Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If this was possible, it would be a great help to prevent us from clicking on our own ads accidentally.
By the way, as far as I can figure out, a hosts file entry won't do it, because the script which displays the ad and the urls of the links we don't want to click on are in the same domain (pagead2.googlesyndication.com).
Accidently clicking on your own ads a few times here-n-there, is *not* under any circumstances going to get you delisted from the program. It just doesn't happen.
Better to simply train yourself not to click on your own ads.
Seriously, we need some help stomping out that misinformation. Lets be clear about this: Google is *not* going to break your usage agreement because you accidentally click on a few ads here-n-there. You would have to get into more than 10-20 clicks a day, or a multiple percentage of the total clicks to get -- umm --escorted out of the program.
Have there been people wrongly removed from the program because of allegations of fraud? I would imagine that there would have to be. Any time you try to police fraud from unknown sources, there is bound to be some innocent people getting caught up in traps. That is not the same as "accidentally" clicking on your own ads. Of which, the majority of those clicks, google can detect and deal with transparently by simply comparing your ip to your last account login.
The point is, that if you are looking for ways to stop accidentally clicking your own ads, then you fail to understand the scope of the problem of fraudulent (term used lightly) clicks.
You would have to get into more than 10-20 clicks a day, or a multiple percentage of the total clicks to get -- umm --escorted out of the program.
I can not judge if this information is correct, but it worries me that you make this statement.
If it is true, it would mean that an individual publisher could fraud at least 10 X 365 = 3650 clicks each year.
Being an advertiser who pays $ 0.05 to $ 1.00 for most of his clicks it means this individual publisher could steal up to 3.5k from me every year without Google doing something about it.
If your statement is not true it still worries me that you post it at all. For some people it might be encouraging to even suspect that you won't get caught for 10 fraudulent clicks a day. A statement like yours could tempt these people to give it a try.
The thing we really need to be very clear about, is that clicking your own ads, either by accident or on purpose, is never allowed by Google under any condition. Google can and will ban publishers who click their own ads regularly and so they should.
There is not and there should not be a minimum treshold of fraudulent clicks that will be allowed by Google.
Google likely use a variety of screens to detect fraudulent activity. I think we're pretty much all agreed that inadvertent clicks are unlikely to cause problems, but my personal guess is that if you clicked your own ads even 10X a day, you'd get kicked out before too many months passed by.
