It's probably rarer than you'd think; few rivals want to put money in your pocket!

A bigger risk for a newcomer is "helpful" friends clicking crazily to try and make you rich.

But if you are concerned, then monitor activity - and be sure to tell Google before they tell you!

Thanks for your reply.

I'm glad to hear that it is a rare occurrence. From reading the forum (and one or two other forums) the whole banning scenario seems to be subject to some mystical arbiter that has a lot of people scared due to an outrageously insufficient recourse.

What monitoring/blocking tools are there that can be used to protect against these half-witted click-attackers?

Thanks

I've been with adsense since the beginning, and never had such problem. the adsense team will always work with you.

I think 80% of the 'kids' who say they are innocent, they're not.

And of the 20% who are innocent, 90% have still got themselves to blame; honest mistakes are not a crime - but not adsense's fault, either. You'd be amazed how many people don't even read the FAQ, let alone the more detailed 'small print'. then, when it goes pear shaped - blame Gooooooogle :)

blame Gooooooogle :)

Thats in the job spec for becoming a webmaster! - LOL

It is more likely you'll be killed coming home from the local pub.

That'll teach you to fiddle with adsense while driving ;)

the best way an AdSense user can protect themselves from malicious click activity

Don't worry about it. Just abide by the terms of agreement, and you'll find everything is fine. The folks at Google are not stupid.

Matt

Thanks for the reassurance everyone.

I won't be in that initial 80%, nor will I be in the 90% of the remaining 20%!

So I'll be in the remaining 2% of sitting ducks, hoping I don't get my head shot off!

:-)

the forum can sometimes make you feel that adsense is one headache after another--but it's not as bad as that in real life.
when something goes wrong, people talk about it. but when everything is okay (99.9% of the time), they don't bother.

Yes, I appreciate what you are saying there.

As a newcomer to AdSense and to the forum I can say that the apparent random banning subject is most prevalent, so caused me the biggest worry!

There's a lot of FUD about, often shouted by those with something to hide!

AS is fine. It's not a bucket of free money, but it is fairly hassle-free.

DO NOT rely on it as your main source of income; it's too variable for that for a start.

Rgds

Damon

You cannot avoid being click attacked. But following may help:

- Be good to your site visitors, because some angry person is a potential click-bomber.
- Do not be too good because some grateful person can decide to click multiple times to increase you earnings
- never place a note like "click on my ads" or "do not click on my ads". Both would attract attention to ads, potentially leading to click bombing (it is also AdSense TOS infringement)
- notify AdSense Support as soon as you notice unusual activity. Always.

The last item is the most important. It will help you to recover in case you got banned.

Thanks Damon and Joel.

What is FUD? It took me a while to work out the abbreviations used on this forum when I first started coming here, but I haven't come across that one!

:)

What is FUD?

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.

notify AdSense Support as soon as you notice unusual activity. Always.

Absolutely. I had a problem with a 'click-happy' idiot the other day. I immediately notified Adsense (who'd already dealt with the situation by not crediting the clicks), but I like to hope that contacting them and offering logs to help them identify the culprit counts for something.

I also like to hope that aside from the occasional mistake, Google is clever enough to be able to determine whether the clicks have come from the publisher's machine or from elsewhere. In most cases where someone's been banned, there's usually more to it than we're ever made aware of here on WebmasterWorld.

We've also seen several cases where G has made a mistake, the publisher can be reinstated once they've completed investigations.

Basically, Adsense's advice to me was stay within TOS, notify us of anything suspicious and we'll work with you - just keep your nose clean.

Thanks Malachite.

Do Google provide all the necessary programs for the AdSense participants to monitor their account effectively?

I was looking at AdLogger and thought that would be a good program to use as well.