Preventing clicking your own Ads

[Jon12345]

Is there some way to prevent staff actually clicking your own links? Since the penalty is so high for such a misdemeanour, are there any technological solutions to prevent this?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

You would have thought that Google could come up with something but AFAIK there is no packaged solution available. Good business opportunity for some of the coders?

[arran]

Not quite what you're asking but you can stop the ads from showing:

[webmasterworld.com ]

[JohnKelly]

This is simple...

Use PHP (or ASP, whatever) for an include file to display AdSense ads.

The logic would be

if ($ip_address!= my.ip.add.ress) {
... display adsense code ...
{

If your IP address changes you could have PHP do the following:
$host_name = gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);

and then replace $ip_address in the code above with $host_name and replace my.ip.add.ress with the hostname supplied.

<added>
The thread Arran provided has better examples
</added>

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

So if it's so simple how come Google don't offer it as an option?

[leonardp]

I would like to be able to view the ads on my site and even click on them to see where it's going to and because sometimes I am really interested in my own banners.

Therefore, it would be nice if there was a possibility to filter a list of ip-adress just as you can filter ads.

[berto]

This is simple... Use PHP (or ASP, whatever)...

And what if you don't use PHP (or whatever)? Not so simple?

This neat trick was suggested in another forum thread: Add the following line to your system's hosts file:

127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

I tried that on one of my Windows ME systems. Didn't work for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with the file format, file name, or location, or some other deep Windows mystery (a rogue registry entry perhaps?). The poster gave the precise location of the hosts file on Windows XP systems. Trouble is, there are many versions of Windows still in use. I myself use Windows ME and Windows XP (also Linux). I had to research the Net to find the location of the hosts file on Windows ME systems.

I just tried the localhost (127.0.0.1) trick on one of my Linux systems. Works great! [um, see below] But only because I have set my nsswitch.conf file "properly" to hit "files" before "dns". On a "misconfigured" Linux (or any other Unix-like) system, the localhost trick would appear to be broken...

... Just checked another page... and another... The localhost trick blocks the Ad Links impression, but for some reason it is not blocking the Adsense vertical banners on the checked pages. Why?

You would have thought that Google could come up with something...

Indeed.

With so many systems out there, with so many ways we serve pages, with so many ways to miss some vital configuration tweak, with such widely varying levels of publisher technical ability--our fixing this is not so simple.

If Google's sophisticated techniques and algorithms can discount publisher "impressions fraud," why can't they also discount publisher "click fraud"?

There should be a simple, straightforward, universally applicable, and officially sanctioned way for Google to screen publishers viewing their own CPMed pages and accidentally clicking on their own CPC ads.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Absolutely, and I am not doubting some of the home made solutions but how do you test them? Do you try to click on ads to see if the solution is working. If so, what if it aint?

[jomaxx]

No, all these solutions are for suppressing the ads altogether. Do NOT click on them to see what happens.

[ncreegan]

If it's a concern, then block the ads from serving to your ip. If you want to see where the ads go, generally the links at the bottom of the ad give you a pretty good idea, or you can use the adsense preview tool.

[openmind]

There is a very simple solution: Use Firefox and activate the option "AdBlock" and won't you see any ads.

[berto]

There is a very simple solution: Use Firefox and activate the option "AdBlock" and won't you see any ads.

But what if, for reasons of needing to check your ad layouts (Adsense and affiliate), you don't want the ads to totally disappear?

Another thing for my todo list: Reconfigure my CMS to serve blank (and tagged) rectangles of the appropriate sizes from my test web server. Also, set up a Windows system just for viewing my pages on that (private) network segment. (IE still usually displays pages better than the Linux alternatives.)

But it's still a pain to have to jump through all these hoops just to protect myself against possible purported "impressions fraud" and (accidental) "click fraud".

[ncreegan]

I was bored and figured it'd be pretty easy to develop a script that showed ads to certain ips using the preview tool options (thus not charging anybody for clicks...) It was, I did, works nicely.

I don't really know how much they'd appreciate it though. =/

[adamnichols45]

what would happen if you clicked your own link?

[StephenBauer]

What would happen? I will tell you:

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together - mass hysteria.

[ken_b]

There is a very simple solution: Use Firefox and activate the option "AdBlock" and won't you see any ads.

How? I can't find that option. (v1.0.1)