Adsense Impressions - Answering Forum Questions

[samwise]

Hi,

I have a forum that displays adsense ads. I wondering if there is a problem when I answer questions that each time I reply I create an impression using my IP address.

Is this even a problem?

If it is how do you get around it?

I'm not clicking on the ads but just the impression count seems to go up.

Thanks for your help!

[benevolent001]

i wont think it would be any problem with google why dont u just email? its no harm in doing that

[samwise]

Hi benevolent001

Thanks for the info.

It might be nice to have an entry for inputing the adsense website owners ip address and not allowing it to create impressions etc... Maybe I should email them, just thought that someone here would know.

Thank again

[diamondgrl]

I have no idea why you're concerned. We all visit our own sites. That's perfectly ordinary. Who cares if you create an impression?

The only thing that matters is that you keep your itchy finger from the mouse button and not click on ads on your site.

[benevolent001]

Hello Samwise,
you must consider that google have about 250k advertisers and much more who places ads on there websites,so its not possible for them to consider impressions,but they say they do have advanced technology to find the fraudential clicks made by anyone rapidly,i dont know what they are having?

you jus dont worry any keep helping your visitors

Regards

[HughMungus]

Google cares only if you click on its ads. I think.

[ken_b]

If I recall right the adsense TOS does mention increasing impressions.

On a high traffic page, that may not be an issue.

On a low traffic page, visiting your own page a lot can really mess up your stats for that page.

[diamondgrl]

The relevant TOS is:

You shall not, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (i) directly or indirectly generate queries, impressions of or clicks on any Search Results and/or Ad(s) through any automated, deceptive, disingenuous or fraudulent means, including but not limited to through repeated manual clicks, the use of robots or other automated query tools and/or computer generated search requests, and/or the fraudulent use of other search engine optimization services and/or software;

If you impressions caused by "automated, deceptive, disingenuous or fraudulent means", then you might have something to worry about. Otherwise, not. Why in the world would Google care if no money changes hands?

[yosemite]

Exactly. Besides, Google has got to know that webmasters do "site checks" to make sure that everything is looking okay. We have to visit our sites in order to maintain good quality.

[raywood]

<< Why in the world would Google care if no money changes hands? >>

I'm not sure, but they might care because CTR is a part of their sales pitch to advertisers. Too many extra impressions dilutes the CTR. But I don't think it's a problem for webmasters updating their sites or participating in their own forums. I sure hope not, because I do a lot of it.

[raywood]

Now I have a question about this. I have sites that download datafeed files early each morning and put the data into my databases. The operation is triggered when the web application is started and just runs on a 24 hr. timer. But if the web server is stopped and restarted, I need to request the home page to restart the application.

I want to automate this by letting my computer request the home page of each of my sites each morning just before the download time to make sure the application is running. Do you think google would get upset to see a request for the same page from the same ip at the same time each day?

[linear]

Do you think google would get upset to see a request for the same page from the same ip at the same time each day?

No, but if it's a concern for you, simply disable Javascript to remain invisible. Better yet, use a user agent that doesn't interpret JS. That approach can be more easily automated as well in most cases.

[Reflection]

I'm not sure, but they might care because CTR is a part of their sales pitch to advertisers. Too many extra impressions dilutes the CTR. But I don't think it's a problem for webmasters updating their sites or participating in their own forums. I sure hope not, because I do a lot of it.

If they really do care, they should offer an option to enter your IP range so that they can filter the impressions.

[thewonderwall]

I think it would be a good idea if you could block your own IP from the impressions count... I regularly update my site and need to refresh the page to check the new content looks ok... by doing this I'm inflated the impressions, which is obviously bad news for me as there are impressions but no click throughs ..

[raywood]

Thanks for the tip, linear. I guess I wasn't thinking straight. I'm just going to write a little program that runs as a service on my computer. It will issue an http GET request every day, retrieve the home page and then throw it away. So it won't run the javascript at all, and it won't ask for the google ads.