intentionally clicked an ad on my site today

I was genuinely interested

[shortbus1662]

I'm sure it's no big deal, and I don't think they count my clicks anyway, but there was an image ad on one of my new sites I'm working on and I thought man, that's pretty awesome.

I actually signed up after the click through so if they're tracking conversions or whatever they got one from my site I guess so that would be a good thing, but it's not inflated because it was legitimate.

Anyone ever do this? Anything to worry about with it?

It was a fantasy fishing ad. I've never even heard of fantasy fishing, but I do keep up with that kind of stuff, sad as I am to admit it, and I play fantasy football, so why not.

I'm probably paranoid, but it would be ironic to get booted from adsense for something like that.

[vordmeister]

That was stupid. As a publisher you should be finding other ways around other than clicking your own ads. Most times you can look at the URL in the ad and type that in. Preview tool can be handy too.

No idea how you find the image ad url though - should be interested to know if someone else can tell us. I've done the stupid bit so some helpful responses will surely follow.

[tim222]

Google AdSense Program Policies, section titled "Invalid Clicks and Impressions"

"Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited."

That sentence is actually in bold.

[google.com...]

How to find the URL of an ad:
1. Right-click on the ad title and select either Copy Shortcut (IE) or Copy Link Location (Netscape).
2. Open a text editor, such as Notepad, and paste the selection into the text editor.
3. The destination URL of the ad is the text between 'adurl=' and '&'.

[google.com...]

[HuskyPup]

Didn't G post a few months ago for us to "Not worry about the occasional accidental click"?

[koan]

Accidental being the keyword.

I'm so used to right clicking and copy pasting an url for an ad that I do it on other sites too by habit. I make sure my IP address is never associated with an adsense click, whatever the reason.

But if I did by accident once, I wouldn't fret.

[shortbus1662]

well I guess if I get booted for being the best advertisement conversion they could have possibly hoped for then so be it I guess.

If I was credited for it, and it still hasn't shown up, it was probably at best 20 cents.

Not only did I register, but created a league and mailed 10 other people to register and join my league and I'm paying 39 dollars for the "players advantage" or whatever it's called.

I don't intentionally click my own ads other than today, though I have accidentally clicked them before because they were close to the navigation (moved it down a bit) so I guess if I get booted for that, then so be it.

Earnings are half what they were this time last year for about the third month in a row despite sustained traffic and conversions in all other ares. Maybe it will motivate me to get off my lazy ass and contact people directly.

Anyway, I just thought I'd throw it out there because it's the first time I've ever been appealed to by an ad on my own website enough that I clicked it.

I wish they'd just make a way for us to put our IP in so we could click away and it would be automatically discounted as a publisher click. It would beat the heck out of right clicking to get properties and scrolling 400 yards to the right to see the url of the advertiser in the code then pasting it into the browser.

[sailorjwd]

This proves Darwin was a fraud.

[ember]

When I have accidentally clicked, I let Google know, just to be safe. They always say no big deal, just don't do it again.

[jomaxx]

Making a big deal about how you signed up or made a purchase or whatever is beside the point. Google probably don't know you signed up at all, and even if tracking is in place, your click will probably be flagged by their click fraud algos regardless.

Intentionally clicking seems like kind of a foolish thing to do under ANY circumstances, but it's your account so rock on.

[woofwoof]

Google said 'don't worry about accidental clicks' this was one click - If they can identify that level of intent then no one need worry about MFA's and Click fraud anymore as godle is all seeing.

Just in case they are all seeing I'd like to point out that I never click ads even on other peoples site's. And even now im wondering if they can track who's writing this post.

[tim222]

And even now im wondering if they can track who's writing this post.

Maybe that's what they're going to do with the web beacons.

[HuskyPup]

Maybe that's what they're going to do with the web beacons.

And why you need to know how to manage cookies:-)

[solidcore]

by signing up you made a conversion, your ip was logged, and your publisher ip is most likely logged, google cookies on your adsense and your accounts will match up... pray to god that your conversion doesnt raise the alarm...clicking would of been less likely to kill you.