Google Adsense - Invalid Clicks
by Brad Thomas
(Washington, DC)
Just in case you haven’t heard, an invalid click is a huge deal to Google. It will get your account terminated quicker than the blink of an eye.
An invalid click occurs anytime a publisher clicks on his/her own ads or asks others to do so. It also occurs when robots are used to click on ads. Just think of an invalid click as any deceptive practice in which ad clicks are manipulated, resulting in higher costs for advertisers.
An optimized website with great content and attractive ads, theoretically, should not have any need for invalid clicks. Why? Because there are tons of money making opportunities based on valid clicks.
As a publisher, you have complete control over all advertisements on your site. You can choose to run only text ads, only image ads, or a combination. I recommend that you choose a combination to maximize your earning potential.
At the time of this writing it wasn't possible to differentiate between a site’s text ad clicks and the image ad clicks. Google does not provide this information. You can however, differentiate between site clicks, if you have more than one. This is done via channels. I highly recommend setting up channels for each of your sites.
As a final note, when analyzing your site’s data, don’t forget to take into account ad placement (top, bottom, Left, right or center of the page), color and the type of ads (text or image). All of these factors affect your click through rates and will vary from site to site. The best way of determining what works best is to test. Move ads around, test...rinse and repeat.
