Clicking on Your Own Google Ads? A Step by Step Guide Saving Your AdSense Account

I will start this post off with a disclaimer. If you are a scammer who is looking for a way to steal money from Google’s advertisers by clicking on your own ads, don’t read any further.

Disclaimer #2. If you are a scammer who clicked on your own ads and are now banned by Google for life, don’t read any further. Your chances of reversing a Google ban for invalid clicks is nil.

OK, with that out of the way, I should only have panicked people left who accidentally clicked on their own Google AdSense ad for some reason. Stop panicking – its not the end of the world. Here is a real-life example of how to handle an accidental click that should have never happened.

Step #1. Record the date and time of your click as well as the website the ad was presented on and the advertiser that you were directed to.

Step #2. Log into your AdSense account and click on “Help” in the top right corner of the screen. Next, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on “Contact Us.”

Step #3. Place a dot next to “Invalid Clicks or Unusual Account Activity” and then a dot next to “I accidentally clicked on my ads” and click Continue. Fill out the form with your contact information as well as a polite, and detailed explanation of what happened, when it happened, and where it happened.

Step #4. Submit your explanation and then wait for the email from the AdSense team (usually arrives within 2 days).

Why do I know so much about this process? Because I have been through it. I saw an ad on my blog that genuinely interested me, and before my brain could catch up with my mouse, I had clicked the link and was taken to the advertiser’s website.

Here is what I sent to Google:

From: thor_schrock@hotmail.com
Subject: Can’t log in
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:38:18 -0700

I accidentally clicked on one of my own ads from www.thorschrock.com at
about 8:34 AM.

The Ad was titled “I was scammed 37 times.” Please do not credit my
account for this click and please do not charge the advertiser for the
impression/click.

I am sorry for any trouble this may have caused. Thank you.

And here is what Google sent back to me within 24 hours:

Hi,

Thanks for letting us know about the clicks on your ads. We appreciate
your honesty and your efforts to keep your account in good standing.
Although publishers are not permitted to click on their own ads for any
reason, we do understand that accidental clicks may occur, so we don’t
require that you contact us every time you click on your ads.

For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your
account in good standing by visiting
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921.

If you were clicking your ads out of interest or to see who was
advertising on your site, we suggest the AdSense preview tool as an
alternative. This tool will allow you to check the destination of ads on
your page without the risk of generating invalid clicks. For more
information, please visit our Help Center at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/topic.py?topic=160.

Lastly, you can learn more about viewing the URLs of your Google ads by
visiting https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=9876.

Thanks again for your email. We look forward to working with you in the
future.

For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help
Center (http://www.google.com/adsense_help), our complete resource center
for all AdSense topics. Alternatively, feel free to post your question on
the forum just for AdSense publishers: the AdSense Help Group
(http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help).

Sincerely,

Max
The Google AdSense Team

Obviously, if you don’t install the tools Google recommends to handle situations like this in the future, repeated “I’m sorry” emails will eventually fall on deaf ears. But for those of us who are honest publishers that made an isolated mistake, The Mighty G is a forgiving beast.