Since i am on this board i really fear Google. I am not doing anything wrong with my sites regarding TOS violation, but some sites have pretty entusiastic members who do know that the ads on my site are important for the site's growth (and it is). I sometimes fear that some fans click the ads too often. Now my questions: - Does the Google Tracking count ALL clicks even the invalid ones? If so, then i could probably recognise a day (with many clicks and less revenue) as a "Click-Fraud-Day" ? It didnt happen yet, but i want to be prepared since i really fear a Google Banning. - What falls under the category Click-Fraud? What if a member clicks, lets say 3 ads on my site/day? Maybe because he is attracted by the ad, maybe because he wants to help the site. Google cant know, so i doubt thats illegal. I cannot control my visitors, thats my problem. And i also dont want to say "PLEASE, dont click the ads to help out the site, otherwise Google bans me" since there are many envious people in the category my site(s) play. So, what if someone who's envious (there sadly are alot in the game website business) clicks the ads a thousand times/day? How can i proof that to Google? I doubt i can, since they would ban me immediately... I dont really enjoy they way Google is handling fraud clicking. They could aswell simply send the affected AdWords advertiseres the ammount of the fraud clicking, or simply the whole ammount you eanred in that specific month the click fraud happened. Plus, charging the AdSense user with an extra bill that depends on the heavyness of the click fraud. Hm... Then again, all those dumb people out there might continue with some illegal activities if they dont get banned which isnt a good thing either. What do you think about the whole case? Am i the only one worrying?
If you are not doing anything against the ToS then you should have nothing to worry about. Google has stated that competitors and the like can't disable your account by "click bombing" you. On the rare occasion that something like that happens, Google seems to be more than willing to work with publishers to get their accounts re-instated. Don't believe most of the "Adsense Ban" stories you read. Most of them have alot more to them than seems immediately obvious. Rest assurred that Google won't ban you without a very good reason.
The only thing that I'd recommend is checking your stats often (2x/day) and contact Google if you see any significant spikes in CTR. You'll have a much better chance of reinstating your acct if it gets closed after you contacted them with your concerns. There is a member here, joyechego, i believe, who was reinstate his account after his forum got click bombed because he contacted them when he saw suspicious acct activity. As far as stopping kids from clicking ads a couple of times a day every day, I don't think you can do much about it and, yes, it could get you banned. I guess you can install one of the adsense trackers and watch for same IP clicking ads often. That's a lot of work though...
Yeah, and you'll never get penalized if you do only white hat SEO. Go tell the Jagger victims that... -- Derek
I use to worry about freud, auditing and such. After a while you just don't get so concerned. The most I ever lost from breaking the rules is $800US by using the word ebay in my url, I thought about it, it was in the subdomain name, but never removed it, oh well live and learn. Ebay called that rule, not CJ. Enroll in several programs, mix and match them. Use different PPC providers, find ones that pay only 10 cents or more per click. Use CJ for affiliate stuff. Clixgalore has tons of affiliate programs that pay out. If it all falls apart, just restart with a new email address Domains and hosting is cheap.