How to keep an Google Ad Words Account in Good Standing?

Aug.21, 2009 in Advertising on Google

In the last few week there’s been an increase amount of chatter on forums and Online internet marketing about invalid clicks and Google Ad words.
Some of the talk has contained information that has been a little confusing and perhaps even ill-informed (and some ‘influenced’ by companies with their own agendas) – so I got in touch with AdSense and asked if they had any information to help their Online internet marketing publishers protect themselves against invalid clicks.

The following is what they replied with – in their words it is ‘a concise guide to how to prevent and monitor invalid clicks, and keep an AdSense account in good standing.’ I hope that it is helpful to AdSense or Online internet marketing publishers everywhere:

The Google ad words team has heard many concerns about how Google treats invalid click activity on publisher’s sites, and there have been questions on how to keep your Google Ad words account in good standing. The Google Ad words Quality Traffic Team wants to help all Online internet marketing publishers keep their accounts in good order, so here are some tips to keep in mind.

We understand that it’s not always possible to control the behavior of your users, but you can be proactive about monitoring your traffic, and you can take steps to ensure that your site provides a helpful and safe environment for users and advertisers. Here are some top tips for Online internet marketing specialist keeping their Google ad words account in good standing.

Expanding on the tip “Be aware of how your site is promoted.” we’d like to remind Online internet marketing specialist that, should you purchase traffic to promote your site, you do so at your own risk. There are many site promotion services out there that appear to be legitimate PPC advertising companies or search engines as internet marketing solutions, but actually may be sending artificial traffic to your site for their own gain.

To combat this, we highly recommend that you use channels to segment your traffic by source (e.g. a channel for your site’s advertising on Google Ad Words traffic only). If one channel’s reports look particularly suspicious, you may want to consider unsubscribing from that traffic service. We also recommend using Analytics to slice and dice your traffic reports further to ensure that
you’re receiving clicks from users who are genuinely interested in your ad words as your internet marketing solutions.

Though we encourage you to be proactive about monitoring your online internet marketing site and traffic, we highly discourage the use of click tracking via third-party software or custom ad words implementations.

These methods may:

inadvertently disclose sensitive information about you or your site to a third-party
disrupt Google’s ad words delivery or click logging in a way that violates Google as words Terms and Conditions for online internet marketing.
In addition, click tracking may not provide you with significantly more online internet marketing information than you can already find in your AdSense or Analytics reports. We believe that the creative use of channels can help you gain detailed insights into your Google ad words account.

While we’re unable to go into the details of monitoring system, you should know that invalid clicks don’t always mean clicking on your own ads or using click bots. Google Ad words Traffic Quality Team looks for numerous types of activity that may inflate advertiser costs, then takes the necessary actions to protect Online internet marketing advertisers.

That said, still find that many publishers are clicking on their own ads, possibly because they feel that Google is disregarding those clicks. Keep in mind that even though Google filter the revenue from an invalid click, Google don’t ignore it completely. If Google detect significant invalid activity on your advertising on Google ad words, they may take action on your account to protect online internet marketing advertising on Google ad words from inflated costs.

Here are some examples of situations
in which clicking your own ads is prohibited:

Clicking out of interest in the Online internet marketing ad content
Clicking to see an ad’s destination URL, such as for filtering purposes(recommend trying the AdSense Preview Tool).
Clicking to ensure that Google is properly registering clicks on your ads(Google log all ad words clicks, but it can sometimes take up to 24 hours before your reports are finalized)
Clicking to test your website