You sure about that? I switched off cookies in several browsers and I can still see adsense ads just fine. I think you may be thinking of javascript....I know you can't see adsense ads with that switched off.
I just tested it when I posted it... I went into explorer turned all cookies off and no ads. I don't normally use explorer... but the ads show otherwise. If I move it down to high then the ads show up. How you turning cookies off? I know they won't show with javascript, but I didn't mess with that.
I'm using IE and FF, both with cookies off. Ads displayed fine. I just looked over the Google site, there's no mention of adsense not working without cookies, only without js.
I think Google looks at a bit more than just the IP address. Afterall, many of us ISP's NAT, so you are likely to see the same IP address in use for many different users. That and the fact that many of us ISP's use Virtual POP services. So you may find the same IP from an AOL user, RR users, and Mia, for instance, because we all use the same VPOP services.
I agree. In places like India where most people still use cyber cafes to access internet, a site can have dozens of users with same IP address. I dont think Google can get much info about the user except IP addresses. I think more than user location , Google relies more on user behavioural patterns to determine whether clicks are genuine or not.
Spot on, whatever they use it's based on scientific reality. I guarantee you they have some super statistics people there and have all sorts of neat statistical process control software that raises flags based on the gazillions of bytes of historical data they must have.
If you read the post just before your reply, I explained I was joking. My question had not been if it's possible to trick Google by deleting cookies - but if I could get banned because half the country uses the same ISP as me and we all share the same IP addresses - this has been answered. I'm not trying to figure out how to scam - I made a bad joke about clicking your own ads which is obviously not allowed on this forum - I apologize.
Who said it's a hidden cookie , u used to work on google or what ? I believe that if you contact google to say " I clicked on my ad help " they will just ban you and thats real . I am using a cookies editor and found out that google using smart ads tracking things when I logged in , and whenever I log in I see a different cookie ... it's more complicated then that dude .
Google definitely would not depend on ip tracking (alone) ... there are too many people sharing ips and computers for that matter (internet cafes, for example). Google has a massive amount of data availiable to analyze trends - if your site shoots out of the trend they will investigate closer.