Many webmasters running AdSense worry about a rival, competitor, disgruntled acquaintance, or banned forum member trying to get their AdSense accounts canceled by using scripts or bots to click on their AdSense ads. I found this reassuring - Google is aware of this problem and can and does have means to check where those fraudulent clicks are originating: Dissecting Clickbot.A By Matt Cutts Sat, Apr 14 2007 It's nice to see evidence from time to time that the bad guys are not nearly as clever as they seem to think they are.
Its very hard to beat Google's AI behind detecting click frauds. But i have seen lot of webmasters whom accounts have been banned and they 100% believe that bots have disguised google detection system and resulting in their ban. Though now Google has started to send warning emails before banning account at first hand.
It seems to be a worry for us all doesn't it, but I trust Google's defense against it, and I just hope I don't get affected
As I've said before, I think it needs to be understood that click fraud detection is almost certainly a two-stage process: 1. sudden jump in click rates for an account - Google disables account - this is likely an automated process without human intervention 2a. nothing happens in response and the account remains disabled or is canceled 2b. webmaster responds with credible evidence that the clicks did not originate with him/her or with a legitimate reason for the sudden surge in click rates (e.g., a Digg story on the site/article/page) - Google investigates, this time with a human being, and reinstates account if it finds the evidence to confirm the webmaster's version of events
i like to think that GG does a good job combating click fraud and the such..also,as a webmaster,if you ever see your self a jump in clicks,impressions or the such,talk to google and inform them so there is no controversy
I've only had one occurrence of a substantial jump in click rate and it happened on a Sunday. It coincided with a substantial jump in traffic also which mostly came from Google. I can monitor my traffic real time if I choose and happened to be watching it at the time. There was sure a bit of panic on my part until I started digging into it and seeing the source and that legit keywords were being searched for to get to my site. I emailed Google immediately and got the automated response that they were basically "unattended" on the weekend. Nothing was disabled and I got a human response on Monday saying not to worry. I suspect the disabling IS automatic as you mention above, but probably takes more to trigger it than just a jump in clicks. I bet their detection software knew I had an increase in traffic and knew it's source before I did lol
just to let you know that ClickBotA activity remained undetected by adsense until someone bumped into unprotected botnet admin area ACCIDENTALLY, and reported it to Panda. so i would not rely that much on adsense click fraud prevention methods. more or less sophisticated network can possibly bypass adsense filters.