Any way to stop someone fraudulently clicking my ads?

1. 89

   Paul Maplesdenposted 3 years ago

   Hi there,
   
   Over the past week, my hubpages domain - paulmaplesden.hubpages.com has had some very unusual clicking behavior. At the time, I was opted out of the HP Ad program, running my own AdSense ads against my hubs.
   
   I have noticed on four separate occasions that a person or people are coming to my hubs and repeatedly spam clicking on ads. This has resulted in some very high (clearly fraudulent) CTRs in my AdSense reports, although in all cases Google either detected and removed the clicks or I reported the behavior to Google.
   
   Clearly this is not good, either for me (because I want my AdSense account to remain in good standing) or the advertisers. However, I currently have no way of identifying who is doing this or why.
   
   Is there anything that can be done by me, Hubpages or Google to eliminate this fraudulent clicking behavior as I am very keen to remain in the good graces of Google AdSense.
   
   Any information gratefully received.
   
   Paul.

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   1. 78

      Writer Foxposted 3 years ago in reply to this

      Other Hubbers who only use AdSense have reported many disavowed clicks recently.  Apparently these are mostly from third-world countries. 
      
      You can find more information here:
      https://productforums.google.com/forum/ … spell:true

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   2. 93

      Glenn Stokposted 3 years ago in reply to this

      Paul, You need to report this to Google so that your account remains in good standing. As long as you report it, you'll be okay. I read that somewhere in their rules a while back.  Give them as much information as you can on the clicks - the time period, the location of the visitor (if known), etc.

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   3. 82

      Marina Lazarevicposted 3 years ago in reply to this

      Paul, we have been noticing strange click behavior across a bunch of subdomains beginning in early January and we spoke with someone at Google about it. They said that fraud of this type is more common on larger sites and that the cause could be related to click bots or fake traffic rings that can take them (AdSense) longer to detect because they have to watch traffic patterns over longer periods of time. When they do detect fraud, they deduct earnings that resulted from that activity from your earnings balance.
      
      We were also told that if we like, we can report sabotage / invalid AdSense activity using this form: https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/1348739?hl=en
      
      Hope this helps!

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   4. 91

      Susana Sposted 3 years ago in reply to this

      When I was click bombed I reported it to google just to cover my own back. Many people have lost their accounts when they haven't reported it so not worth the risk IMO. Not sure where the report button or url is though. It was such a long time ago that I've forgotten how I reported it.
      
      EDIT: here it is https://support.google.com/adsense/trou … 0500?hl=en

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2. 0

   Beth37posted 3 years ago

   Clicking/anonymous.com
   Sounds like someone has an addiction issue.

   replyreport
3. 88

   IzzyMposted 3 years ago

   Google have been doing this to me for the longest time (discounting clicks). There is no need to report it because Google have it in hand already.
   They seem to be discounting all clicks from Asia. Funnily enough, only on Hubpages.

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4. 89

   Paul Maplesdenposted 3 years ago

   I've reported it to Google (three times now) and also removed HP from the list of sites authorized to show my adsense ads, so hopefully this will get resolved soon.

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   1. 86

      viryaboposted 3 years ago in reply to this

      Once you remove it from the list of authorized sites, you are okay with Google. They know you are concerned enough to turn off your ads, so you are fine. It happened to me; a series of click-bombing. I turned off my adds for a couple of weeks, and after i turned them back on, the bomber had moved on! I did report all i was doing to sort it out to Google here at  - https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/ … ks_contact
      Hope this helps.

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5. 89

   Paul Maplesdenposted 3 years ago

   That's great, thanks for the replies and advice everyone; I'll leave the ads turned off for a little while in the hopes this gets  sorted out.

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