites were uploaded. I'll send IP addresses of these hubbers shown in the comments boxes so that they can match these IP addresses from those of adult sites. I am not asking HP to take action but to take note and keep an eye on their activities.

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       Maddie Ruudposted 14 years agoin reply to this

       In addition to the proxy problem Lissie mentions above, the problem is, there is no proof that people leaving particular comments are also perpetrating the AdSense fraud.

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27. 66

    Lissieposted 14 years ago

    Well only if the hubbers are stupid and never heard of proxies - whereby changing their IP address, or it the way I do it my just switiching my modem off for 15 min, or are in fact on dialup and probably get a new IP everytime they login!

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28. 0

    shinujohn2008posted 14 years ago

    I have been using Allowed Sites Option from the time it has been introduced by Adsense.
    
    http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/09/all … clear.html
    
    It was introduced from Septemper - 2007 and it has been over a year since it was available in Adsense setup Tab and it is surprising that no one knows it. I have been a victim of invalid clicks many times and even sometimes it was difficult for me to know whether they were Valid or not. So i contacted google regarding this and the mail i got was that they have taken account of this and will be monitoring my account closely. After that i contacted them 2 more times and they got frustrated and said that i should not contact them every now and then, and that they were monitoring my account closely. After that i contacted Hubpages once regarding my doubt of invalid clicks and the reply i got was that i should contact google regarding this and they were helpless regarding checking the invalid clicks issue. This happened 3 or 4 months before.
    
    I am writing all this so that all hubbers can know the difficulties i have faced and the threats i have been receiving and the tips i have used to overcome this can be useful to everyone of you.  Invalid click activity is not a new thing here, but i think it has spread like a disease to more people for the first time.
    
    The only way i found out to solve this problem of invalid clicks, without disturbing Hubpages Team and Adsense Team every time i suspected invalid activity was to use Allowed sites Option Feature. Allowed sites option can SAVE us from invalid clicks. The same way you allow Hubpages to show your ads, you can also disallow hubpages by removing hubpages from the list so that if there is any suspicion or threat by people or increase in CTR you can immediately disallow hubpages from your list so that the future clicks wont be credited as earnings. So Google has provided the best tool to be protect from invalid clicks. It is our fault  that we did not use it properly.
    
    As i have been using Allowed sites option, i saw that many sites that had trojan viruses installed in them were displaying my ids. When i once tried to visit such site that was dispalyed in my account, i got a warning message from Firefox, that "this site can damage your computer or is suspected as a attack site". So i stopped visiting disallowed sites after this incident as it can be trick to destroy my computer.
    
    The next problem i found was regard to my referrals who did not have any adsense account with them signing up under me and publishing hubs that had only one video or even nothing in it. I was very much concerned that i contacted hub pages again and i got reply that 1 of those hubs have been unpublished and other hubs seems to be OK. Hubpages team advised me that they could not take away 1 or 2 referrals away. They could only remove the entire Referrals i had. So at present i am checking all peope who sign up beneath me and publish hubs and it has now become my job to check whether they publish hubs according to guidelines, because most people who sign up and create hubs do not have any adsense account for them which is a very Big problem. I decided to solve this problem by creating new hub pages accounts and using the referral trackers in that hub page accounts, so that even if someone creates bad hubs, the referral tracker in that account can be taken off easily by Hubpages admins. This is the only solution i have as Hub pages is helpless regarding this Referral Issue.
    
    I am the one who was attacked most times and even when i am writing this message i can see clicks being credited with high CTR and luckily i have disllowed hubpages from list, so Zero earnings. I switch on and off this Allowed sites option every now and then. Sorry i could not disclose the time when i switch it on and off, because people who are making invalid clicks on my account will find it easy.
    
    Jyuva, Gamergirl, Premsingh i am feeling bad for what have happened to you. Your appeal to google will take atleast 2 weeks to be processed. And as it is very difficult to get back disabled accounts , it will be much good if you can contact your relatives or your parents and create an account in their name so that you can use it here. As you were top hubbers your articles should not be wasted. Another thing is that Google did not find any problem with your articles, so my opinion is that it is OK to use adsense again in that pages and use allowed sites option on and off so that nothing bad happens.
    
    There are lot of people wandering around forums promoting affiliate products, chinese goods, ehow, and including the Picture hubbers who have just joined in hundreds of numbers, competitor people on same topic and also many new people who are unknown to others because they don't participate in forums and keep silent and other hundreds of reasons or possiblities. So speculation and assumptions should be avoided and adsense team should be contacted so that they can take proper action.

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