Just clicked my own ad

they should fix this

[Powdork]

In an attempt to click on the 'ads by Google' and find the url of a site I want to block I accidentally clicked two pixels above the 'ads by Google' link, which happened to be on the invisible URL of one of the ads. How can they expect us to not click the ads if they make the link invisible?
Just another reason to filter our IP's from sites which have our accounts on them so we can freely click on the ads.

[IanCP]

How can they expect us to not click the ads if they make the link invisible?

a) Write and tell them what you accidently did.

b) In future, right click, copy link location, paste into a text editor.

[Swash]

Don't you hate that? I was just checking my stats and my coworker sitting next to me clicked on of my links. I was all *AAARGH DONT* heh.

[ChrisKud5]

I agree 100%

When you are on the computer a good chunk of the day working with our pages, like most of us here are, its just a matter of time before an ad is clicked. It is totally inexcuseable that IP's that are used to log in to adsense are not recorded and shown relevant ads, but clicks are not recorded.

There is no reason at all that all of us who work very hard on our work and attempt to make the most out of Adsense for us and google are kicked out for an accidental click. I am not interested in making the extra 10 cents or whatver oen click may be worth, im interested in making quality pages with good content and have targeted ads.

Google HAS to figure out a way ot start blocking revenue clicks from IP address that have been used to log into an account in the past. Leaving this unchanged is totaly inexcuseable.

[jim_w]

I almost clicked on one. I had a bunch of IE’s opened, and had, I know it’s hard to believe, a window that stopped responding. After I tried to close it, it just sat there and I was getting impatient. I clicked on a section of the window to give it focus to see if I could close it again, and just as I hit the mouse button it closed and there was an adsense ad under my mouse cursor. Lucky for me, the system was responding so slow I guess it actually clicked on the closing window and not the ad. So it is not out of the question that it could happen by accident.

[Powdork]

And while we're at it, why are their invisible links ok? Not that I mind, I prefer not seeing the url's there. But why just not include them rather than including them but making them invisible.

[asinah]

I click for the first time on an ad on Friday. I promptly emailed them and explained that I actually wanted to copy the url and check out the website.

I didn't got a response from them but they must have noticed that we changed most sizes of the adsense banners and our EPC and CTR are currently at the highest level ever recorded with Adsense.

[aravindgp]

I am for EPC not being considered for IP's I declare as my own and hence don't expect any return from these IP's.
This would put lot of us at ease when updating content.

[jetboy_70]

I can't believe that Google thinks that this level of paranoia is healthy. This thread would be a sobering read for someone who doens't deal with Adwords/Adsense.

[factornumberone]

Hey people relax :)
They are not going to ban you for a single click. Now that they have more data to deal with they know it is statistically probable that there will be some "invalid clicks". Their algo is learning and is getting smarter day after day.

But that doesn't mean that we can click our own ads repetitively...

[trillianjedi]

They are not going to ban you for a single click.

What really gets my curiousity is if Google charge the AdWords advertiser for this?

I mean, sure clicking on an ad once is not going to do all that much harm, but 200 people clicking on one each per day starts to cost the AdWords industry money. Particularly on the higher value keywords.

And that's not good for any publisher.

TJ

[annaz1]

Since January I clicked, by accident, about 7-8 times on the AdSense ads on my website. Still no warning from Google.

No need to be paranoid, IMO!

[factornumberone]

...but 200 people clicking on one each per day starts to cost the AdWords industry money

Sure. Let's say that every 2000 clicks there is one invalid (accidental webmaster click).

They can either don't pay the publisher for that click or lower the EPC until the value of the invalid click has been compensated.

[Powdork]

What really gets my curiousity is if Google charge the AdWords advertiser for this?

That's a good question. Since I have the toolbar installed they could know I spent nearly an hour on the site who's ad I clicked. I am approaching them re a b2b relationship so they might even report me as having reached some business objective.
Which begs the question? If we want to buy something and we see the ad on our site, should we click it to buy and thus help our conversion ratio?;)

The smiley means it's a joke. Not recommended.

[foodconsumer]

some of clicks may have been already rmoved from your account. You may just not know it:-)

It's a very stupid thing to do to check Ip for the illegitimate clicks.

[Retalin]

Google should SUPPLY YOU with the information on clicks, the IP's of those clicking and the availability to block an IP from counting.

Other companies provide this... google pays more but sucks the big one on features... PERIOD.

[annej]

I prefer not seeing the url's there.

This brings up an interesting observation. I see the URLs and titles just fine but on the same browser on my husband's computer the titles and URLs are missing. The only thing I can think of is that he has some sort of firewall or such that is messing things up.

Also as far as I can tell the whole box that the ad is placed in appears to be hotlinked at least on my computer.

[Powdork]

but on the same browser on my husband's computer the titles and URLs are missing.

Is it for the same ads? The URLs only get chopped for me on the leaderboard. On the skyscraper I can't even set them with same text color as background.

[surfer67]

I accidentally clicked two pixels above the 'ads by Google' link

Punishable by death...

But seriously, I can't believe Google would ban you for one click. They ban sites that show a certain pattern of abuse.

[Sanenet]

Guys, please, relax. Unless you have next to no traffic, an accidental click DOES NOT MATTER.

My €0.02: [webmasterworld.com...]

but on the same browser on my husband's computer the titles and URLs are missing

Are you running Norton? Their inbuilt ad filter removes Adwords links.

[raptorix]

I often click my own ads, just to check out the site who are advertising, as far as i can see from my stats, adsense is just not counting as clicks.

[aravindgp]

raptorix,
Don't do it, you can get banned.

The latest Google Adsense Preview tool is very good tool solves this problem for us.We can click without any hassle.