So can we click the links or not?

I'm still confused

[david_uk]

To finish that sentence, I wouldn't recommend clicking on your own Ad Links topics for the same reason we don't encourage searching with your own AdSense for search box. Doing so may increase the number of impressions in your reports, which wouldn't properly reflect traffic to your pages.

By the way, all of your comments are being heard loud and clear over here at the Googleplex. Keep it coming!

We need to click on the link to see the ads - I STILL don't know if we can or not. Please can we have a deffinitive yes or no answer?

Thanks

[Fairla]

I think he said we can click. Which is a good thing. (Click the original link, not the subsequent ads.)

[Visit Thailand]

In the quote used ASA says not to click.

[Rodney]

No, it's not a good idea to click the links.

[david_uk]

No, it's not a good idea to click the links.

So how do we get to see the ads then?

Is it a case of clicking the links distorts the stats but is not against the TOS, or is it a case that clicking the link is a TOS violation and we get booted?

[annej]

My impression is that it distorts the stats. Clicking on an actual ad would be against TOS.

They do need to tell us how to preview what ads we would be getting without clicking to see what ads are listed.

[oddsod]

I've clicked on the links now, from my usual IP. It takes you to a Google branded page with a list of links - about 10 - the lower ones of which are probably 0.00001 cents worth and are for *bay etc. (None of these are links I would click on though).

If they want to close my UPS club account for that click they can just go ahead and do it. I play clean, have no intention of cheating anyone but am tired of the petty, senseless rules. Just get with the game Google. It's 2005 - work out some way that you can exclude self-clicks!

[security56]

"It's 2005 - work out some way that you can exclude self-clicks!"

oddsod, man this the question I ask myself all the time, Why, it just make no sense the Google don’t have a way to do this. It would be as simple as excluding our ips or installing a cookie on our systems. I mean how stupid Google think we are, that we would click our own ads then check our stats, come on, we aren’t that dumb.

PS: who checks for this type of invalid clicks a machine or a person who had a bad day and wants to cancel some one account that day?

[willmullis]

I hope you guys are not that paranoid. ASA said it will mess up your stats....nothing more. He is not going to come right out and say "Sure, go ahead, click away". There is no way on this earth that Google could penalize us for clicking the links becuase we make no money from the links and the advertisers are not charged.