Will I get banned ?

For the past 3-4 weeks I've been working on a new version of my site, and adding AdSense ads and testing them along the way. I published this morning then read the rules more thoroughly and discovered my mistake about not clicking on your own ads.

Is there any chance I won't get banned, will e-mailing them help at all do you think ?

Cheers.

 

All I can say is, cross your fingers and read the TOS.

 

Depends on number of times you clicked and the amount you made.

With a glimpse of TOS one can realize this, no need to do a research on it.

 

Well I've read them now but was too busy at the time. Over the 3-4 weeks quite a lot of clicks about $75 worth. As I see it I can either cross my fingers and hope and try and explain if they ban me, or e-mail them now and plead ignorance and for mercy ?

 

G might already flagged your acc. Either wait or tell them what you did.
Anyhow keep refreshing your mailbox for the 'dreaded mail'.

 

You probably shouldn't use Adsense anyway - doesn't sound like it's for you.

 

It is strange that you havent realized you r stelaing when you made aprox $5 a day by clicking yourself!

 

Although I don't know if I believe your story, I would still tell them immediately. It's a form and fraud (you're actually stealing from the person paying to run the ad). There is no way google doesn't know with that many clicks, so contacting them would be your only hope of keeping your account imo. I've heard google sometime waits until the last day before the notify you that your account has been terminated.

 

Well, they encourage you to sign up and try it out...

When you say they sometimes wait until the last, what do you mean, last day of the month or what ?

 

Testing them? Testing them for what? $75 dollars worth? As an Adwords user myself, I would hope you get banned.

 

You're gonna be banned no matter what. $75 in fraudulent clicks is outrageous.

 

I should explain that with 80 pages or so with 2 text ads on every page it doesn't take much clicking each day to reach $75 over 4 weeks. I test every link, internal or external before and after publication out of habit, remember I wasn't aware it was illegal at the time, I even bought some stuff myself, I thought this is what ads were for.

 

The first day I placed google ads on website, i clicked them like 100+ times But lucky me, it did not convert. 100+ clicks--> still $0..
Maybe because the IP I used when i registered was the same when I clicked those ads.

 

Interesting. I use Adsense on a few websites and never click on the ads, even when I find one I'm interested in. If they just came out and said, "Yeah you can click on the ads, but we won't pay for clicks that come from your IP address", it would be way cool.

 

I would suggest that you immediately write to the adsense support and tell frankly what you have done. At least there is a chance, then, that they may allow you to continue... after deducting the fraudulent income.

 

Thanks for the advice, am still not sure what to do, so think I'll do nothing....

Firstly, they should make this no clicking rule much clearer when you sign up, who reads through carefully all the boring terms and conditions, I had a quick scan but obviously didn't see that part.

Second, it's been over four weeks now, they should have given me a warning or something by now ideally in the first week and it wouldn't be a problem I would have stopped immediately as I have done the moment I found out.

Thirdly, as some of you have hinted at, it's a frustrating rule for a webmaster, to look at these juicy interesting ads and not be able to click on your own website, there must be a better way of discounting our clicks.

So, if they ban me they ban me I'll get someone else's ads, I'm not sure how effective they are anyway since they've only been on my site a day, some seem relevant to the content and might induce a click from a bored browser others are way off the mark (why I was looking at them in part) and from some of the reports on here about the way they treat some of their "affiliates " I'm not sure I want to do business with them if they are true.

Thanks again, but I'm not going grovelling to a billion dollar corporation to run their ads, it's their problem, if they ban me I'll explain the situation and if that's not good enough so be it.

 

$75. worth of click-thrus by accident... thats rich...

Once you're banned your account will never be re-instated. If you dont really care about that then it really doesnt matter. Unless you lucked out and they did'nt register but you should be able to confirm that by looking at youre AdSense income report. If the clicks showed up there, then for sure Google has documented this and you can kiss you're account bye-bye...

I agree with those who have wisely advised you to contact Google asap. Not gonna look to good to explain you're position after you've been busted. But then... if you don't really care... then it does'nt really matter does it...

 

You're gonna get checked at the 100 dollar mark, and you've caused 75 of that yourself? Uh. D'OH!

If I were you, I'd check the Google TOS very carefully and contact Google NOW!!! I feel sorry for the advertisers who lost in that transaction.

 

Not all the advertisers lost out as I've said I bought stuff from some of them. I don't know if I care or not yet as I haven't had long enough to access their effectiveness, I'll have a better idea after today. If I think they're worth keeping I'll heed the majority advice here and contact them before I reach the $100 mark.

Infact, I've taken your advice and just e-mailed them, I'll let you know what they say.