Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My definition (to start us off) would be ANY click made on an adsense ad which doesn't result in a purchase of some kind for the destination site.
Thinking - Someone is making money even although the intention is not to purchase and therefore are making money under false pretences. Therefore it is invalid and should be deducted from the adsense publishers earnings.
of course if this was the interpretation very few here would be making money at all, but it would certainly stop any "I got kicked out for invalid clicks" type of threads/discussions
It's certainly perfectly valid to click on an ad if you think you might purchase something. And what if the site doesn't sell anything at all? Does that mean that content advertisers get free ads?
As diamondgirl says, it's perfectly permissable to click on an ad out of interest and then choose not to buy. Why on earth would you define a click as fraudulant purely because an advertiser fails to close a sale once the visitor arrives at their site.
IMHO as long as a visitor to mys site who clicks on an ad arrives at the advertisers site in an 'open to buy' frame of mind, the click is legitimate.
ANY click made on an adsense ad which doesn't result in a purchase of some kind for the destination site.
Conversion is a result of many things, one of which is the type of qualified lead the publishers bring to the advertiser's site. But it also includes the quality of the advertiser's site and how good it is in convincing its visitors to do what it wants them to do (e.g. purchase a product, subscribe to the newsletter, etc.). It takes two to tango, and if the advertisers' site is crappy and their sales pitch so poor, then publishers can only do so much.
What if it's actioned just to get your account terminated?
Sorry to state the blinding... but isn't a fraudulent click one that is done with fraudulent intent? And intent itself is a grey area.
What is your definition of a fraudulent or invalid click (note I am not asking you to guess what G's definition is)
Seems to me fraudulent and invalid clicks would be 2 seperate issues. Fraudulent, as oddsod pointed out, is an action to commit fraud. Invalid clicks, to me, would mean any clicks made on a site that violates AdSense TOS.
Instead, google should just add a zero cent income to clicks which it defines presently as invalid or fraud.
If G has the technology to say that so and so clicks were invalid, then i guess they can simply add it to the automatic system and pay zero cents for such clicks.
This will simplify the system I guess.
This will simplify the system I guess.
... except that we live in a society where thieves and fraudsters are given their due punishment. It's one thing to simply invalidate clicks, and another to punish the "perpetrators."
My definition (to start us off) would be ANY click made on an adsense ad which doesn't result in a purchase of some kind for the destination site.
You've just described CPA or an affiliate program.
That's a totally different advertising model than Google Adwords or Google Adsense and your quest doesn't seem to have anything to do with fraudulent clicks at all, but rather a request for Google to switch to the CPA (cost per action) or affiliate program model.
Displaying ads itself generates revenue for those advertisors. He maynot make money right away, but at a later time. Clicking (fraudulent or valid) is again an advertisement for that advertisor. It leaves some impression on the mind of clicker (both valid and fraudulent).
Every display need not generate a click, every click neednot generate a sale.
How many times and on how many websites did you see an add by "lower your bills". did anyone click on it?
I remember the name, because i saw it too many times.
Thats what the advertisor wants. He is ready to pay.
- Accidental clicks
- Clicks by users who can't tell the difference between an ad link and a search link (e.g., on a scraper site where ads are blended with scraped search results)
- Clicks by users who don't have the means to buy anything (there's no way to police this on a small scale, but if Google were to see a large number of clicks from a site that's visited mostly by 8-year-olds, it might deem those clicks "invalid").
Also, not all advertisers expect clicks to result in immediate transactions. Google's conversion tracking lets advertisers define conversions as "business actions" such as registrations, inquiries, reading a certain number of pages, etc. (After all, many advertisers are looking for leads that can be handled offline, not for online transactions. For such advertisers, a click is the equivalent of an inquiry to an 800 number or a circled number on a magazine's "bingo card.")
How about the case, which I'm sure is fairly common, of a visitor to Site A clicking an ad, going to Site B (that also has AdSense ads running) and clicking on one of those? He didn't "buy" anything at Site B, but he certainly made Site B some money. It's an interesting conundrum, huh? :-)
on a page with no content, or
on a page with a 'click the ads' line anywhere, or
on an ad block overlapping the navigation links, or...
You can see where this is going, can't you?
An invalid click is probably any cliick on a page in violation of any Adsense TOS that is designed to prevent useless clicks.
Further, fraudulent clicks are probably also considered 'invalid clicks', for the handy purpose of reusing the 'cancelled for invalid clicks' form letter and to prevent giving any usable feedback to webmasters (After all, a webmaster who appears to have just made a mistake might have done it deliberately).
This probably explains the widely-varying circumstances in which people receive the 'invalid clicks' email.
or rake up $100 from invalid clicks and get... just not paid
how can some one rake up in dollars if he does not get paid?
... except that we live in a society where thieves and fraudsters are given their due punishment. It's one thing to simply invalidate clicks, and another to punish the "perpetrators."
Punishment is secondary, Preventation comes first.
The theory is punishment exists only because the prevention theory has leaks. But punishment should never precede prevention.
