How To Protect Google AdSense Account From Invalid Click Activity

Google AdSense is one of the best choices of publishers to monetize. But not only getting Google Adsense approval is difficult but also keeping AdSense account safe is a challenging task. The reason is Google’s strict policies and guidelines. Many publishers have reported that their Adsense Account is getting suspended because of Invalid Click Activity. They claim that they neither clicked on their own ads nor provoked anyone to do so but still Google is disabling their AdSense account. I do agree that it is not always possible to control the behavior of your users. But it is very important to keep an eye on your clicks activity and if you find something suspicious, fix it and report to the Google.

As per Google:

AdSense publishers are ultimately responsible for the traffic on their ads. For this reason, it’s critical that you diligently monitor your ad traffic to ensure that your account is compliant with our policies and not accruing invalid activity. If you see something suspicious after following the tips below, you’re welcome to notify us

Google is charging the advertisers for their ads to be shown. So, it is Google’s responsibility to provide targeted traffic/clicks to their products and services. Google has more advanced tracking algorithms. It is not easy to outsmart Google 🙂

Image Source: stackdart.com

What is Invalid Click Activity?

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Any suspicious clicks or impressions included in increasing publishers’ incomes come under invalid click activity. There can be many reasons for this such as publishers clicking on their own ads, provoking others to click on ads, automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots, or other deceptive software.etc. Also, if a user keeps clicking all the ads being shown on screen, then it can be taken as invalid click activity.

Who Can do Invalid Click Activity on Your AdSense Account?

There is no specific face and reasons behind this. It can be anyone in your friends, relatives, competitors who are not happy with your success or any personal reasons. Nobody actually knows why these people want to harm and what they get in return. They are either psycho or sadist :p

Tips To Protect Google AdSense Account From Invalid Click Activity

Now, you might have got enough idea about invalid click activity. Let us know how we can protect our google Adsense account from such attacks.

• Avoid Click Bombing

Click bombing is the process of clicking on your ads more than the normal rate. The average Page CTR is <5%, i.e on 100 page views, 5 clicks are normal. But if your CTR rate has increased increases to 15-20%, there is something wrong with your website. So, it is always better to analyze your clicks activity on a daily basis.

• Monitor Your Site Stats

As mentioned earlier, monitoring your site statistics is very important. You should be very careful about your site traffic and check referrers from where traffic is coming to your site. It will help you to prevent spam traffic to your blog. If you see any dangerous bots on your sites often, block it. Also, if you notice any sudden growth or fluctuation in your Google Adsense clicks, earnings or CPC, then it’s time to act quickly. If you find any unusual activity report it to Google support here.

This is a sample form to report invalid click activity to Google.

• Use Plugins To Prevent Invalid Click Activity

 Another thing you can do to avoid this is to use plugins (If you are using WordPress as your blogging platform). There are many related plugins & tools to prevent invalid click activity on your blog. One of the best free plugin to prevent invalid clicks is the Adsense Click Fraud Monitoring Plugin. You can also use plugins to block specific countries from where you are receiving invalid clicks. Google Ad Manager (DFP) is an ad management tool which does support filtering country and shows ads.

Check – Improvely

• Use the authorized sites feature to prevent unauthorized use of your ad code.

Google provides a very good feature ‘Authorized sites’ to prevent invalid click activity. The point here is, anyone can see your publisher id and ad code on web page source and use it anywhere. Authorized sites feature ensures that your account will only accrue stats for your ads that appear on sites that you’ve specified. It will allow you to prevent the use of your ad code on any other low-quality sites. Use it wisely!

Here is a snapshot of my authorized sites.

Some More tips to avoid invalid click activity

• Do not click on your Google ads. Not even for testing purposes or to check if ads are working fine and getting tracked. I repeat – Don’t!
• Do not ask/provoke others to click on your Google ads.
• Never try any automatic software or scripts to click.
• Avoid partnering with untrusted/ low-quality parties
• Do not try to be over smart with Google in any way. You will have to pay a heavy penalty in return.

If you are still not able to get a Google AdSense account, do not worry! You can try following Google AdSense alternatives:

• Infolinks Ads
• Adversal CPM Ad Network
• BidVertiser
• ShareASale Affiliate Program

Final Thoughts

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Google needs high-quality sites to do business and to provide good values to the advertisers. It gives too much importance to the policy and guidelines. If you are caught in any case, your account will be suspended. No matter it was your mistake or not. So beware!!

That’s all in this article. Have you ever faced invalid click activity in your AdSense account? Is there anything else you have done to prevent this on your site? Do let me know in the comment section below.