From: David Brady <ruby_talk@...>
Date: 2005-09-18T06:11:42+09:00
Subject: Re: gsub(/Ads by Goooooogle/, "PayPal DONATE").suggest?

Mike Novecento wrote:

>The message that should be clear to all the ruby community is: click on
>that freaking ads!!! I started clicking everyday since yesterday,
>everytime I visit the site. Guys, let's click the ads on ruby-lang.org
>and we will give thousands to the cause of Ruby.
>  
>
I can't speak for the Ruby site owner, but as the owner of a handful of 
sites that runs Google Adsense ads, PLEASE STOP.  I know you already 
know that you can't get something for nothing.  But your thinking is, 
Google or the advertiser that paid Google can pick up the slack here.

Your thinking is wrong.  Google calls these "fraudulent clicks" and 
they're VERY good at detecting them.  The BEST thing that can happen is 
that your IP will be declared fraudulent and all your clicks (possibly 
along with everyone else's that uses your ISP!) will be eliminated from 
the site owner's payout.  A worse option is that Google can declare the 
entire ruby-lang.org site to be fraudulent!  They'll stop serving ads 
and refuse to pay out any pending legitimate ad money.  This has 
happened already to one site of mine due to overenthusiastic "help" from 
zealous fans.

-dB

-- 
David Brady
ruby_talk@shinybit.com
C++ Guru. Ruby nuby.  Apply salt as needed.