On Google’s adsense site I was reading about valid/invalid clicks. Google states that they have some algorithm that determines whether a click is valid or not. I am assuming that the algorithm would pick up on things like you clicking your own ads. Or maybe one of your friends clicking on your ads. What worries me is the following scenario: You start up a website or blog. You tell all your family and friends about it. At the beginning you will not have lots of traffic. Most of your traffic will be from family and friends (and their friends). What might happen is that some of your friends (and their friends) will click on your ads. The google valid/invalid algorithm might have a problem with this. Because, out of the whole world most of the clicks are coming from your small town. Google might consider this suspicious. Although, you did not tell your friends to click you ads, some of them invariably will. And you can not control what their friends do. My question is: Does anybody know much about the google valid/invalid algorithm and whether someone can get banned from google due to the above scenario? High percentage of clicks coming from a single small town. The reason I ask is I am considering whether or not to tell family and friends about website. My traffic is still low enough that a whole bunch of people from my town clicking on my ads could raise a flag at google. Of course I would tell them not to do it...but who knows what they will do.
No...most of the sites are targeting the specific geographic. so the google doesn't much bother about geographic. they may consider IP address. also they will look only when there is enormous clicks are coming from the same PC. so you need not worry about them If you suspect the invalid clicks you also can report google here: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact=invalid_clicks_contact
Yup! Agree with Kks_krishna..Too many clicks coming from the same computer frequently would raise suspicion....but there're only 2 things you could do if your friends are knowingly clicking too many ads--1)remove the ads until you start getting a decent amount of outside traffic...2)report to Google about possible click-fraud attempted by your friends.
To avoid invalid click, try to get traffic from search engine. Those direct traffic can be track easily and if too many click from direct traffic, it is dangerous
As far as I know about this problem,it doesn't matter by the geographical area. If your computer is used by more than one person then it will create a problem.
If your family happens to accidentally clicked on your adsense only once on different IP, that can be tolerated. If more than one, suspicious.