How do I avoid click-frauds or accusations from Google Adsense?

[roxpace]

I am running several sites and it works very fine since years with Google Adsense, but recently I helped a friend to start a new site and put Google Adsense on his site.

Now they accused him for massivle clickings which is untrue from his side and I know he is honest.

So my question to all is how do we avoid situations like this and also frauds?

I of course know that I never shall click on my own banner and suggest people to click.

Sincerely
/R

[StephenBauer]

Sometimes we do not know what friends are capable of.

Also, sometimes friends blab too much to their friends and family (and then possibly lie about doing it to save face).

There is a perpensity for some to "show off" and "blab too much" that usually haunts them in the end. I know I have done it at times (and kicked myself in the butt for doing so).

If these are not the case, then a nice, professional, well-documented (in regards to the possible click situation) e-mail to Google may help (include log files and any suspicious concerns/possiblities). It has helped some.

Good luck.

[Sobriquet]

Rule No. 1: Never tell your family, friends and well wishers that you use adsense on your site. The help from one of them kills you!

Rule No. 2: Go back to Rule No, 1 and read it again, promise yourself to follow it.

[roxpace]

Good rules, BUT, a big BUT...

There should be some way through Javascript (for those who actives that) to detect if people from one session is clicking several times on banners.

Also there should be possible to make a script which from the serverside detect if someone from one IP is going through very many pages and when detected removed the ads to protect from too many clicks.

[StephenBauer]

Both are very doable but it comes down to performance sometimes...especially on very active sites.

Also, many clicks from an IP could be valid (i.e. AOL users).

It is best to not tell folks about your site. It is the easiest way to prevent some issues.

You always run the risk if someone is persistant and upset with you (they can go trhough proxy servers with different IPs).

[jattfx]

I have seen some sites have some kind of tracking script that the google adsense user clicked urls are processed through before the vistor is sent to the target clicked. any example would be: [mysite.com...] google adsense clicked url here]. I don't remember the sites or any script that does this but if you get hands on any of these scripts, you could modify it to stop abuse =]

[StephenBauer]

jattfx,

If you know where to get that script I would love to see it. I don't think you could do it like that through javascript and cross-domain scripting permissions (i.e. extract the appropriate, long URL and process it).

If it was toolbar driven maybe.

[bazzais]

It is against the adsense terms and conditions to edit the code they supply - unless you have an 'arrangemaent' with them.

Being kicked off the adsense program is harder than you think - other wise I'd be on my competitors sites and clicking their ads all day (no not really but you see my point)

I would have though that they actually check the I/P of the last adsense loggin with the ads that have been clicked. So unless you're friend has his ads running on a very small network (the same external ip for all users) and many people have clicked the ad on that network thats the only way I could think he would be banned.

It may e worth looking into.

[mmr82]

Well, here is what I do. I have an average CTR, average number of clicks. if some day I see the CTR jumped suddenly thru the roof or any sudden increase in my earnings for a particular website I immediately report that to google.

[fischermx]

it would be: [mysite.com...] google adsense clicked url here]

That had to be a premium publisher, because you'd need to modify the code which is not allowed.
However, there are tracking systems that uses javascript to clicked ads. Look in a search engine for adsense track or similar keywords.

[Broadway]

I report out of the ordinary Adsense ad behavior to the adsense people. I figure my cooperation is one of the few assets I would have if true fraudulent activity was taking place on my site.

Here's what helps me sleep at night:

1) I too have had a long relationship with Adsense. I would hope that a clean slate for an extended period of time would carry some weight.

2) I would imagine that the more traffic you provide and the more you earn then:
a) Any minor fraudulent activity will be diluted.
b) Adsense might be less inclined to quickly terminate a big (moderately big, whatever) earner.

Towards the latter, for me the best way to improve traffic is to add more content, so that's what I spend my time doing. That's something I have control over.

[StephenBauer]

I have seen the click tracker code but that only extracts the URL that is displayed in the ad for tracking sake (not the actual AdSense URL).

The cross-domain security aspect of Java and JavaScript would make for nasty work to get around the <iframe> nature of the ads. You can grab the ads and re-display them but then the "referer" header when an ad is clicked would be different (your site and not Google's).

If anyone is doing redirection, then (as another mentioned) it is probably a premium partner with a custom setup.

[roxpace]

Well my friend was actually on a school network and administrating Google Adsense, on that school they all have the same IP address to the Internet so the chance is high that people also on the school clicked on his ads to help him even if they never told it and made a tragedy for him.

If anyone knows any such scripts both for serverside or clientside I would be happy.

If I dont get any I will most certainly start developing some kind of controlscripts WITHOUT modifying Google Adsense code of course.