Prevent AdSense fraud to avoid getting banned by Google

Google AdSense has worked wonders for numerous webmasters who have made a lot of money online. However, the numbers of fraudulent cases are also on the rise which has prompted Google to start banning those who use fraudulent means to increase the numbers of clicks on the advertisements posted on their websites. Some of the ways of AdSense fraud are discussed here along with preventive action that can save you plenty of harassment later on.

What is AdSense fraud?

AdSense fraud consists of invalid clicks which are obtained mainly by fraudulent methods such as:

• Manual clicks: Clicking your own advertisement. Google tends to employ such tools which can be used to check where a particular click came from. If it has been found that the webmaster is clicking on the advertisements on his or her websites, Google with come to know about that and would consider such clicks as fraudulent. Some webmasters tend to use IP hiding software tools which tend to mask their IP addresses. They tend to make excessive clicks on their advertisements in order to increase their AdSense related revenues. Even such tools are no match to the intelligent tools used by Google which can easily track suspicious activities.
• Some users act really smart; they tend to check which keywords are being searched most on the Internet. For example, the keywords like 'web hosting' and 'sex' tend to remain popular throughout the year. Such individuals would create websites with some information about these topics. It is possible that they might not provide the requisite services such as web hosting which are promised on their websites. After the website has been set up these webmasters would form a syndicate among their friends and relatives to keep on clicking on the advertisements to increase their AdSense related revenues. Little did they realize that Google monitors how well do the clicks generating on these websites get translated into actual sales. Click through ratio (CTR): In order to keep a check on fraudulent activities, Google tends to monitor the Click through ratio of the clicks which are being made. In case the CTR increases beyond a specified limit, it can lead to Google raising a few red flags. Further, the clicks are regularly coming from a small set of IP addresses can be easily noticed by Google.
• A step further, a webmaster might have set up a website based on the keywords which are currently ‘hot’. Instead of going for clicking the advertisement links all by him, he finds some ‘victims’ present in plenty on the various chat rooms. He asks these victims to check if the links on his website are working properly. Unsuspicious users tend to click them and the purpose of these webmasters gets completed.
• Use of automated software tools: Such software tools are available on the Internet which can imitate real users and can click advertisement links automatically. This too, can be detected easily with the help of certain tools by Google.