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Protect your Google Adsense Account : Report Invalid Clicks

GoogleAdsense-cartoon Google Adsense has been serving relevant and quality ads since a long time. The ads come from Google Adwords which is Google’s main advertising product and source of revenue. The advertisers are very important to Google so they are very strict when it comes to taking action against invalid click activity. This is one of the reason why hundreds of  publishers loose their adsense account daily,  If you are using ad sense you have to protect  your account and report any invalid click activity noticed. If not reported  immediately Google will consider those clicks intentional resulting a permanent ban.

How to Report invalid clicks:

Reporting invalid clicks is a simple procedure and is done by filling a  Invalid Clicks Contact Form online in the Adsense Customer Support. section.

http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=invalid_clicks_contact

You have to enter your account details, the location where the code appears, describe why you believe the activity is invalid and provide information like IP address or traffic logs if any.

Tip: If you are using WordPress you may use plugins like Ad Logger, Firestats, Statpress, to track IP address in real-time. Alternately, you can use services like Statcounter, Sitemeter to track IP information of visitors.

 

Tips to protect your account:

1. Since your website is open for all visitors, anyone can mess with your ads by clicking numerous times (Click-bombing).  It is advisable to check your adsense Reports daily and report suspicious activities.

2. Keep an eye on the CTR, if you find it unusual eg: from avg 2-4% to 20-30%. Inform Adsense team about it to avoid ban.

3. If you are experiencing unusual activity or bombing for 2-3 days or more, Best way to keep your account safe is to REMOVE all the ad units temporarily.

4. Avoid disclosing exact  Page CTR, CPC, Page eCPM/RPM and revenue generated through each add unit on websites, forums, chat, etc…

5. Do not place ad units on pages with no content (blank or just images).

6. Do not use more than 3 ad links and 3 ad units on a single page.

7. Do not encourage others to click ads or use deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks.

8. Do not modify the code, use only the code generated through Google Adsense (or if you are using the  DFP Ad Manager). Any changes made within the code will lead to ban.

9. Do not insert ads in pop up’s, if any.

10. Do not use ads on Autoblogs or sites with prohibited content.

11. If you are using ads under Top Navigation bar with drop down menus make sure the sub menu/category NOT overlapping the ads as it may lead to ban. Advisable to use ads there only if you DO NOT have any drop-down list.

12. Add a Privacy Policy page if you don’t have yet. Why? Read here

These are few very basic tips and common mistakes publishers do unknowingly.

To be on a much safer side go through Google Adsense Program Policies Page and make sure you in compliance with their policies.

About the author

Vikram

Vikram is a Digital Media Strategy Consultant who helps small business owners grow their
business. He is passionate about blogging, digital marketing, and emerging technologies.

27 Comments

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    • CTR – ClickThrough Rate is number of times the ad was clicked every 100 impression. If your ad was shown/displayed 300 times and 3 people clicked it. your CTR will be 3%.
      Cost -Per-Click(CPC) or Pay-per-click(CPC) Where the advertisers decides how much he will pay for each click. Not to worry about that as Google adsense uses bidding system to pay the publishers. If you are using ads other then Google then you can check the CPC to find out any click-bombing activity.
      eCPM – Effective Cost Per Million ie: Advertising cost for each 1000 impressions. More the eCPM better your revenue.

  • wonderful share vikram, the only thing that confuses me is..it is almost impossible to control such activities…meanwhile reporting invalid clicks and banning ip is the only way left.

  • Nice tips buddy 🙂 Yesterday my Adsense account got BANNED for invalid click. I got good amount of traffic.
    I don’t know who did those invalid click. I send a request to Google through Appeal form and waiting for their decision.

  • I got banned yesterday also, But the thing I dont get is I saw that I got 57 clicks in one day and reported it after a day google sent me an email saying I was Banned. I dont think this is fair at all. I’m now sitting here not knowing what to do. I sent away the application to be reinstated but I was turned down. It’s just catch22

    • You’ve been a victim of Clickbombing and i can understand how it feels losing your adsense account. Even i have came across situations people bombing me with clicks but i keep a close eye and report to Google regarding unusual activities. Good, You have sent request to re-instate your account already, fingers crossed, goodluck. Might take a month or couple of weeks but i have seen users who have gotten their account back. Hope for the best 🙂

      • How does it work when reporting the clickbomb. I have reported click bombing 3 days after it happened but got banned. I tried the Appeal and Adsense denied me. Is there an email I can contact them with or a way around this. Any help? :I

        • Asking about where is an Google id through which i can directly ask? well, NO. This has been asked by many and unfortunately answer remains NO. What you can try is ask the same with details in Google forum/Support someone from their team might consider your situation and would be able to assist you well. But you still need to request to re-instate your account, That’s the way it works 🙂

  • I noticed 11 clicks from a same ip. Should i need to report this activity? or in your point of view how many clicks from same ip considered to be invalid.?

    thanks

  • Hello! I used to have Google Adsense on 3 blogs on Blogspot, and things were going quite well. But suddenly after 3 months my Adsense account was blocked for invalid clicks. I used to check my stats every day (CPC, CTR, pageviews etc) and even yesterday when my account was blocked I haven’t noticed any strange activity at all! I had the same number of views and clicks as usual. So I can’t understand why they banned my account…do you have any idea why?

    I sent the application to reinstate my account, and they replied today saying something like “we analysed your request and your account, and our specialists confirmed that we can’t reactivate your account” 🙁

    So I don’t even know the reason, in order to not make the same mistakes again in the future. Do you think this happened because the content of my blogs? Is it possible to add Google Ads in the future from a different Adsense account?

    Please help me! Thanks!

    • You must have received an e-mail from the Adsense team stating the reason why your account was banned. What was the reason they mentioned?

      • I went through your blog and i see that most of the original copy written images you have watermarked with your blog name. This might be one of the issue as you have no rights to watermark those images unless it’s your own work. Maybe someone reporting this over and over again.

  • @ Vikram: They didn’t gave me any reason at all! All they said was this:

    “After reviewing our records, we’ve determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
    responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense account”

    So I didn’t even had invalid clicks…they just thought that my account poses a risk 🙁

    Other blogs where I used Google Ads were this: http://body-buildin.blogspot.com/ and http://free-online-games2.blogspot.com/ .

    Do you see anything wrong there?
    Thanks for the help!

    • Were you using clickbank along with Adsense? That may be one of the reason you getting banned not invalid click activity.

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