hi there, I own a clan and I have forums for my clan, just like this one... I added link units to that forum i own, after couple of hours later. I checked out adsense reports and there i earned $3.15. One of my friend clicked on each link and i earned 3 dollars from it. There are like 10 page impressions and 3 clicks. I have over 20 members, they are people who i met them while playing a game and we are in the same clan... they are not my friends from the street or anything but they are from all over US. Can this get me banned?
Yes, don't put adsense on a site that is visited only by a few regular friends (offline or online). You need a real web site that caters to the public.
Let's interpret it this way. Forget about the "friend" thing. A visitor visited your forum and happens to see something interesting which he/she would like to check out and learn more and decided to click on the link unit and then on the ads. So in this scenario, it's pretty much ok.
Google never differentiate between friends and visitors and it only checks the IP. If it finds frequent clicks from a single IP, it may either be considered as invalid or your account may be disabled for click bombing. If the clicks are spread over different IP locations and the CTR is within the reasonable limits (Google alone determines what is that reasonable limit!?), then there is no problem...
I would not take the chance. If you have very unusual click/impression stats they will probably take a look at your account in detail. You will have a good chance of being banned especially if those same people click the links every day.
Google considers more than IP. If it were just IP people could cheat google in a massive way. I would not put Google ads on the site your talking about. It needs to be open to the public. Behavior from someone clicking on your links to help you out will be different from behavior of a valid click. Things such as how long they stay on the other site. i often have one person click on more than one ad on my site. It has more to do with thei behavior after they click. Yea if the same IP address keeps coming back ot your site, direct visit, no referrer, no search, and keeps clicking your ads Google is going to pick up on that as fraud. If people are clicking on your links to help you out, Google is going to detect that. It doesn't matter if they know you are not. You should educate the people you know, tell them not to click on your links. So you got three bucks, now all you need is 97 more of those. And you're going to earn far less on most clicks, especially if your friends are helping you out because your clicks are not going to convert and the advertisers are going to bid down your site. DONT PLAY WITH GOOGLE. It might work for a while but they will get you. There is no way you can make money with only 20 users. I know someone that doesn't even show ads to members, he only shows them to non members to prevent his friends for trying to help him out and get him banned in the process.