Forum Moderators: martinibuster
But late this evening, while checking on one of my new sites before going to bed, it finally happened - I accidentally clicked on one of my AdSense blocks. And now I can't sleep.
Should I worry about this one accidental click? Should I even bother Google with an email about this?
PS - I had clicked on my ad twice accidentally too. But I didn't get any mail from Google or neither did they take any action.
I'm no expert but my wife had clicked on our adverts a few times to search for flights before i told her not to but we never had any problems. Google knows this happens .
Its only when people take liberties and click often
Personally i wouldn't worry about it
Regards Dashy
Just don't make a habit of it :)
I just never thought it will happen to me because I've been very very careful since the very beginning. Then it happens anyway despite of.
Thanks guys. I can go to bed now.
By now your milk will have curdled, your cat will be pregnant and your C drive formatted!
:)
Fired off an email confession complete with story, exact time of the incident, and the URL of the page involved before I went to bed last night. Just to keep everything on record.
:)
That's exactly how it has happened to me 4 times in one year. You are just trying to move your cursor, but the touchpad is very sensitive and translates the movement into a click. The first two times I have reported it to Google and I got the standard reply (something like: you are not allowed to click your ads under any conditions, etc...). As I recall I didn't report the third and fourth time. I think the fourth time was about a few months ago. Never had any problems with it. So Brickwall, I hope you had a good night sleep, and back to business now! Cheers!
One time I had had a little too much to drink, and was just checking my site was working OK late at night, and the mouse slipped :( I didn't confess that to them!
There are a number of anomolies whereby a sites ads can be clicked on from the owners computer. Imagine if Google went about banning every user that this happens to once in a while.
Firstly, a home business may have various users on the computer. A friend may visit and use your computer, and click on the ads. A child may do so. A spouse may do so. Or in the beginning, YOU may do so, not having read the TOS, and wanting to know what the URL of the site advertising is, so you can add them to the list of not allowed URL's. Or you may just make an error, with the mouse, and it clicks on an ad.
Google is in the business of making money, NOT banning their source of income without good reason!
I am so often curious about the ads that show on my sites (not interested enough to type the URL into my address bar) but I have thought about clicking them on many occasions.
There should be no penalty for clicking your own ads as long as it doesnt get out of hand. The whole point of advertising is to make a sale (or whatever the webmasters goal is) and it shouldnt matter who or where these clicks come from. Click fraud should only apply to excessive clicks and I am 100% sure that one or two clicks from your own site are not going to get anyone banned from adsense... as those one or two clicks are not the only clicks on your ads.
I am so often curious about the ads that show on my sites (not interested enough to type the URL into my address bar) but I have thought about clicking them on many occasions.
if you are really interested, you should take the trouble to type in the url. the prevention of a ban (if not publishers' ethics) should be worth it.
There should be no penalty for clicking your own ads as long as it doesnt get out of hand.
nah, and how do you think google could otherwise distinguish if you are a publisher interested in your ads or plainly a fraudster? and how many clicks are too much? where would you draw the line? that's ridiculous.
Click fraud should only apply to excessive clicks and I am 100% sure that one or two clicks from your own site are not going to get anyone banned from adsense...
and i am 100% sure that the advertisers who spend their money on your site have a different point of view.
I dont think company X would have any problem with you clicking on an ad on your own site if it means you purchasing what they are selling.
look, adsense is now so popular and there is a ton of people who try to cheat. i can assure you, most of the webmasters who would click on their ads are not really interested in what the ads have to offer but rather interested in making the quick buck out of click fraud. so there's no question that google does not allow this to you at all.
right, a few accidental clicks won't get you banned, but you won't get another response than: do not click on your ads!
there is no margin of discussion on that here, believe me.
The point I am making however, is that not all cases of clicking on your own ads has to be labelled as accidental or click fraud as these clicks can still convert for the advertiser.
You could also look at it as a bit of a discount if you do end up purchasing whatever product the advertiser is offering. :)
two clicks per day ok? ten per week? 1000 a year? how about optimizing against these criteria?
google will fare better if it doesn't take the risk and remains the barrier to zero clicks as it is.
The other day I saw an ad on one of my sites and I really wanted to click it. I guess I should be glad the ads they are placing on my site are so good that even I am tempted.
I just did a search of the basic info that was in my ad and got to the site that way. It felt weird being afraid to click something on my own site, especially when I legitimitly want the services being offered on the site.
Radejr If you did buy from that site I guess if you could show via a reciept or the service details that you got you may have some proof for Google to see you actually converted your click into revenue for the advertiser. But if you didn't follow through you would have explaining to do.
I did it a few days ago thanks to this darn touchpad on this new notebook computer.
thats how even my twice a month click takes place and ofcourse most of the time its after the drinks
The point I am making however, is that not all cases of clicking on your own ads has to be labelled as accidental or click fraud as these clicks can still convert for the advertiser.
True, but ...
You could also look at it as a bit of a discount if you do end up purchasing whatever product the advertiser is offering. :)
Depends on the advertiser's POV. Some advertisers may not mind the occasional click if they're convinced there may be a sale somewhere down the road. Others who've been losing money, either on nonconverting referrals, or click fraud, may take exception to the "discount."
It does put the click fraud issue in a different light, however. Suppose the fraudsters also have stolen credit cards and can use them to make some purchases. They can generate a mixture of fraudulent clicks and purchases such that they fly below the radar of fraud detection systems. In this case you couldn't exactly argue (from the advertiser's standpoint) that the clickstreams were fraudulent, because they did eventually convert, even though the fraudsters were able to pocket the cash while not spending any of their own money.
There should be no penalty for clicking your own ads as long as it doesnt get out of hand. The whole point of advertising is to make a sale (or whatever the webmasters goal is) and it shouldnt matter who or where these clicks come from. Click fraud should only apply to excessive clicks and I am 100% sure that one or two clicks from your own site are not going to get anyone banned from adsense... as those one or two clicks are not the only clicks on your ads.
In essence this is the click fraud question. At what point does something become fraudulent? Are the first few clicks seen from some IP (or IP block) the product of an accidental surfer, an interested consumer, a mischievous prankster, or a malicious fraudster? Where should the line be drawn, such that the innocent are not punished, but the criminals are?
Of course, if you believe (as I do) that CPC advertising is the wrong model, because of the "anonymous" nature of the Internet (given its current architecture), a lot of these problems go away. The advertisers pay fixed fees, the publishers get their cut, and no one needs to feel afraid to click on ads showing on their sites.
