Invalid Clicks warning

not sure why

[Inquire]

About a week ago, I accidentally clicked on one of my own ads when revamping a site. I promptly informed Google and received an email thanking me from a person with an actual name and with the standard warning.
Then today, I received another email from the Google AdSense Team stating that:"It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). As a reminder, any method of generating invalid clicks is strictly prohibited...If we find your account to be in violation again, action may be taken against your account and payment may be withheld etc...
My question: is this just a standard follow-up email from the "team" based on the first incident, or should I be concerned that something new is going on?

[danimal]

it sounds like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

forward 'em the first google email that you received, the one that acknowledged your report of the mistake, complete with all header information, and tell 'em to make it part of your permanent record, if they have such a thing, lol.

[Inquire]

That's exactly what I am thinking of doing. The first email I sent was thru their form system off the help page. Maybe thathas something to do with it? Someone answers the forms and then they automatically get passed up the ladder to the team who gives a swifter rap on the wrist.

[jchampliaud]

FWIW, others have gotten the same e-mail and not been banned.

[remove]

I wouldn't worry about it too too much. Although on the other hand, it strikes me as being odd that they would send an email like that after just one click. I mean, I've accidentally clicked on my ads several times (lousy trackpad) and never gotten an email like that though (haven't bothered to email them about it though, since i've figured they wouldn't even notice).

I'm guessing it's a followup email. If they haven't noticed one click here and there from me, they probably wouldn't notice one click from you. Really, I wouldn't stress out about it.

[bts111]

Trust me, it's your final warning. In Google's opinion and it's only their opinion that matters in this situation, they have discovered additional click fraud activity in your account. You are very lucky that they have not banned your account.

If I was you I would be pulling the ads from the site immediately.

[jchampliaud]

Are you sure the first e-mail was from Google.

[Aircut]

listen to bts111, pull your ads immidiatly and send google a followup mail, clear the issue first before showing more ads.

[John Carpenter]

My question: is this just a standard follow-up email

No (unless they've changed things very recently).

[ndaru]

I agree with bts111. Regardless with what will happen, you should pull away your ads immediately, and email Google back. Just play safe.

[jomaxx]

Writing back is a good idea, even though it probably won't accomplish anything other than to demonstrate good faith.

But I don't think it's necessary to remove the ads. My rule of thumb is that Google want you to serve as many ads as possible, and expect webmasters to simply use the product as designed so that Google can handle the serving and targeting and tracking and auditing of ads.

They don't expect you to pull your ads whenever there's a discrepancy, or to use a click tracker to watch for attacks, or to block ads to certain countries, or to use the hosts file to prevent self-clicks, or to remove ads from low-CTR pages, or to stop serving ads after a user has clicked X times. And they won't penalize you if you don't. I'm not saying all of the above are bad ideas necessarily, but they're a little obsessive.

[Inquire]

I've decided to just leave it as is, treating it as a follow-up to my previous email. My theory is that because I went the form route, clicking "Other", the first email came from a "form" person, which then goes to "the team." I believe there is another way of emailing them more directly, but I forget where that is. Besides, from what I can gather, all I will get is another automated response anyway.
I'm a very small player. If they wanted to ban me, they'd just do it, with very little recourse, as they do all the time. Why would they bother sending two emails? So..getting into back and forth emails with them, I don't think is very useful at this stage. Sometimes the less you say the better.