Shoshana

I have adsense for content on my site. I just started the site. Is it a
risk to go to my site often to see if all is working? I am not an
adword advertiser...when I am on my own site, may I click on the ads
appearing on the adsense banners, or use the google search without
risk? What about advising friends to use the google search on my site?
Seems like a lot of people are pretty edgy about being banned and not
knowing why. I just signed up Monday and don't want to get banned.

Shoshana

leicart wrote:
> I have adsense for content on my site. I just started the site. Is it a
> risk to go to my site often to see if all is working?


leicart: I do not beleive there is anything in the adsense guidelines
and program policies that prohibit you from going to your site as often
as you want. My main site is also my home page in my browser for
example.
> when I am on my own site, may I click on the ads
> appearing on the adsense banners, or use the google search without
> risk?


NO, emphatically no. "Please note that clicking on your own ads for any
reason is prohibited, to avoid potential inflation of advertiser
costs."
This is taken directly from the program policies of adsense. Commons
sense should tell you anyways that clicking on your own ads would
artificially inflate your adsense. Adsense isnt there for people to
click through. Its there for relevancy in conjuction with the site
content that if someone is not finding what they want from your site
maybe they will go to one of the other ones projected in the adsense
and you make a nickel for their doing so. Theoretically speaking
anyways.
What about advising friends to use the google search on my site?

> Seems like a lot of people are pretty edgy about being banned and not
> knowing why. I just signed up Monday and don't want to get banned.


"Web pages may not include incentives of any kind for users to click on
ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit
the advertisers' sites as well as drawing any undue attention to the
ads. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as "click
here," "support us," "visit these links," or other similar language
that could apply to any ad, regardless of content."
Again, taken from google policies directly.

Please note, I am only answering to try and help you I do not work for
google I am a publisher and manage about 180 websites. As far as
advising your friends well that would depend I suppose how you advise
them. Personally I wouldnt suggest it. Because your friends would try
to help you and for example make you their home page and click google
ads every day when they are on the internet. google would track that
the clicks are coming from the same place over and over again and would
probably think you are inflating the clicks through other terminals
like a machine might do. Google knows that most people come to a web
site for this reason or that and that only a small percentage of them
use the google ad as a point of departure and are likely to not return
again and use the google ad as a point of departure a second, third,
fourth time etc. unless they are simply inflating ad clicks.

As far as people getting edgy well in my humble opinion if you are
operating a legitimate website that is truly content driven and you are
not lying to yourself or google or anyone else then, what do you have
to worry about?

Hope this helps..

Shoshana

I've been a successful publisher for over 4 years now. I can offer this
to you; make sure and really read the terms and conditions for Google.
Just follow the rules and you;ll be ok. Don't click on your own ads -
but if you want to see the ads and where they are going download the
Google adsense preview tool here:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=10005&ctx...

Don't tell family members and friends to click on the ads.

Provide really good content and keep adding more every month so your
visitors are coming back to new and engaging things.

You can go to your site all you want. All web developers do! Just don't
click the google ads.

Don't rely 100% on Google income to succeed. Diversify and grow
thinking in a business frame of mind.

Use the Help center for adsense to answer all your questions and learn
all you can about optimization.https://www.google.com/support/adsense

Shoshana

leicart, I think it applies to all ads displayed on your site. You're
not supposed to click them.
But here's one way to see where the ads go:
1. Right click on the add
2. Select "Copy shortcut"
3. Paste the shortcut in your browser address bar (but DO NOT HIT ENTER
YET)
4. Edit the url in your address bar & remove the last bit of code.
It'll look something like:

&client=ca-pub-1234567890123456&nm=13

^ just delete that whole string.
5. Hit enter, and voila there's the ad

Good luck!