Sometimes people will click on the advertisements that are on a friend’s website so that their friend will earn a little bit of money. I highly recommend that you
don’t do this. You should almost never click on the advertisements on your friends websites. There are multiple reasons why you should not do this.
- For starters it is easy for an advertising network, like Google Adsense for instance, to detect when you are doing this. There is a Google cookie planted on your hard drive every time a page loads that has Adsense on it. That allows them to identify you to some extent. There is other information that is also recorded about you such as your IP address, your browser version and which websites you came from before arriving at your friend’s. You may have had cookies on your computer that have been tracking you for months. Those would be very good unique identifiers. Google has gotten exceptionally good at detecting unnatural clicks. They will penalize your friend if there is a lot of this going on. Your friend could even lose their Adsense account permanently.
- Clicking on someone’s advertisements for the sole purpose of getting that person paid is called click fraud. It is actually fraud. You are essentially stealing money from the advertiser and giving it to your friend when you know there is a zero chance of your click converting into a sale for that advertiser. It is like being a shoplifter. Are you a shoplifter in a regular store? How would you feel if you caught someone shoplifting in your store?
- By clicking on an advertisement on your friend’s web page with absolutely no intention of buying is a good way to lower the conversion rate on your friend. That is another identifier that places like Google can and do monitor. If your friend’s conversion rate is far below the average or typical conversion rate for that advertisement, then Google is going to be suspicious. You will draw the eyes of auditors to your friend’s web page or website. These people will watch to see what is going on. Ultimately your friend will suffer in one way shape or form.
- The only time you should click on an advertisement on your friend’s page is if the advertisement actually interests you. Just act naturally. The advertiser will be able to tell if the click was natural or not. Believe me, they can tell. People will try to get around the tracking thing by only clicking once in a while. It is true that you probably won’t get caught doing that. However, the benefits your friend will experience are only short term. She might get a couple extra dollars this month from advertising. In the long run, with lower conversions, her ads will pay less and less. So, inevitably she ends up losing on the deal.
You probably thought you were helping your friends out when you did this. Keep in mind that you aren’t helping them out in the long run. In the long run, the advertisers look for the places that are the best investment for them. Smart advertisers will actually bid against one another for those most lucrative spots. That is where the big money is made in advertising. This will never happen for your friend if people are doing click fraud on their pages.
The right way to help your friends out is to do things that will help drive the right kind of traffic to their website so that they can profit from it honestly. If you are doing that, then nobody is going to mind. Everyone benefits in that scenario.
Related posts:
Kathy,
This is a great post. The only time I have clicked on an ad was when I was genuinely interested in something I saw on a friend’s site. Yes, well meaning friends can potentially get you in trouble.
Affiliates are different, if I’m going to purchase something I normally look to see whether a buddy has what I want. That way they get a % of the purchases I’ve bought.
Some of my friends know about some of my niche sites, its things they are interested in anyway, and at times it saves me from giving them the information they can pull from the site. I had already told them not to click on the ads on the site, as well as forwarding links of what could happen if they did. I don’t want to ever be in that situation where my account is cancelled because of well meaning friends trying to game Google. Google don’t play that. (Ok now I’m thinking of In Living Color and Homey D. Clown)
Those nice sites are doing well with Google adsense and the last thing I need is to get canned for people clicking because they’re trying to help me out. If they really want to help me out, there are other ways they can assist such as site promotion.
You are very kind for seeking out friends who have affiliate links to the products you intend to buy. A lot of people will not do that. I am like you though.
I can relate. When I first explain to my friend how people make money online through Google Adsense, she offered to just go on my site and click a bunch of the ads! LOL, of course I told her not to do that. But there are some people that will do that because they do not know any better, especially those who aren’t all that techy.
If you have your friends coming to your site, you should probably explain to them to not click the ads unless they are interested seriously, just like what was mentioned.
I had to do the same thing Wayne after I started explaining to people that I made money from the clicks. I had to ask them not to do it.
Never even considered doing anything like that, I used to notice ads before I got into blogging … now I (unintentionally) block them out. Thanks for enlightening me, nonetheless.
I know. This is a problem that people don’t realize until Google starts to ask questions. There is another way around this too though. You can use software that will only show Adsense ads to people who arrive at the site from one of the search engines. The other people never even see the ads. That solves your problem for the most part and it really helps to improve your CTR (click through rate). That will make Google happy ( I would assume) and the advertisers happy.
Wow. I am learning heaps on your site Kathy. I so would not click on anything I am not interested in buying! I guess people think they are helping but as you point out it is click-fraud and the same as shoplifting. Maybe people just don’t think it through.
When I eventually get my ads up on my site for products I will review and recommend I will have to make sure my friends don’t engage in any of that. I won’t be doing Adsense so no worries there. Just my affiliate and product reviews so hopefully no problems in this area.Don’t want my blog to have lots of ads as I know I get put off sites that do and I want my visitors to stay and read my posts and hopefully learn some about the lovely lavender while they are there.
Patricia Perth Australia
Having friends click on your ads is a very common occurrence. They are just trying to do you a favor. They just don’t realize that if they overdo it, they can land you in real trouble.
It is a fine line to walk. You don’t want to ban them from clicking on something that interests them. In that case they are doing you a favor. That is a natural action. You just want to make sure that they are not clickin on ads just because they like you.
I go one step further and never tell my friend or family members what sites I own. Its too risky to me to have them click on my ads. They think they are doing you a favor but really its the opposite. I have heard of too many stories of people losing their accounts because their friends clicked their ads. Good post Kathy!
That is some great advice Dan. I also do not reveal the vast majority of my sites. I have only revealed a few. I just don’t want any visitors to the sites that aren’t going to benefit me or my advertisers.
Kathy, very well put. I would rather have less success as long as that success is real, then to have the “looks” of doing well with fake clicks.
Like you said Google will figure out what is going on so better not test them haha
Hey John,
I was hoping you might pop on by some day. Glad to see you here. I have been doing this long enough to tell who knows what the hell they are talking about and who doesn’t. You’re one of the good guys. Anyone who reads this comment should head over to John’s website to check his material out. His advice is rock solid.
I seldom click on ads of any sort and would never click on any ad that doesn’t interest me. I mentally filter them out on pages that I visit.
I just don’t see why or how the ads work.
That being said, I do use AdSense and make enough to more than pay for everything I do related to the internet, including software and, periodically, new computers. I would certainly hate to lose this income because some “friend(s)” decided to “help” me out a little bit.
I did have one friend at work who told me that he had clicked on some of the ads on my blog. I asked him not to, unless there was something he was really interested in and might buy. I wasn’t too concerned as most of the people at work really didn’t “get” this blogging thing. That was over three years ago before I retired.
It is good policy not to click on any ads unless you are honestly interested in them.
The ads work because some people will actually find interest in them. The traffic that comes to your site directly from the search engines is much more likely to find the ads interesting.