Weird adsense-related URL in referrer logs.

Paranoid, paranoid, paranoid. They check out all of us, right? Right?

[crescenta]

I am really being paranoid here, but lack of sleep is partly to blame. Checking one of my stats pages, I found a weird URL that looked very much like it came from an employee at Google, in the adsense department ("adsense" was in the URL). (I won't give out the URL. It doesn't resolve to anything anyway.)

I am trying to tell myself that they have to check up on sites now and then. Ho hum. Perhaps they've checked on me many times before and I just didn't know it. Also, I recently emailed them because I accidentally clicked on one of my ads (I am extremely careful to never do that but it happened. Oops!). I've heard of enough people emailing Google after accidentally clicking, to no ill effect, so I am trying not to be worried about that.

My sites are pretty safe and tame in how they use Adsense. No fancy footwork, nothing adventuresome. No trying to push the envelope. No trying to get extra traffic through dodgy methods. My stats have stayed pretty consistent, no jump in CTR or anything. (Though it's beginning to be the "busy season" for my type of site, so impressions are increasing.) I read the forums here and while I don't think any of us is completely complaint (if Adsense wanted to get really anal and look for an excuse to kick us out), I can't really say that I have much to be worried about. But I am prone to paranoia.

So, they check up on all of us, don't they? Right? Or, perhaps it was just a bored employee surfing? Right? Right?

[ann]

Right, but ya' never know.

Ann

[MediaSpree]

Maybe they want to feature you as a spotlight advertiser :) Don't always focus on the negative. A wise Jedi master once said "Fear Leads to Anger. Anger Leads to Hate. Hate Leads to Suffering!"

[Jenstar]

Don't worry about it - if they found something, you probably would have received an email from them (ie. for a policy compliance issue) before you ever noticed the referral in your logs.

It could have had nothing to do with your email, your site might have come up for a quality check anyway.

[webnoob]

> So, they check up on all of us, don't they? Right? Or, perhaps it was just a bored employee surfing? Right? Right?

they check EVERY site periodically, they aren't just going to send you checks without checking your site once in a while..

[crescenta]

Okay, okay, thanks for the reassurance, everyone! You have helped put my mind more at ease. I really appreciate it.

I follow the advice given on these boards faithfully and try to run clean sites—I try to be extra careful. But there's always going to be something to find, if they are determined to find it. (I think in my case it would be some nitpicky thing, not having anything to do with the general content of the sites or how I place the ads.) I know I shouldn't worry, but as you all know, every Adsense publisher here (well, not every one) tends to be paranoid! ;)

[crescenta]

I thought I'd update this thread and tell you that I got an email from Google—a canned response to my email about clicking on my own ad (thanks for letting us know, use this tool instead to preview ads, yadda yadda yadda). No worries for now, looks like everything's okay.