Is StumbleUpon Considered Auto-Surf Traffic & Against AdSense TOS?

A DigitalPoint Forums thread caught my yesterday. A Google Adsense publisher received an email from Google after reportedly receiving a surge in traffic due to StumbleUpon.

That message really surprised me, because StumbleUpon is a legit source of traffic. Much like Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc. - StumbleUpon is a social source of traffic. So I asked the publisher to email Google back for clarification on if it was StumbleUpon.

They replied to him stating nothing:

Thanks for your email. It is our policy not to endorse or support any specific product at this time. We're therefore not able to comment specifically on the program you've noted.
However, we recommend that you read through the AdSense Terms and Conditions (https://www.google.com/adsense/terms ) to ensure that your software it is not violation of any of our policies.

Thanks for your cooperation and understanding.

Now, we all know StumbleUpon can send a nice amount of traffic to your site in a day. Heck, go read Danny's write up on StumbleUpon - it will open your eyes.

Other AdSense publishers say they get a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon and they never received an auto-surf warning from Google. So at this time, I suspect that StumbleUpon traffic is OK with Google, but we have no official confirmation as of yet.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: I got a tip from Gabs on an email from Google AdSense specifically asking this question:

Thanks for writing in. I'm not sure if I'm understanding your question correctly, but advertising on StumbleUpon.com shouldn't be a problem. You're more than welcome to provide us with more details to clarify the situation.
For additional questions, I'd encourage you to visit the AdSense Help Center (http://www.google.com/adsense_help), our complete resource center for all AdSense topics. Alternatively, feel free to post your question on the forum just for AdSense publishers: the AdSense Help Group (http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help).

Sincerely,

Max
The Google AdSense Team

So I guess my assumption was correct, keep on Stumbling.

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posted rustybrick in Google AdSense at February 9, 2007 7:50 AM Comments (3)

Comments

I was adsense banned but wasn't given any reason as to why (invalid clicks). I appealed, sending my logs (75% of my traffic was stumble upon... 600 - 5000 / day) and Google denied my appeal. i don't know for sure that they dislike stumbleupon, but thought I'd add to the debate. i didn't advertise my sites in any way or click my ads. I had never heard of SU until they showed up in my logs as stumbleupon.com/refer.html

Posted by Anon at February 12, 2007 08:25

According to this article http://www.pinoymoneytalk.com/2007/01/10/stumbleupon-and-adsense here is what Google said about SU. Nothing explicit but I think as long as your clicks don't increase you're safe in SU.

Thanks for your response. While we're unable to comment on the compliance
of any specific tool or service, please note that AdSense participants are
solely responsible for verifying that any tools or software used in
conjunction with AdSense do not violate the AdSense Terms and Conditions.
As a reminder, any method that artificially generates clicks or
impressions is strictly prohibited, including automated click and
impression generating tools.

If, in the future, you're concerned about the activity on your site, feel
free to review your site's traffic logs for suspicious activity and notify
us of your findings at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_contact.
This information can help us in resolving any issues, although as we've
noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google will use its sole discretion
when determining instances of invalid clicks.

Posted by googler at February 13, 2007 20:25

SU boosted my traffic on several of my sites and ideed bring a surge in revenue but it's very small... Not even worth it.

Posted by No Name at February 14, 2007 04:32

Is StumbleUpon Considered Auto-Surf Traffic & Against AdSense TOS?

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