MyBlogLog And AdSense Don’t Agree
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Ever since I joined MyBlogLog (MBL), I’ve enjoyed using the “View Site Stats” for live tracking of clicks. In fact, the first week I spent entirely way too much time “analyzing” the stats. Refresh. Refresh…Refresh.
Well after a few days, I began to notice that my Google AdSense stats did not agree with those from MBL. Early this morning before I headed off to work, I checked both. Here’s what I saw:
Google AdSense
MyBlogLog
So, 17 clicks as reported by MBL and a big fat zero from Google AdSense…with 101 impressions. What gives? I was ready to contact Google about this discrepancy, but I decided to use Google Blogearch to see if other blogs were having the same issues. I kinda figured I wasn’t the only one. Smart, huh?
Well, there were several bloggers that noticed the same difference and decided to write Google about it. In his blog today (great minds think alike), Dom Ramsey posits the following:
Personally, I was more inclined to believe the MyBlogLog stats because they’re completely independent - and because my other sites linked from the page in question were also seeing an increase in traffic. It’s difficult to believe these 10,000 or so extra visitors clicked everything except a single Google ad.
Be sure to read the rest of his account. He ended up writing to Google and they repled…basically telling him sorry but there’s really nothing we can do. I found some other insightful posts — Mike Abundo proposes the notion that MBL is Yahoo!’s AdSense Trojan, and Everton Blair at Connected Internet suggests that using MBL could be a violation of Google’s TOS.
I doubt Google would ban thousands upon thousands of MBL subscribers. From what I understand, some blogs realize more discrepancy than others. No doubt Google will hear from them…regardless of whether it’s a difference of 2 or 200. I checked my stats from both again during lunch, and the difference has gone from 17 to 7. I’m sure that’s just lag from AdSense in reporting the clicks. Feel free to share any thoughts or similar issues you’ve had.
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March 20th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Derrich, I see the exact same thing happen daily for me, and it really sometimes bothers me when I see that 13 people clicked an ad box on MBL, and adsense reports 0 clicks.
The only thing that could justify this though is that the visitors simply did not stay long enough at the advertiser’s site to register it as a click on adsense. Adsense only registers a click when the user stays at the site after xx seconds. From what I understands its like 20 seconds or so, so this could explain part of it.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
That totally crossed my mind, and makes sense. Yeah, I’m not suree how much time is required either, but good observation.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Well it seems that may be true. That explains why I had several clicks on MBL but much lower than that at Google panel.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I would advise anyone seeing the same as me to take it up with Google - and also to make it public. If more people bring it to their attention, they might be more inclined to investigate it further.
I’d also go so far as to advocate that *everyone* try some kind of click tracking software (MyBlogLog or otherwise) and compare their stats. It could be that people are losing valid clicks and they don’t even know about it. Plus it would be interesting to see if people notice any difference in AdSense stats from the time they actually implement the tracking (ie if the tracking itself is interfering with AdSense)
March 20th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Good idea, Dom. I’ve seen the same type of “probing” on Shoemoney.com. You know I was also thinking, though…maybe Google doesn’t count clicks they deem “invalid” or “fraudulent” according to it’s TOS. I got an email from Google about a month ago citing fraudulent clicks. I basically laughed that off because it sure as hell wasn’t me. In fact there have been a few occasions where I accidentally clicked on my own ad and in turn emailed Google to let them know I had done so. Anyway, just a thought. Thanks for stopping by, Dom.
March 21st, 2007 at 9:17 pm
ya, the difference is very likely because of lag in reporting and fraudulent clicks.
March 20th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Very interesting and somewhat suspicious on the surface of it all. However, as some have suggested there are some possible explanations. The bigger problem seems to be the lack of detail from Adsense about how they determine legitimate vs. fradulent clicks.
March 20th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I like using the stats of mybloglog, it’s alot better than google analytics.
March 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Warren - Did you upgrade to their paid package?
March 29th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
[…] http://www.derrich.com/2007/03/20/mybloglog-and-adsense-dont-agree/ […]
March 29th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Interesting to see that much of a discrepancy, but then again google’s click stats might not be updated as often as MyBlogLog, a good way to track this is doing a monthly review, comparing the two. If they’re close enough, that might confirm your thinking.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:01 am
[…] So, Moreover - A Verisign Company or Moreover Technologies, Inc. Tell me why you linked to this post here: Does Google Skim The Pot? Is it because I said Google? If so, can you ask Google to answer the question that was asked in the post? There are a few other bloggers that would like to know also. Bloggers like Dom Ramsey, Brad, and Derrich would also like to know. […]
June 5th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
[…] Seriously. Are we ever going to get to the bottom of this charade? Since I posted about the discrepancy between MyBlogLog and AdSense in March, I’ve become used to the reporting differences. Luckily, they haven’t been […]