Block your own IP in AdSense

[pmkpmk]

Hi,

in another thread a user was afraid that since his wife clicked an Ad he would be subject to fraudulent clicks.

I decided to take an offensive approach. Immediately after my AdSense account was enabled, I replied to the mail by Google and asked them that even though I advised my colleagues NOT to click on AdSense banners, if they could simply ignore my IP address at all from being counted for my Ads.

They replied this:

<snip>

Good, eh?

[edited by: Laisha at 9:57 pm (utc) on Aug. 12, 2003]
[edit reason] Removed email excerpt [/edit]

[Jenstar]

Wow, interesting stuff. It does show they are trying to take measures for publishers, especially since so many are worried about getting the fraudulent impressions/clicks emails due to normal site surfing.

I wonder if we will see a "block these IPs from recording clicks/impressions" in the future. It shows there is something in place for them to use this information.

Thanks for sharing pmkpmk. And I bet AdSense will be bombarded with "please ignore this IP from being counted" emails over the next 24 hours or so :)

[Visit Thailand]

This is great for those on a fixed IP but for those of us on dial up with multiple ISP's blocking an IP would not be possible.

[pmkpmk]

VisitThailand:

Of course your are right. I'm in the good position that my whole network masquerades behind a single, fixed IP.

Maybe a DynDNS service is an option for you? I don't know whether Google can block only by IP or by Hostname as well. If they can block hostnames, then DynDNS might work. Just ask them!

[killroy]

I'd be great for me, with a fixed IP, too. But I'll give them time to put it into the interface. I can't say I never even clicked once, but I sure as hell would love to be able to test click without charging the advertisers, it'd be heaven.

SN

[edit_g]

Every other ad network for standard media placements do this - it is a good idea - especially if you have 100's of people working for you, who all have your company page as the starting page. It was only a matter of time before Google started doing it - but they should be letting users enter their own ip range to be discounted.

[RobbieD]

Yes this is good news! :)

[Zygoot]

Easiest way ; Block all ip addresses that log in to the AdSense Admin for a few houres/days.

[Visit Thailand]

Zygoot that would be the easiest way to block entire countries, or at least whole ISP's.

pmkpmk - thanks will look into that but doubt it would work as I am also constantly on the move.

[PolishGuy]

wonder if we will see a "block these IPs from recording clicks/impressions" in the future. It shows there is something in place for them to use this information.

blocking specific IP addresses is definitely needed!

even if it is not resolving all problems (nowadays even some ADSL providers provide quite often dynamic IP only)

Dear Google, please do it! Add such option to AdSense control panel!

[devlin]

I had a different response from Google when I asked them to discount clicks from my static IP address, so that I could check on AdSense advertisers (a bit of a different reason from "pmkpmk"). Google replied (very quickly) to me saying that they do not filter clicks from specific IP addresses and saying "To avoid the possibility of fraudulent clicks being associated with your account, please do not click on the ads on your site(s)".

They then gave obvious advice on how to check on the ads without clicking on them.

So I guess we are not going to get IP blocking / discounting as standard.

D.

[fworkx]

pmkpmk can u PM the except of the email that was snipped? would surely help us in getting our static IP blocked from clicks during our implementation and testing.

Cheers

[pmkpmk]

I'm not sure what you want me to do :-) I quoted all the necessary parts - the other stuff was just Greeting- and Good-bye stuff. Or do you want me to quote the email I sent in the first place?

Here it is:

I sent an internal announcement to our staff NOT to click on any Google-banner. However I can't make sure nobody does.
Can you exclude our internal network (masqueraded as xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) from counting?

[Jenstar]

pmkpmk - your email from Google you included in the first post of the thread was snipped as per the WebmasterWorld TOS. I think fworkx just wants a paraphrase of what Google replied ;)

[pmkpmk]

Oh, I see. Haven't noticed it before.

Well, they basically said "Thank you for informing your staff, but we'll discount clicks from that IP address anyway".

[fworkx]

I was wondering what they would do or say about it.

Guess I'll just not worry about it.

Cheers

[pmkpmk]

btw: Today I gave it a try and clicked one ad. It seems they managed to NOT count my click.

[Jenstar]

Gasp! You are braver than me :) I think even if I did have my own IP blocked, I'd be too paranoid to ever click an ad!

[pmkpmk]

Hehe... it took me THREE DAYS to gather the courage to do it :-)

[james007]

As an aside, it's easy to stop the Google Ads from appearing for a particular IP range if you're running PHP.