Just wanted to Alert my fellow Google’rs and bloggers to get into the HABIT of checking your page source. Often you can just right click and there’s a option to check the page source. Well I don’t know my Google Adsense account number by memory but I KNOW this isn’t it pub-2941637122112958 This number belongs to a THIEF and I noticed that my Google adsense earnings were falling in a downward trend.
So I like to check out a page’s source I look at mine once in a while mainly to see how the information in my header is looking when low and behold I SPOT a number that doesn’t look familiar. I have been using the ALL in one adsense plugin and I have been using it along time. Recently I clicked the auto upgrade and FUNNY how my lower payments
and the plugin upgrade co-incide. So I went to the Russian plugin developers site and said YOUR in BIG trouble 
Just to scare em up a bit. But the point is that if a person has enough basic skills to write a plugin or THEME they can easily modify the code to JACK your adsense pub number .
I have seen wordpress themes that have the author’s pub# embedded in different spots hoping you won’t notice or care. Now adsense is far from my #1 earner but I’m not donating anything to some hacker from Russia that’s for sure.
So BE ON THE LOOKOUT and always take time to check your page’s source code. I will add the code myself so just be careful with the ease of plugins and watch any theme changes you make thanks. Have you come across any blatant scams like this please let us know PEACE
Also what would you do ? would you report it to Google or not ? I don’t like snitching or snitches but I think of all the people that may be getting screwed why should these people benefit like that HMMMM I have to think about this one but would like to hear your thougths Thanks KEEP your eyes OPEN
I’m always paranoid about this exact thing. I will actually go and update all my code right now simply because you got me thinking.
You never know it’s so scary sometimes I just hate the world we live in or atleast the freaking people that occupy it.
Thanks for the heads up and reminder John!
Wow, this is exactly why I’ve always hesitated before using any kind of 3rd party plugins to manage advertisements. It definitely limits what you can do with them and where they can go, but at least its easy to get Adsense in to the sidebars.
The web world can be pretty brutal, if we don’t keep up a strong and constant defense someone will knock you down and take the value of our work. Every anomaly has to be picked apart and that isn’t easy with a company like Google who likes to keep a lot of the details behind the scenes.
Snitching can be a good thing if someone is out there blatantly ripping people off. I just hate snitches who rat on people who aren’t hurting anyone (victimless & oppressive laws). I’d be sure to let Google know, but the guy running the scam probably also has a backup plan so I doubt it will shut him down forever. Publishing this and letting people know, however, will prevent them from using the particular plug-in.
Wow that’s an awesome site you have there
thanks for stopping by
Wow, I never heard of that happening before. I can imagine a lot of bloggers being effected and not knowing what’s happening with their adsense earnings. I’ll spread the word about it john.
I have downloaded several themes and themes that have preinstalled google adsense. There have been times where a certain publisher number had been in there but it was always explicitly said and made well known that you need to change it to your own number. I am really good with code so there is usually never a chance where someone else will steal my earnings.
But whether or not they meant to make it so unknown to you, you do bring up a point. If you have a blog, you need to always be aware of the code that is on your site.. especially when you install a new plugin. You can’t just say that you are a writer and that you do not worry about the tech stuff
Classic video spoof from Kathy, I love her. I remember last year someone was heckling her in Times Square during a live New Years Eve thing and she turned around and said to the guy, “I don’t go to your job and knock the di*ks out of your mouth!” Classic.
My Adsense has kind of sucked for the last month. In July it was kicking a$$ and then it just dropped relatively dramatically. I assumed it was because I have been doing less posts than normal, but I did make sure the ad code was right. That’s so odd that people can rip it off, but then again, it doesn’t surprise me. Good warning to others!
~ Kristi
I’ve wondered about that before. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. I wonder how many bloggers are donating funds to those slimeballs without knowing it.
I just started another niche AdSense site and the ads aren’t showing up after several days, they’re just blank squares. I thought it would be the URL but I better check the plugin.
That really sucks. I am not using any Adsense plugin. So I think that I won’t meet the problem. If the man can steal money just from a plugin, he really is a kind of genius, but he is not worthy to learn
.
I think that if find that, you should report him, let him get punished.
John, this is an excellent post, I once suspected the same issue, I was sure 100% I have saved my Pub ID, but when I was checking my AdSense plugin I found it was changed, I was like WHAT? mmm OK! I toke action in one second by removing it for ever and forget about all other AdSense plugins and go back to manually editing my theme!
I think do it manually by editing your theme files is the best way to do it!
Worth taking two seconds to view my page source, to see if someone has embedded their own code onto my pages. I felt that I was vulnerable this week due to being hacked by that wordpress worm, and coincidentally my adsense earnings have been shrunken like that Rick Moranis movie since it happened. (Unfortunately, i wasn’t hacked that way and business just plain sucks this month for me earnings-wise)
.-= HART (aka PetLvr)´s last blog ..Finding a Well-Adjusted Shelter Dog =-.
Thanks for warning everybody about this. I haven’t started adsense yet but it’s good to know that they can steal adsense revenue. I didn’t know it was so easy to steal it. I’m glad you found out that this was happening or else you would have lost more money.
All the best,
Eren Mckay
Thanks for the great advice! More and more I am finding that WordPress themes that are “adsense” ready are ready with someone else’s pub number, and it is not always easy to find all the places that need to be changed.
Even without using any advertising plugins I think it would be a good idea to check your page source. You never know when a hacker might be very good at covering their tracks!
Hey John, your post was very timely since my Adsense inception into my blog days ago. I’ll go check my source codes then.
Thanks!
I think the whole thing with google adsense is interesting. I mean, google seems to have a way of figuring everything else out about a site and are quick to ban people for the actions of others.
Yet, they simply can’t figure out something like this. Typical!
Good stuff, and I’m glad you figured this out. May make others take note too
Wew, that’s a dangerous hack. Fortunately, I haven’t put Adsense on my site. Someone needs to report the hacker to Google, so he’ll get banned. Imagine how many people out there who don’t know about this.
.-= Isaac | GoBlogger´s last blog ..How to Add Adsense and Analytics to WordPress =-.
That’s a scary thought with regards to adsense! I’ve just checked and double checked mine after reading this, thankfully everything was ok, thanks for the heads up on this, phew!
Hey John its good u wrote about this plugin. In fact I used that some time ago and dunno why I was having two different impression count in my adsense. In fact I had one on my sidebars and on in the post(this one using the plugin).
So logically both channels in adsense should have same number of impression per day right? but when i used that i used to notice real count difference. Thats when I doubt that the plugin could have been using adsense account in turns and not really showing only mine all the time. I decided to dump it within just a few days of usage however. I better add my adsense code manually in my template code rather than using this.
Excellent article, I double checked all of my blogs page source as I use the same all-in-one-adsense plug-in, but found all were using my proper google ID, I assume when you upgraded it lost your custom setting and defaulted to the original?
YES but the point is whenever someone or something put their PUB ID on your site they are jacking you whether it’s innocently or not they know what they are doing and most people don’t
Man I have to make a PLUGIN LOL
thanks
many themes you upload on website contain with adsense code which shuld be removed or else you might be making business of other instead of yours….
I remember a plugin once, it could have been the “all in one adsense” plugin that came with a standard adsense code, but it also said in the settings to make sure you put your own code, otherwise you’d be supporting the developer -could that be the case here too?
But the scary thing is, if it’s possible for other plugins to “overwrite” adsense code with their own pub-ID. And we can’t even just check the sourcecode of plugins for adsense codes as it could be garbled multiple times.
Don’t forget, the All-in-one-adsense plug-in also has a donate button, and if you add a %, it will randomly display the developers PUB ID for a certain % of pages.
Thanks for theP heads-up. I checked my code and it appears correct. How many people do not even change the code in the plugins and themes? Probably only a small percentage. Still it sound lucrative for a developer. Theme development may be the next cottage industry in Nigeria. That would help all the underemployed email scammers in the world.
You really should report the problem to Big G. You have a lot of readers, but they could send out a targeted message. Then the scammed can only blame themselves.
Hackers should be tied and beaten! :@
Oh well sometimes they are good at testing servers’ security and that’s the only credit I’m giving them
By the way, didn’t know you change your blog’s theme, looking good
Thanks for the heads up on this issue John, you gotta keep an eye on the Ruskies, that’s for sure. Now that communism takes a back seat to scammerism these guys have really stepped up the pace of hacking into the coffers of the honest and ethical few of us still left. I wonder if Google is writing checks to Boris Shitinsky and wondering where in the world this dude came from. Any word on what Google may be doing to offset this tactic?