Ad click and the back button

clicking an ad, hitting back, clicking a different ad

[Prolific]

I was curious how Google would handle this:

1) user clicks on an ad
2) user didn't get what he wanted, user clicks the back button
3) user clicks another ad

What does google think of this? Two clicks coming from the same page, same user, within a few seconds. Would they toss both clicks? toss one of the clicks? keep both clicks?

[elsewhen]

i think this quite common. i use a click tracker, and i often have visitors who click more than two ads, sometimes only a few seconds apart.

i think this is very normal behavior: they click, dont find what they are looking for, click back and try another link.

this sort of thing probably happens even more frequently on the adlink pages.

i expect that google would credit you for both clicks unless they were microseconds apart.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

AFAIK advertisers pay for all clicks not just those that spend a significant mount of time on their sites so all of these would be valid clicks. When you think of it what you describe is quite typical surfing behaviour.

[elsewhen]

there is a firefox extension that opens ALL links on a page in new tabs. the pages are opened within seconds of eachother. i wouldn't be surprised if google ignores these, because when ads are "clicked" on in this way, it shouldn't really count as a click.

my guess is that if the clicks are a few microseconds apart, they do not count them, but if they are anything over a couple of seconds apart, they are counted. just a guess.