Adsense and little kids.

Lots of invalid clicks.

[fischermx]

My three 5yo kids already have computers and use them a lot, even though they can't fully read or write, they play a lot.
I have them setup with starting pages on Disney, sesame street or some of the cartoon's websites.

They are very "browssy". They browse a lot, click here and there, and there. They can type already, but not fast enough. They barely type.

The thing is I found them landing in a page with flash games with adsense ads on both top and bottom of the game surface. Can you imagine how many wrong clicks went to adsense?
I was about to take the URL to report it when I saw my other kid on the other computer, with a very similar layout: adsense all over the place around the game.

After further investigation in my computer, I found many, many more game websites toward kids with adsense setup in a similar way. Adsense ads setup to be clicked by a clear mistake :(
What do you think?

[abbeyvet]

My three 5yo kids

Wow! I need to lie down for a rest just thinking about that!

I can see the ease of getting kids to click being superficially appealing - but there will presumably be lousy conversion, so it doesn't seem too clever a thing to do.

[Hobbs]

That was one of the classic examples which called for the latest TOS rules update about images next to ads.

Too many games and ring tones sites were putting a vertical ad unit next to several vertical square images of games and the ads appeared as the description of the pictures leading to lots of invalid clicks.

Yes probably a lot of one cent clicks there, but I'd be more concerned about Google allowing dating sites that advertise the word se>< in the title of the ad copy on children sites.

[chocorol]

Why don't you use the hosts file to block all adsense ads in your sons' computers? That way you will feel that you're helping to prevent costs to the advertisers ;)

[MThiessen]

He's right, setup hosts to exclude all adsense and no worries. Google "hostsman" for an easy interface.

[youfoundjake]

Or, you can use mine. :)

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com

The hosts file is found in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc and can be edited with notepad