Big mistake!

I accidently clicked on an ad on my page while working on the template. Will Google ban me for this? I've sent an email to support explaining how it was an error, but after all the scare stories I've heard...

 

As long as you notified support and explained it you should be ok.

 

One click is hardly going to get you banned. Anyway, I assume there are safe guards in place that keep the clicks from even counting. If not, there is something wrong with the concept

 

If it's from the same IP as the one you use to login to adsense, I'd imagine it'd be auto discounted yeah...

I made the same mistake when I first started using adsense years ago. Felt like such an idiot, I think it was the very same day I carefully read through the TOS too I was like "ooh that sounds interesting! *click* oh &%@$!"

 

Don't worry. I think nobody was banned for clicking one-two times on the ads on his page.

 

I think you are right. I accidently clicked on one of my adsense ads on a website I never promoted (no traffic, no clicks, etc.) My accidental click was never counted. Maybe google have something in place to filter the clicks coming from the user account IP.
It would be good anyway if in your google adsense account there was an option where you could enter ips from which you would want the clicks to be excluded.

 

I customer of mine that does very well with AdSense summed it up best by saying "I think Google is smarter than me. They hire nothing but engineers and English professors... I think they are a bit smarter than me."

I thought that made perfect sense. Hey, nothing is perfect, but my guess is they are pretty smart over there, and know what they are doing

 

A few times a month, I accidentally click my own ads when I'm editting my site. I just back out of the window as soon as I realize it. Errant clicks are going to be inevitable if you edit your site in a browser window like most people do. I'd suspect that google sees you log in from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and disallows any click from an IP address you have logged into your account from.

 

Don't worry

 

Indeed, I was showing my mother in law my new online store when she said to me "Why does it say on your site you are closed for the holidays?" eek, she had clicked on adsense and went somewhere else, a quick email to google gets a standard reply but it makes me feel happier to admit to it, there is no doubt they already discount such clicks though.

 

I agree. However, at the end of the day google is much more interested in protecting the interests of the advertisers than those of the publishers. Add to that the many forum posts (here and on other forums) from people claiming they got their account suspended because of fraudulent clicks but swear on their life they've never clicked on their own ads and it's easy to understand why ... people worry.

 

I was checking the adsense on a site that I have volkswagen stuff and I kid you not, I thought one was interesting and not even thinking I clicked and then I went " oh crap!!" what did I just do. I made sure to type the URL's after that....

 

I know, I sometimes find interesting adsense ads on my sites too. If I want to visit the page I always copy the url and paste it in the browser because ... I am worried; another reason why it would be great to have a "exclude clicks from IP:" option in our adsense accounts.

 

U did the right thing. You'll be OK.

I've had plenty of accidental clicks. The last time was this past Sunday. I emailed G about it--of course--but then when I checked my earnings later that night, I noticed that the click was worth $0.00, which means G must have some sort of new publisher tracking system going.

AmCy

 

I see interesting ads on my site all the time. If people are writing genuine articles on sites that they're genuinely interested in, then Adsense would be failing if its adverts didn't interest the publishers.

 

I accidently clicked an add while copying text from one of my sites. Even though the click did not generate revenue, I emailed google and reported the incident. That was 2 weeks ago - I never heard back from them, and my account continues to accumulate revenue.

They are probably looking for patterns of abuse. While it's probably a good practice to report the occaisional mistake, I would not loose sleep over it.

 

Do they discount clicks, or don't they? Is there anything "official" online which says one way or the other.

 

I pass all of my ads through a tiny piece of PHP code before they are spit out. It checks the IP address of the person visiting the site and if it matches mine, it doesn't display the ad. Then if I want to make sure the ads are relevant, satisfy my curiosity, etc I can quickly change a line in the PHP code to show them to me again.

if ( getenv('REMOTE_ADDR') != 123.456.789.012) { // if I am not the visitor
     echo ('google ad code here'); //display the ads because the visitor is not me
}

PHP:

I suspect this might also be better for calculating accurate CTR on sites without too much traffic (YET !) since visits to my own site won't count as impressions.

This could also be easily implemented into CMS / blogs where you are normally logged in. For example in WordPress if you wanted to only display ads for users who are less than level 9 you could do so like this:

get_currentuserinfo(); // WP function to get current user's info
global $user_level; // make sure to keep in scope
if ($user_level < 9) { // if the user isn't level 9 or above
     echo ('google ad code here'); // display the ads for this user
}

PHP:

 

Sometimes I look at the coop links on some of my sites and think - that looks interesting and click on them, then get I get a sudden rush of blood and think shit! What have I done - ahh, s'ok your allowed to click on coop ads, its certainly breeds an unhealthy view for me, I get a cold shudder if I click on a coop link thinking I have done something wrong before my brain engages.

 

That is funny... the coop ad paranoia (sp?) They will have to label this with a new phobia: clikyorownadsensphobia

Where is minnie when you need him?