"friendly" Webmaster Clicks

Can I get in trouble?

[hvacdirect]

One of my sites was hit by the de-indexing many saw during the big daddy crisis...err I mean...update. It's got a hyphen in it so that may well be part of the problem but either way, the indexed pages are way down from before, as well is traffic.

When this fiasco began I sought help through a bunch of SEO and Webmaster forums such as this one. So during the last week or so due to different threads I've been in the URL has been out there for review etc. from a lot more owners of different sites than normal.

So here's my Adsense problem. Though my traffic is way down from before, earnings are up on the adsense account, more specifically the CTR is more than trippled. I have no proof but have made the correlation in my mind at least that a lot of my traffic lately has been from sympathetic webmasters/site owner who have been viewing my site to offer opinions etc. And since they are they, I have a feeling that some gave a "click" on the way out. It's the only explanation I can come up with as the ads are pretty much the same as before, the only thing different is the concentration of people on the site that may feel like they are helping by giving a "click", regular viewers probably don't think that way.

Should I send this concern to someone at adsense to let them know I am concerned about it, sort as an intervention before I get an email wanting to know if I set up a few dozen or hundred friends to clicky the ads?

Or should I just ride the BigCrappy wave and wait till the sites traffic is normal?

Thanks for your insight.

[fischermx]

Don't tell adsense. There have been cases were people reported things like this and got banned.
Instead instruct people who you show your website to don't click the ads, I suppose they will understand.

[jomaxx]

If the traffic mix is substantially different then there are many possible explanations for the change in CTR. I wouldn't bother saying anything. I'm also skeptical that being visited by webmasters would cause your CTR to go up at all. If anything I would expect them to NOT click on ads.

[hvacdirect]

Those are valid points, perhaps pointing it out to adsense may give them a reason to just shut it down completely. It's not like I'm a big player or anything.

I normally agree the your typical webmaster wouldn't be the clicker, but most discussions I've been in have been complaining about google, so I was just leary of it.

I know I'm not in the wrong, haven't clicked the ads, haven't changed the site to induce clicking etc. It could be also that since the sites pages are now diluted in the index the traffic is just really really targeted and therefore so are the ads.

[dibbern2]

I've has a similiar situation.

Lost dozens of pages in Big Daddy, but traffic and earnings are up so far on the remaining that I'm ahead of my target for the month.

[Scurramunga]

I don't know why on earh you would conclude that "sympathetic webmasters" have suddenly trippled your ctr. It just isn't plausible in my opinion.

I certainly wouldn't bother google with this.

[joaquin112]

Well a while ago some guy from here sent me a sticky asking for my site's URL (since I mentioned that I had created a custom CMS). I didn't know better, so I sent him my site's URL. He replied saying that the site looked pretty "cool" and he clicked on my ads five times.

I e-mailed Adsense telling them what happened and to discount those clicks. It just didn't feel right...

[jomaxx]

There are a handful of people with this attitude but it's pretty rare, in the circle I move in anyways. I have literally never had anyone tell me they clicked any of my ads, or even mention their existence whatsoever, in any personal communication.