Clicking Ads by Accident is OK
It happens at one time or another to all AdSense publishers. You move a window around and click another underneath it to bring it to the top and … ooops, you clicked an AdSense ad! Oh oh. In the past I advocated reporting these accidental clicks to the AdSense support team, but apparently too many people are doing it now and Google has officially decreed that accidental AdSense clicks are OK and don't need to be reported.
What this means is that Google feels confident enough in their click fraud detection algorithms to accurately distinguish occasional publisher-generated blips from concerted efforts at defrauding advertisers and/or Google. Note that you should still report suspicious activity to Google, such as pages that suddenly earn you a lot without a significant increase in traffic. Being proactive with Google about these things, and being able to supply information like server logs, ultimately benefits your relationship with the big G. Let's not forget that you're pretty much at their mercy when it comes to anything about AdSense — the terms and conditions allow them a lot of leeway in dealing with publishers who they think are being negligent and/or purposely deceitful. (Really, it goes beyond that. If Google says “Jump!” the only thing you can ask is “How high?”. Such is the nature of the one-sided relationship we publishers have with Google.)
Sponsored Link: For a complete set of AdSense best practices, read Uncommon AdSense — for serious AdSense publishers only!
Eric Giguere is the author of Uncommon AdSense and the award-nominated (that just means it lost!) blog Make Easy Money with Google and AdSense.
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