OK to start, when I first began adsense, I did try clicking one of my own ads, and it brought about a question i haven't bothered asking until now.... Do they track what you do after the initial click to further calculate earnings? The reason I ask is that my click was for an ad that was for one of those "create your own toolbar" type deals... I went though and actually signed up, gave my email (non-google) (it was a free service), confirmed the email, and made a friggin toolbar and the click turned out to be worth $3.50 Now say, I didn't do all that signing up and just went on with other things after clicking the ad, ex, back to Google to search random crap... Would I have gotten less for that click? Did Google know that I actually followed through by utilizing the service on the other side of the ad?
Not sure if this is relevant. I only know one thing that google may do. They track if the person clicks in, and then immediately clicks back. It somehow affects the score of the ad. I know this ads to a site's (that is the site in the ad) quality score somehow in google and if it gets high enough, it will be shown higher. At least that's what I've read somewhere. I don't think it affects the site displaying ads, although if it's too fast and the person clicks again or out of the site, it may be counted as an invalid click. Stephen C