Click fraud on AdSense is a serious issue.

You can get kicked off of AdSense, even if you didn't do anything wrong.

For starters, consider this. The businesses that buy ads on AdWords don't just want clicks, they want purchases. That is, when they buy an ad on AdWords, they want someone to click on their ad, and then take action, usually by making a purchase, or filling out a form, or subscribing to a mailing list. But if all they did was click their ad, look around and then go away, it's like a wasted click.

Google's reputation with AdWords hinges on its ability to drive customers who take action.

That's the whole reason why any business would buy an ad on AdWords, to get paying customers. But if it turns out that AdWords creates a reputation for bringing only a bunch of lookie-loos, then why would a business want to buy their ads?

Click fraud is defined as anyone clicking on an ad without any interest in the ad. There are many reasons why someone would do this...

• That someone is a website publisher clicking on an AdSense unit on their own website, to give themselves earnings


• That someone is a friend of a website publisher, doing the same thing, but to give their friend some earnings


• That someone is adversary of a website publisher, doing the same thing, in hopes of getting that publisher in trouble


• That someone is a business who purchased an AdWords ad, and is trying to get their ad to rank higher on Google's paid listings

Click fraud can also include cases where a website publisher attempts to increase click throughs in a deceptive way, such as...

• An AdSense unit on a mostly blank page, with a heading that says, "Click the link below to continue..."


• An AdSense unit on any page, but with a heading that says, "Click these links, I need the money!"

If the folks at Google AdSense detect this is happening on your AdSense account, they'll suspend your account. Just visit any of the hundreds of webmaster forums and blogs to hear about other webmasters who lost their accounts.

I've read reports from webmasters who had their AdSense accounts suspended for no fault of their own. Someone was just clicking their AdSense units repeatedly. There have also been cases where someone's website simply had a demographic that was just useless for AdSense/AdWords; it wasn't click fraud at all, but just a bad demographic.

So, how does Google AdSense know that there's click fraud taking place on your account? They can determine this by looking at the Cookie ID on someone's computer, and how often they clicked on the same AdSense Unit on the same website.

To keep all this in perspective, Google's AdWords reputation is on the line. They need to deliver paying customers to their advertisers. Click fraud will ruin that reputation. That's why they're looking at your AdSense account!

Labels: Click Fraud