Google Adsense click fraud
With the Internet ever growing, it’s everybody’s dream nowadays to earn some big bucks online. So, after putting together a site (or a blog now, as they are the new edge), they stuff the poor thing with as many ads, banners and affiliates they can get, in order to increase revenues… And of course, since the site is just a MFA, and have no real visitors, the only solution for them is to click their own ads. That’s exactly what i want to talk about: clicking your own ads on Adsense, also called click fraud.
Google’s Adsense is the biggest contextual online adds system in the world, that’s why people try to profit from it. It is clearly said in the TOS that:
Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software. Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited.
Some people ignore the rules, and think that there’s no way Google will notice their couple of clicks, while having billions every day. Well, that’s true, in a a way, as 20-25% of the clicks made on Adsense links are scam. But that doesn’t mean you can’t mess with fire and not expect to get burned. Cause if you’ll get caught, the punishment is simple: banned for lifetime from Adsense. And good luck convincing them to get you back once you’ve been blacklisted…
I have nothing against banning people for excessively clicking their own adds. Hooray for that. But there are two aspects i want to talk about.
First of all, what happens when clumsy webmasters click their links by mistake? Many people claim that you should immediately send a mail to Adsense explaining what you have done. Well no, relax. Google knows if you stealing or just stupid (hard word i know 
). There’s no need to send a mail, just be careful next time. More about the subject here.
On the other part, there are the people that deliberately click ads on a site in order to get its owners in trouble. Don’t ask me why, it’s just rubbish. Most people on the web are good folks that mind their own business, but some of them… Anyway, if you happen to see a big flaw of clicks in a very short period, first of all investigate where do they come from. If you see that they are from the same IP, it’s clear. Someone is messing with you. Well, now it’s the time to MAIL Google, tell them about what’s happening and ask to investigate. Don’t get freaky and keep the message short an professional. Their support team will respond as soon as possible, and probably they would cut the income generated by those clicks, but other from that, things should be just fine.
In the end, remember, Google has no interest in banning you for no reason. As long as you stick to the rules, monitor your traffic and clicks periodically and act when you spot something suspicious, your account would be just fine.
Category: Making Money Online
Tags: Adsense, fraud, Google
The question I’ve always had is what if the ads on your own site ARE IN FACT of interest to YOU (the site owner)? Since, (I believe) the adsense ads are generated from keywords on your page - sometimes I’ll make a post and there’s a related link in the ads that show up that look interesting.
Another scenario is sometimes I’m just curious WHO is advertising on MY site.
But out of fear of getting banned, I don’t click on the links in either of those cases. If in those cases, it’s allowed - how does Google tell the difference between *those* types of clicks vs. fraud clicks?
Thanx for commenting Jennifer.
From what i known ads are not made from keywords but from the content of the page. That’s why people use the specific Adsense HTML tags.
As for being curios, Google provides a simple service to see where are your adds pointing to without risking any penalty. It’s called the Adsense Preview tool Sry i forgot to mention that in the post. Check it out and tell me what you think about it.