I can no longer count the times I’ve come across a blog wherein the blogger is asking his visitors to “please click on the ads” on his site, and each of those times I’ve always wanted to go off my way and comment, “Please! I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
I’ve never left a comment like that, though. A blogger’s blog is his own. He can do whatever he wants to do with it, say whatever he wants to say. I don’t want to be told off by any blogger to mind my own business.
I’m hoping that I could at least get the message across by writing this post, especially to newbie bloggers. Not that I’m not an expert at this or anything. I’m really not!
I know Google Adsense can be frustrating, especially if you’ve done everything you can to get more clicks. I remember the first time I was mulling over the idea of earning through Google ads — I asked my cousin in Virginia to click on my site ads once or twice a day if he could (as clicks coming from U.S. territories have higher CPC compared to local clicks). Had I not told him the following day to not do that anymore, he would’ve gladly clicked on the ads on my website every chance he could. And eventually, I would’ve been forced to say goodbye to my then premature Adsense account.
While engaging in invalid click activity works in some advertising networks, Google on the other hand is a lot smarter than some people think. To all the Dexters (read: geniuses) who keep Google up and running (and made it one of the top companies in the world today) a small thing such as tracking down invalid clicks done by publishers is a no-brainer. So, we, as Adsense publishers, should be more cautious.
Thinking he could outsmart Google, this friend of mine, a web developer, IMed me one time to say that he found a way to make his clicks undetectable by using some kind of command that will produce multiple IPs and blah blah, yadda yadda — I didn’t really understand the technical stuff he was saying. Despite my warnings, he went and kept on clicking on his own ads anyway. He was earning quickly at first, and he was very excited when his PIN finally arrived. I was even beginning to think that he has found his very own gold mine! But, weeks later, when I asked him how things were going, he responded by using frown and cry emoticons. He told me he got an unsolicited e-mail from Google telling him that they had disabled his account. It wouldn’t have been very nice to tell him “I told you so.”
I also know this one guy who was so psyched when he was finally done setting up his website with a bunch Google ads that he asks his brother to click on them. He explained that he will be paid by Google for every click he gets. Thrilled with the idea of quick and easy cash, his brother clicked on the ads on the site. Not just once or twice, but plenty of times! I think you can guess what happened next.
To ensure that our Adsense accounts won’t be disabled, Google has Adsense program policies and rules that we need to follow. And among the 10 other rules to keep our accounts in good standing, the first two support this post:
- Don’t click on your own Google ads.
Clicking on Google ads on your own site for any reason is strictly prohibited. If you’d like more information about one of the advertisers appearing on your site, please type the URL of the ad directly into your browser’s address bar, or use the AdSense preview tool. - Don’t ask others to click on Google ads.
Users should click on Google ads because they’re interested in the services being advertised. Encouraging users to click on your Google ads, either directly or indirectly, can lead to inflated advertiser costs and can cause your account to be disabled.
Between your random visitors and regular visitors, you want your ads to be clicked by the random ones who actually find those ads being displayed on your blog interesting. Getting frequent clicks from a regular visitor (which means the clicks are coming from a single IP, assuming that visitor is using the same computer) would do you more harm than good.
Google has its own way to investigate invalid click activity. Aside from blatantly inviting your visitors to “click the ads” or “visit the links”, they also flag websites who do not comply with their ad and image placement policy to protect both their advertisers and users. The label “Sponsored Links” above Google ad units are OK, but not “Favorite Sites“. It’s a good thing this guy received a warning before they disabled his account.
Google also wouldn’t be too happy to see ads in close proximity to Flash games or other interactive features, ads under pop-ups or download prompts, ads near site navigation controls (drop-downs or menu links), ads beside small images that suggest a relationship between the two, and more. It’s really better not to risk it.
As an Adwords advertiser (for the products our company sells online), I’m a bit sad to learn about some publishers who engage in click fraud activity. Every invalid click on the publisher’s side is a price the advertiser has to pay… in vain. And for Adwords advertisers like us with a limited budget for our PPC campaign and a sales quota we have to reach, invalid (and useless) clicks are the last thing we need.
OK. I know that’s beside the point. But that’s just to catch a glimpse of the other side of the coin.
To wrap up this post (because it’s already too long!), might I suggest that instead of encouraging your visitors to “click on your Google ads”, why not focus on writing more content for your blog? (“Content is still king.” Lol. So cliche!) Also, have more websites link to your blog (“Linking isqueen!” ) That way you’d get more traffic not only from referring sites, but also from search engines. The more content and backlinks your site has, the more it would be visible in search engines. The more visible your site is in search engines, the more traffic you’d get. And the more traffic you get, the more you’d have random first-time visitors who would most likely click on the Google ads displayed on your blog! *Kachiiing*
I don’t know if this post has been helpful or not… but I hope it at least serves as “a friendly reminder”. :)
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