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Click Fraud on Your Own AdSense Account

by TiffanyLambert
8 replies
I did a tutorial for an AdSense site setup and of course someone's gong through clicking on my ads. I am indexed, but someone went in there today and clicked 22 times - a 77% CTR.

So now what do I do?

How can I ban the IP or what can you do to prevent click fraud? Surely this is a common problem because competitors would do this to each other to get them kicked off.
tiff
#account #adsense #click #fraud
  • Profile picture of the author teatree
    Oh no!

    You need to contact Google.

    The following webpage should help - it tells you how to notify google

    I can't post urls, so type in

    Adsense support answer 62472

    into your search engine and it should be the first result. Then follow the instructions (you need to be logged into your Google account)

    Google are really difficult to contact so try to get your ticket sent to them any which way (even if you are submitting it in the wrong category) - someone will email you once they get it.

    In the meanwhile take your site out of the "allowed sites" in your Adsense setup till this is resolved (and let Google know you've done this when you notify them of the problem). Once the site is not allowed, clicks won't be charged to the advertiser.

    I recommend people protecting their account with allowed sites anyway - it means you control exactly where your adsense is displayed and people can't maliciously put your adsense ID on bad neighbourhood sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    Tiffany,

    I would not say don't worry, but honestly, this is something Google has a handle on. They see when the same IP is clicking ads on a site and know it isn't you if you don't have a history of problems. Adsense has been around long enough now that they can spot the real fraud and not penalize the fake fraud. So don't get overly stressed. You'll be fine.

    John
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    • Profile picture of the author teatree
      John - you still need to notify them, just so your back is completely covered. And doing it promptly helps.

      Basically you want a record that you contacted them and that they emailed you back to acknowledge what you notified them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    They will adjust for the extra clicks but shoot an email. Can't hurt. Still, I'm sure that IP is nowhere near your login radar.

    If you're still paranoid, you can install Adsense Click Fraud detection scripts that sense multiple clicks and disable ads after a threshold has been reached.

    Here's a sample script: asRep, real time Google AdSense tracking script (Be warned...testimonials are from 2006-2007! caveat emptor).
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    • Profile picture of the author Kay King
      I wouldn't contact google - especially not if you have to say you were showing people how to build MFA sites:p

      If you have an active account 22 clicks isn't going hurt you (as you didn't click them).

      However, if using ad blocks for training, don't use your publisher's ID number. I don't if there's a particular method google advises - but I know you can substitute xxxxxx for your id and that would be good for such a site.

      kay
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  • Profile picture of the author TiffanyLambert
    Edit - idiot Tiff had it clicked for all month, but someone hit the 1 site today but not all as this particular post had stated.
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    • Profile picture of the author teatree
      Originally Posted by TiffanyDow View Post

      Okay I posted this just a little while ago and it was on the one site I had talked about with my students for AdSense. Now I log in and they've hit ALL of my websites. So it's what, someone with an ax to grind?

      Would a click bot be able to know all of my sites - including my blogger blogs?
      It's probably a person rather than bot. And it's not hard to find people's sites if you know where to look (and I don't want to get into it in a public forum where I might give people ideas!). But you can see why so many internet marketers are paranoid - it's not Google they are worried about, it's their competitors.
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  • Profile picture of the author MarkAnderson
    Actually, click Fraud has become a plague in Internet advertising today. As a solution I think you can use some Click monitoring software tool give you detailed information about visitors activities. (Either it'll be unable to stop Click Fraud neither It'll help you to getting some positive action against it)

    Anyway,

    Quickly, Inform Google via email with access logs report.

    Don't forget some times it happens because of,

    1. Accessing to your site form a shared computer.
    2. Accessing to your site form a company (they use proxy server to access the Internet & IP is same)

    And some people say, don't promote Adsense sites for "lovely" family members because if they'll do it every day as a help for you.
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