Adsense click bombing cyber attack : Targeting only asian bloggers

An adsense click bombing cyber attack is on the rise these days. Many South east Asian bloggers, and several pro-bloggers too are noticing its effects. An individual or group is targeting these independent bloggers for unknown reasons.

Adsense click bombing cyber attack screenshot
Screenshot of An Indian Webmaster’s logs, notice the spike in unauthorized requests!

As we all know that AdSense is the primary source of revenue for a majority of bloggers, it is shocking to see so many invalid click activity rise from foreign IP addresses. Notably U.S IP addresses, those originating from Germany and some from other countries too. It is unclear whether the attackers were based in these countries or used proxies based in these countries.

Pro blogger Bilal Ahmed from Techmaish in a recent correspondence with the web-master of Inspire2rise confirmed the attacks. As several web masters including himself have removed their adsense codes from there sites due to fear of being banned for invalid click activity.

 What is Click Bombing ?

Click bombing is when there are clicks on your AdSense ads beyond the usual levels. An example would be when a malicious user visits your site and clicks on your ads several times or programs a bot or machine to do so. This is essentially Click Bombing.

And if that particular user/group is doing so in order to get you banned. Then you are seriously in for some trouble.

Google is very serious regarding invalid click activity / suspicious clicks. Google is clever and learns if you yourself have been up to some wrong doing.

So, NEVER CLICK ON YOUR ADS.

Adsense click bombing cyber attack : Targeting only Asian bloggers –

Adsense click bombing cyber attack : jokerIf you too are noticing unusual click activity since few days. And if you too have been targeted by this adsense click bombing cyber attack , then follow these steps :

1.) Remove adsense code, immediately . Do so to avoid further attacks.

2.) Check whether your site is secure enough or not. The next step for the attackers could be to use SQL injection on your site and bring it down!
To strengthen your security use : Better WP- Security plugin along with Sucuri Site Scanner .

3.) Notice your traffic logs, and stats using Cpanel tools. You can also use WordPress stats by Jetpack for doing so. Analyse suspicious activity and note down the IP addresses.

4.) Notify Google about the Invalid click activity using their appeal form.

5.) All who are getting invalid clicks please share your problem in this Google Help thread. It will help if we report this on a mass scale. And will lead the Google authorities to seriously look into the adsense click bombing issue.
Submit here.

6.) You can use the CB-protect WordPress plugin to protect yourself from click bombing attacks to a certain extent.

7.) For any further queries comment in the comment box below. We will try our best to help you!

You read : Adsense click bombing cyber attack : Targeting only asian bloggers!

Adsense click bombing cyber attack : Possible solutions found :

1.) Installing Display Widgets plugin, use this plugin temporarily till we find a true solution. Our new plugin will come soon.

2.) Removing visible ads from Homepage has also helped many webmasters to a great extent. Most of the BOTS target visible ads on homepages.

Contact us for queries.

Follow Inspire2rise on Facebook | Inspire2rise on Twitter .

Aditya Nath Jha is an Engineer from New Delhi, India. His areas of interest include Gadgets, WordPress, speed optimization & latest technology. When he is not busy blogging he loves to write poetry, compose his own songs and has a taste for music! Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Instagram. And watch his videos on YouTube.


Adsense click bombing cyber attack : Targeting only asian bloggers

55 thoughts on “Adsense click bombing cyber attack : Targeting only asian bloggers”

  1. My adesense account was disabled about 2 days ago..I am realy sad because I was statrting to get decent traffic after 4 months of hard work..I noticed more than 100% CTR and within minutes I recieved a message that my acoount was disabled..By the way I am from Africa..

    Reply
  2. WTF is going on with us and when it will stop? I already pulled my ads but other users still facing click bombing on 3rd day.

    Reply
  3. Thank you very much for this valuable information. I am searching for this bombing problem solution from a ong tie i have found this great info. Now i will apply this to my blogger.

    Reply
  4. It’s really bad time for adsense publishers and many are facing the same issue (including me). As mentioned, it’s better to remove all ads, report invalid click activity to Google, strengthen the security of blog/site and taking all possible actions to keep adsense account safe. Thanks Aditya for sharing this useful info and tweeted 🙂

    Reply
  5. Hi Aditya Nath Jha,

    Thanks for the post. Its very bad for me.I earned good amount from Adsense but now Google permanently block me. I am very much worried i don’t know how i recover my account. After submitting google form i got below message
    ============================================================
    Hello,
    Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you’ve provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program. However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we’re unable to reinstate your AdSense account.
    Please know that, once we’ve reached a decision on your appeal, further appeals may not be considered, and you might not receive any further communication from us. Note that AdSense publishers whose accounts are disabled for violations of our Terms and Conditions are not eligible for further participation in AdSense. For this reason, you may not open new accounts.
    Also, accounts disabled for invalid click activity will receive no further payment nor any reissue of previous payment. Your outstanding balance and Google’s share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
    We understand that you may want more information about your account activity. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection systems, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any details about their account activity.

    Sincerely,
    The Google AdSense Team
    ================================================================

    Please help me. Thanks in advanced.

    Reply
  6. nice article bro! actually one of my friend lost his adsense and his webhosting is also ended same day…now his website bandwidth is extended…neither cpanel is opening nor wp…..so what can we do to get his adsense back??

    Reply
    • First of all you must get him a free hosting or something else. Try to participate in a hosting giveaway, if you win it would be easy. Then, follow the steps as I said. i.e reappeal to google using invalid clicks form.
      I hope it helps.

      Reply
  7. Hi Aditya,

    If you are getting CTR of 15% then its ok if clicks are real and traffic is organic. I have almost 25% CTR in one of my website before 2 months ago and there was no problem at all. I was also getting good CPC on that High CTR with 99% organic traffic.

    Now a days, High CTR is due to click bombing not actual traffic. That’s why Google Adsense is banning innocent bloggers. Most of Indian as well as Pakistani bloggers are suffering from this problem at all.

    Reply
    • I am too a victim. And Google says I am a threat to advertisers. So right now, there’s little I can do.
      P.S => From the next time use a real id to comment, otherwise comment won’t be approved!

      Reply
  8. I was also disabled – I had a single day of click bombing attack and I carried out all of the appropriate safeguards on my site – but NONE of them worked. CB Protect did not work, there were no suspicious activity in Analytics or Statcounter, only my websites were approved to show ads in the account settings. Nothing was appearing in any traffic or click logs. It appeared that all of the invalid clicks did not even happen on my site! There were no IP addresses being logged anywhere so they could be blocked. It is very cleverly done. I was powerless to prevent it happening. By the time I logged in, in the morning and saw all the clicks – it was too late. I sent in my reporting form to google, and after that one day, everything appeared to return to normal..But then I was disabled a few days later. Oh – and I am in the Cayman Islands.
    I really am devastated – ADsense was my only source of income.

    Reply
    • There’s a thing called “clicky” .I haven’t used it yet but some webmasters report it to be effective. If it helps the others reading this article SHOULD INSTALL IT!!
      Now, I have no doubt that this attack is Global. I am sorry for your loss bro!! Do try, the invalid activity report form again. It’s just too much pain. The only way to know suspicious ips correctly is to check visitor logs for ips that have there exit page as those of Google ads. Whosoever is organizing this attack shall soon face the wrath of the open internet.
      THE BLOGGERS!

      Reply
  9. Hi Aditya,

    Well Described about Click Bombing. These days Indian bloggers are at the who who are facing such kind of ridiculous things.

    Nice & very informative post about Click Bombing.

    Thanks

    -Avinash

    Reply
    • I would have loved to say thanks. But the post is so serious and about such a serious issue, that words are less here. Some people had their entire lives dependent on Online monetization. I am sorry for them.
      Keep visiting for more bro! Stay inspired to rise!

      Reply
  10. It’s really very bad lots of indian blogger suffering from this. i am also below is the message i got from Google

    Hello,

    Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you’ve provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program. However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we’re unable to reinstate your AdSense account.

    Please know that, once we’ve reached a decision on your appeal, further appeals may not be considered, and you might not receive any further communication from us. Note that AdSense publishers whose accounts are disabled for violations of our Terms and Conditions are not eligible for further participation in AdSense. For this reason, you may not open new accounts.

    Also, accounts disabled for invalid click activity will receive no further payment nor any reissue of previous payment. Your outstanding balance and Google’s share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

    We understand that you may want more information about your account activity. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection systems, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any details about their account activity.

    Sincerely,

    The Google AdSense Team

    Reply
  11. I know a ton of adsense publishers from USA, UK and other countries for the past month of April getting clickbombed. Show me proof it’s just asian bloggers and these folks on other forums lying about getting clickbombed 7 days a week in the month of April?

    Reply
    • Sorry bro, no offense but now it seems from your word, that this attack, wherever it is originating from is truly global in nature. I am sorry if my post hurt your sentiments. It’s truly sad if people loose there accounts after getting click bombed. See you around, keep visiting Inspire2rise.com !

      Reply
  12. Good sharing. I am also facing the same problem for last 2 weeks and have disabled Adsense code from my site. Now going to check CB Protect plugin.

    Reply
  13. Nice to see at least one blog mentionning this global scale attack on AdSense. The traditional big SEO blogs aren’t aware about what is going on it seems.

    My site gets most of its traffic from the US, and has been click bombed since 29th of March. It is difficult in Statcounter to identify the precise IP of the clicks. But they come from the US (and for some time end of march/beginning in April did also come from Germany).

    The clicks seem to only target the home page, and at least for my site seem to be originating from high-end mobile devices per the reports in AdSense.

    Hope this information will help.

    Reply
    • Yes, brother. You were clickbombed just the next day after me. We were the early sufferers! A group of my blogger friends have been developing a plugin to stop click bombing. I t will be a paid one. But I tested it. It was cent per cent effective. I will let you know when it’s available.

      Reply
  14. yes I am also agreed to you and in my opinion these click bombers can be those cheap advertiser who are jealous from google knowing they can’t defeat big G, They ruined publisher so that they come back towards them begging for cheap solution…

    Reply
  15. Nice solutions brother, I was just in problematic situation with the problem of AdSense from now a day problem. But I am thinking positive here. Google needed to be smart here else they do not care about we publishers.

    Reply
  16. I’m in Thailand and being clickbombed also for the last two days. I’ve just contacted the BBC and asked them to report on the story ie: WHY is Google doing nothing about this obviously racist attack on Asian bloggers? And why are they shutting down Asian bloggers’ AdSense accounts?

    If you want to contact the BBC as well, their form is here – BBC Story Form

    Reply
    • Michelle,

      Sorry but I’m located in Belgium and my site is also being targeted. And I know US sites that are also being targeted. This has nothing to do with racism.

      Aditya could change the title of the post though.

      Reply
      • Well, you know due to indexing issues I can’t change the post title now. If you know about SEO, you would understand what I am saying!
        But I second Chris, and it’s true : THIS ATTACK IS MAASIVE, THIS ATTACK IS GLOBAL.
        Follow the solutions and report the results here. Hope those who got banned get their accounts back.

        Reply
    • # Clickbombing victims

      My friends Jithin Mathew and Ashwani Kumar Saxena implemented code on IP block. You can install statcounter plugin to find out which IP the bomber is using to spam you. Or if you already have it you can block the complete range. It also blocks proxy server ips
      1. Install the plugin by doing a manual upload and activate
      2. Goto settings->IP Ad blocker
      3. Set range of ip like this separated by commas 117.*, 114.118.* etc.
      4. Save
      5. You can use test ip field to test AFTER you have saved the range
      6. Place you code between shortcode like this
      [CHECK_IP_BLOCK] Your adsense code here [/CHECK_IP_BLOCK] .
      You can also test IP like this :
      [CHECK_IP_BLOCK test_mode=”true” ip_test=”133.133.112.111″] Your adsense code here [/CHECK_IP_BLOCK]

      If the IP is matched then adsense will not show up.
      It also checks if the connection is from proxy server.
      As another project, one can create a list of trouble some IPs.
      THIS IS NOT THE PERFECT METHOD. It will save you from attacks but cannot stop a determined attacker. Use it at your own risk . Before using please test test test.
      LINK TO IP AD BLOCKER.

      Reply
  17. Sir my account has been dis approved for Invalid Activity but i have not clicked on my ads….Always it happens like that…I had more than 10 account…All the time same…..I have Used Blogger…….My account goes always with invalid activity and Dis approves…I hope you will help sir…Please….If it happenes same i cant earn money in adsense always account dis approving ….Please tell the Answer that to Protect our adsense account and Never get Banned from GOOGLE ADSENSE….

    Reply
  18. I get banned, but I am sick of those sad memory after the banned. I think I am going to campaign “CLICK your own ADSENSE and be Happy with that sh’t”

    Reply
  19. I am also suffering click bombing though this topic here is too old. I earned some 2000 euros last month. I faced this bombing today, two days ago and 4 days ago from latter. My daily earnings were like 450 euros in just oneh Hour and they settled back to normal next hour. Clicks I faced from USA Australia Japan france Indonesia ( with CPC 0.17 euros ! ) no idea how to save my ass though my account is still safe

    Reply
    • Make sure YOU REPORT the invalid clicks/ activity in your AdSense™ account, there’s a specific option to do that. If you find that more people are suffering from the same click bombing then do inform all of us here! It may be that a new wave of click bombing is at work again!

      Reply

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