I woke up around 4:00 AM in the morning, decided to work on my blog and do a few things online. It has become rather habitual to check my Adsense account about 6 times a day to monitor changes and track earnings. I checked my account that morning and saw something I had never seen before– over 1700 clicks! I was like WTF?! Some many questions came in like what’s going on? Am I dreaming? Who’s doing this? Who have I offended?
Well, those questions were rhetorical and a total waste of time. The reality set in and I saw that 5-year old Adsense account could be terminated just like that. I’ve always abided by Google Adsense’ rules, complied with almost everything in their lengthy policy and corrected my mistakes when issued a warning and now someone’s trying to run me out of business? Well, this can happen to anyone and for the first time in 5 years I’ve been an Adsense publisher, I got a little scared of what could happen.
A couple of weeks later, the same thing happened with over 500 clicks under 2 hours.
Anyway, it’s been about 6 or 7 weeks now and earlier today, I received my first Adsense payment via bank transfer after that little drama with earnings from invalid clicks duly removed. Well, it seems I survived that click bombing.
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What could have caused this?
The first time this happened, I suspected it might have been a bot, perhaps a bot was targeted to run us out of business. I noticed all the 1700 clicks came from a particular country with only 3 page views according to Adsense performance report. That was definitely not human. Only the ad unit on the homepage was being targeted and that convinced me even more it was a bot.
Also read: How To Cheat On google Adsense
It was different the second time though but if you’re in this type of scenario, whether it’s a human or a bot doing the ugly job, there are certain things to do to stay safe:
- Report to Google immediately
- Locate and remove the targeted ad units (or all ad units)
- Protect your ads from invalid clicks
- Always monitor your account
1. How report invalid clicks to Google
Google knows this is bound to happen and before you get your account suspended over invalid clicks, it’s best you report to Google immediately. There’s a form you should fill which can be found here.
Submitting this appeal doesn’t guarantee your account won’t be suspended but it might go a long way to help as it helped me. It’s most likely you won’t get a response but be sure you give the correct information and state what you’ve done to control the situation.
2. Locating and removing targeted units
If it’s a bot clicking on your ads, chances are that the homepage ads are being targeted. Regular visitors on this blog might notice I removed ads from the homepage about 6 or 7 weeks ago. This is one of the reason to track your ads through channels and know which ad unit is in which spot.
If you’re unable to locate which ad unit is being targeted, remove all ads temporarily.
3. Protecting your ads from invalid clicks
If you’re using WordPress, you’re lucky as there’s almost a plugin to tackle every problem. In my quest to find a solution, I came across a plugin that blocks your ads from showing to a visitor after a number of set clicks. You may set the plugin to block ads from showing to visitors from a certain IP after 2 clicks.
The only drawback here is that you may be blocking a lot of people using shared IP addresses but still, this plugin is worth installing.
I’m presently using the premium version that sends an email every time it detects invalid activities on your account but there’s a free version you can use before going for the pro version. You only need to wrap your ads in the specified div class to allow the plugin monitor your ads.
4. Always check your account for suspicious activities
Whether you’re a new or an old Adsense publisher, it’s a wise idea to monitor your account and check several times a day. I know a number of Adsense publishers who claim to check their accounts only once in a week but it’s like going to sleep right under a burning rooftop.
Always monitor your account for unusually high CTR. If your CTR goes above 10% and you’re pretty sure it’s unusual, you should consider reporting to Google.
Have you ever experienced this? What are you doing to prevent invalid activities on your Adsense account?
thanks, a lot. This is big help. I haven’t encountered it yet. But I hope not forever.
I pray you don’t, bro. It wasn’t a nice experience.
What is 10% CPC?
Theee is nothing like that.I’m sure you wanna say 10 CTR(click through rate)
Yes, that was obviously a mistake.
Thanks for the post, I have experienced it sometimes last year, it was a frustrating experienced I will never wish anyone to go through.
My mind was not at rest even two months after the incident, although I report it immediately to Google adsense team but when I read it that, reporting will not prevent my account from being deactivated or permanently closed, I had to remove every of the ads codes on my blog, but first, I changed the letherboard ads as it is the most targeted, later, the side bar too got clickbomb and I remove it too but save my self of all the hypertension that were building up in my body. I had to remove all the ads for three days and begin to test it thereafter one after the other.
Since then, I have been checking my account several times in a day, I can’t even count the numbers of time, thanks to the google adsense chrome extension that allow checking it hundred’s of thousand times without opening the whole details.
Checking it frequently has become part of me now, I’m trying hard to get out of the habit of checking it all the time but with your case now, let me continue with my addiction.
Na wa oooo. Abeg, make them free you ooo.
Abi na… I no know wetin I do o.
Lol, when I saw the title “click bombing” I thought the BH boys were after your account
Checking it regularly has now become something I do even on my mobile device. I had to install the Adsense app to make it easier.
It means 10% cost per click. That’s the rate at which your ads are being clicked.
haba! first it was Google penguin that hit you, now it’s click-bomb, they’re so many threats to handle after a blog becomes so popular, i wonder if other Gossip blogs face the same thing, coz unlike Geeks and techies, such bloggers may not be able to know how to handle it, except of cause they find and read this, good post brov.
Well, problems we face and how we handle them make us who we are. 🙂
HI Don, thanks again for a great post. You have been helpful and I pray that you experience success all the way. 🙂
Amen! Thanks for dropping by.
I have a blogspot blog with adsense.How can I protect my blog from invalid clicks
I really don’t know the best way to do this on a Blogger blog since plugins are not supported.
Hello Don, are you stil using this plugin because I’m planning to buy it.
Kindly reply back.
Yes, I’m still using it.
Nice article and its right on the subject at hand.
Concerning you send to the last paragraph, I think it will CTR instead of CPC. I know that CPC depends on the keyword while CTR should be somewhat mean.
Yeah, that’s right. Changed it to CTR.
I recently had an over 1000% increase in revenue over the course of one day. Should I be worried about click-bombing? Would you recommend that I remove all adds from my site for the time being?
That depends on if your CTR is still normal (below 5%). You might have have a sudden surge in traffic.
Hi sir do you have any sollutions for people who use blogger.com?