Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Don't worry,
don't fuss,
Accidental clicks are not so much.
If you want to do it again,
You should ban yourself,
you silly holligan!;)
WFN
AdsenseAdvisor,
That gives me an idea! Wouldn't it be great if [just like the preview tool plugin] you guys can build a small tool for publishers that can be installed so that ABSOLUTELY NO clicks from THAT particular computer would count. This will help in a lot of ways.
And if I were an anti-Google hacker, I'll hack that tool and spread it through spyware, viruses, worms, etc.
Once the whole internet is infected, free Adwords advertising for everyone!
davthp and fenimor: You are not discriminating between what makes business sense (to you) and what is technically possible. If you want to say "Adding a click here or there if you get a undred clicks a day is irrelevant from a revenue perspective therefor Google doesn't care" ou are entitled to that opinion, and perhaps that is true. However, if you want to say "Google cannot detect one click out of hundreds" you are totally wrong. They have our IP address from you logging into your account. They simply match it with the click, and presto -- you're busted.
What if you log into your account from an IP that's dynamically assigned, or is a publicly used IP (such as one would find in an Internet kiosk or some such)? Things could get out of hand quite quickly from an administrative standpoint if G or any other ad provider had to maintain such lists. (Imagine if there is a problem that causes IPs to remain on the lists when they should have been removed, and the ensuing lost opportunities for revenue.)
If that is the case then the system must be hugely open to abuse, surely, by "maliciously" clicking competitor adsense ads?
Am I being dumb about this? :)
CPC is inherently vulnerable to abuse.
What would work better would be for Google to set a cookie in your browser that identifies you as an AdSense publisher with YOUR AdSense ID and machine ID. When you click a link if the AdSense ID amd your machine ID in your cookie matches the AdSense ID on the link and stored machine ID for your account, they could simply not count those clicks yet still count clicks when you're not on your web sites.
They could even let you know the links were in "safe mode" where clicks by you wouldn't be counted by checking your cookie before displaying the ads and putting an "*" before or after the links in the ads.
Pretty simple unless you zap your cookies, but then you wouldn't see the "safe mode" indicator.
What would work better would be for Google to set a cookie in your browser that identifies you as an AdSense publisher with YOUR AdSense ID and machine ID. When you click a link if the AdSense ID amd your machine ID in your cookie matches the AdSense ID on the link and stored machine ID for your account, they could simply not count those clicks yet still count clicks when you're not on your web sites.
Hmmm ... but you would have to log into your account, or do something in order to ensure that the cookie is set. Perhaps most (honest) people would remember to log in (they'd be reminded by not seeing the safe-mode indicator). Perhaps G could offer some incentive for people to use the service, e.g. a small credit to their accounts.
Stop being pathetic
