Invalid clicks on Friday, Sunday, Tuesday

[blurblade]

I have a new site and I noticed that I have received 6 invalid clicks since last Friday. (3 clicks on Friday, 2 on Sunday and 1 today) Is this normal?

I did not make the clicks myself of course. I tell those who know about my site not to click on the ads because "i want to keep the stats as accurate as possible for future reference" (I dont want to tell them that the real reason is that anyone can damage an Adsense account simply by making tons of fraud clicks) I do not post my URL on any Adsense or online advertisement related forums, blogs etc. I think my earning shows that I am not doing anything sneaky because I have not yet reach my first 100 since Adsense was added to the site and it hasnt been making enough for even one meal daily.

While 6 clicks really is no big deal but what can happen worries me. What if this person (same person? or 6 different people? i have no idea since Google doesnt tell) decides to make 100 clicks tomorrow? and I cant stop him/her because I dont know who that person is...

At the same time, I do feel that it is very unlikely that someone I know made those clicks to "support" my site without my knowledge. If that's the case, it should have happened at least one month ago because I have stopped telling anyone I know personally about the site since then...(which also makes me wonder if it is a smart thing to do because that means I am not calling even those I know to the site)

I have sent Adsense an email about my concern. Is there anything else I can do? Can this be mistake by Google? any experience?

Also, I see users on many other sites post their URLs as their signatures or in their messages. How safe is it to do that? Sorry if I am being too paranoid...I do trust people and want to think the best of everyone but hey this is a serious $100 business...

Does Google cancel Adsense accounts even when the publishers are the real victims? What do we do to protect our Adsense accounts?

Thanks for sharing.

[johnnie]

Are you sure these invalid clicks are not just CPM-ads?

[blurblade]

i think so because the number of clicks do show and the earning says $0. CPM ads wont show any number of clicks i assume...

[johnnie]

If CPM ads are clicked, they show $0-clicks AFAIK. I think you don't have to worry. Also, a tell-tale sign of CPM-ads is getting paid a few cents without receiving any clicks.

[edited by: johnnie at 7:01 pm (utc) on July 8, 2008]

[netmeg]

I had a few over the weekend too - I think they were probably bots or something. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

And yes, Google has been known to cancel accounts of people who are (as far as we know) innocent of wrong doing. It happens when you are operating a scale as large as AdSense.

Keeps logs of everything, don't talk about AdSense to anyone, and keep within TOS, and you will most likely be fine. For the hundreds that get tossed out, there are probably tens of thousands who are doing fine.

If CPM ads are clicked, they show $0-clicks AFAIK. I think you don't have to worry

I didn't know this, if it's true, then that explains it. Go into your Ad Review Center and see if you are running any placement targeted ads (where you get paid per 1000 impressions as opposed per click)

[blurblade]

thank you all for your replies.
By the way, does CPM ads only pay a few cents? I am guessing that i dont have any CPM ads on my site yet because it is brand new and not well known of course...hard to imagine that the advertisers will target my site at this point...but still a few cents for every 1000 impression is not encouraging at all haha...how do I block CPM? or should I in the future?

[purplecape]

Advertisers don't have to target by site. They can target by category or keywords.

Don't ask Google to turn off CPM yet! (You actually have to email them to do it.)

Wait until you've got some more traffic and more numbers to look at, then go to Advanced Reports, choose "show data by: Individual Ad" and click the box "Show data by targeting type.

Then you can see how you're doing on CPM vs. CPC overall.

[blurblade]

i will follow that!
again, thank you all for the advice =) i like this forum so much!

[johnnie]

CPM doesnt pay few cents per 1000, but few cents per few impressions. This because adsense has a huge and highly dynamic ad inventory and, depending on your traffic, it could take hours for that ad to show up again.

[blurblade]

that's a great news! few cents per few impression is not a bad deal at all.
by the way, I saw a NEW INVALID click (2nd today) right now right on my screen..... what is going on? S.O.S!

[johnnie]

Sorry, if I misinformed you; few cents per few impression does not mean one cent per impression. What I meant to say is fewer cents for few impressions ;)

If you're really suspecting fraudulent activity, you should contact google with proof. It's your site and you know your traffic and activity like nobody does, so if you really have a bad feeling... Go for it. Google does a pretty decent job at filtering unwanted clicks themselves, but their systems are not watertight. Personally, I think you are seeing CPM-ads.

[netmeg]

It is also true that some niches attract fraudulent clicks more than others; we don't know your niche. As long as you are absolutely sure you're 100% in compliance with TOS on every point (including your privacy policy) then it probably wouldn't hurt to be pro-active and contact Google. They may or may not respond.

[blurblade]

it has just came to my mind that i did some changes to the setting last Thursday, in the "Allowed sites" section.

That day, I added my URL www.mysite.com in the box, saved it and forgot about it. I have just checked that page just 5 min ago and saw that there was a warning saying some site, which is not on my allow list, is showing my ads...

huh?

who wants to help me make money now?

and i checked further...
then found out that i did something wrong. I should NOT have typed in the url with "www" in the field for URLs we want to add to the allow list.

Here's what it says:

Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account
In the field provided, list URLs of sites you want to show your ads. Then click "Save changes". If you put your ad code on a page not on this list, ads will still show, but impressions and clicks will not be recorded.

Example URLs
example.com allows all pages across all subdomains
sports.example.com allows only pages across the 'sports' subdomain

so when I put in "www.mysite.com" instead of "mysite.com" on my allow list, does google think that the ads are valid only when the url in the browser shows "www.mysite.com" and ads and clicks are invalid on "mysite.com"?

i toke a further look and saw that when users come from google, url almost always show without www, or "mysite.com"....which is the one that might be considered NOT on my allow list...

haha..not totally sure yet, but i guess i might have found out why those invalid clicks happened!

stupid me...

one more thing i still dont understand:

The guideline does say ads will still show, but impressions and clicks will not be recorded.

hmmm...the number of clicks ARE showing on my report...do they mean payment generated by those clicks will not be recorded but the clicks will be shown?

so confusing, anyone has done this before?

i have just completely disable that evil allowed sites function...let's hope i stop getting invalid clicks...

i guess it will take me a few days to find out...

thanks to all your help.