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Traffic Exchange programs may violate Google Adsense TOS

by Gogi Rana on May 11, 2011 · 8 comments

Google Adsense is the best way of generating revenue from your website site as long as your site adheres to the Adsense Terms of Service (TOS). Recently several Adsense accounts were disabled by Google because those sites were using Traffic Exchange programs that according to Google Adsense generate low quality traffic and invalid clicks.

Google Adsense has updated their TOS which now forbids users from using traffic exchange programs. If you are using any of these sites (2leep, wahoha, MGID, Zaparena) to send and to receive traffic you are violating the Google AdSense TOS and have a risk of getting your AdSense account banned.

What does Google really mean by Traffic Exchange?

There are several sites that can help you get more traffic to your website or blog. The process is simple, for every visitor you send them they will send one or two visitors to your site. So in general your site is sending and receiving traffic, even though you are not paying for those services.

If you are getting traffic from social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon etc. that traffic is valid as your site is not exchanging traffic with those sites.  I hope this makes it clear what traffic exchange is.

For Example using 2leep.com services will violate the Google Adsense TOS

If you want to use 2leep.com you need to place their widget on your site which will then show previews of other bloggers posts. When your site visitor clicks on a post they are sent to the other site. In return your blog post will also be shown on some other site and when someone clicks you get a visitor back on your site.

So you see 2leep.com is a pure traffic exchange program and if you are using such programs your Adsense account is at risk.

As per Google Adsense TOS

  • Do not buy traffic.
  • Do not involve in pay to click, auto surf, click exchange or paid to surf programs.
  • Avoid Traffic exchange programs.

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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

girl games April 23, 2013 at 12:35 am

I disabled Traffic Exchange programs.

Reply

Aniket @ Freelance W December 22, 2011 at 2:34 pm

Link exchange can never help in increasing traffic. Thats for sure.

Adsense or pure SEO, Link exchange should be avoided.

Build good content on your website/blog & natural links to support it.

Reply

Rabindra Lamsal November 14, 2011 at 7:26 pm

I got more than 5000 views per day in recent days due to stumbleupon. Is there any chance that adsense will disable our account?

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GoGi November 14, 2011 at 7:43 pm

Dear Rabindra,

StumbleUpon traffic is usually with the bar that is visible on top they use iFrame to show our website. I don't think it will cause any issue with adsense. I too get a lot of stumble hits but I found that the revenue is a bit less via adsense from stumble traffic.

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khael May 26, 2011 at 7:38 pm

Hi Gogi,

I'd been to Sire's site and found out that Zaparena's founder left a comment on Sire's post regarding Zaparena and Adsense. He said that it's not traffic exchange but network exchange and there is a huge difference between those two terms. Also he mentioned that not even one Zaparena user has been penalize by Google.

I read about Google Adsense TOS and it could have been interpreted differently. Anyway no one actually knows how Google feels about anything :)

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GoGi May 26, 2011 at 9:05 pm

Hi Khael,
yes it is true we never know how google will react but one needs to watch out their email.. In case of any violation you will get a email from google and you need to fix that issue within 2 days.. or your account gets blocked.. However you can activate the adsense account later on but precious days are lost.

I think google wants natural traffic say from organic searches and through sharing from social media..(or kind of one way sharing..)

GoGi.

Reply

Sire May 19, 2011 at 9:57 am

Do you know of anyone who has lost their Google account because they used Zaparena?

I've reread their TOS and to me what they are against are sites that;

As you may 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 webpages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers

Zaparena doesn't do any of that.

Reply

GoGi May 19, 2011 at 3:25 pm

Hi Sire,

I checked the zaparena site you sign up / get a widget and put that widget on your site. this is click exchange.. And this violates the adsense TOS.

Reply

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