This popped into my head a few days ago while I was out jogging. If one of your competitors wanted to spite you would it be possible for them to click abuse your adsense placements and have them removed by Google? Not that I'm worried about this ever happening, it's just one of those quirky questions that I wouldn't mind having answered if anyone has the knowledge to do so. Thanks!

Yes it is, I've read about it happening before I think.

It's possible and has happened. It's certainly not fair to the AdSense publisher and hopefully in time Google will be able to determine who is repsonsible for the fraudulent clicks. I'm not sure how, but hoping they can find a way.

Google must be able to findout that, I am not sure if the publisher will be held responseible for that. I remeber reading in webmasterworld about an ex gf getting one guy banned by clicking on the ads 1000s of times. he was able to findout from her IP, and complained to google, but of no use.

Originally Posted by alemcherry

Google must be able to findout that, I am not sure if the publisher will be held responseible for that. I remeber reading in webmasterworld about an ex gf getting one guy banned by clicking on the ads 1000s of times. he was able to findout from her IP, and complained to google, but of no use.

Never mix broken hearts with adsense!

I have seen forums where people claim that the offense to their adsense accounts from many many clicks from unique ip's were caused by malicious competition.

However I actually think that the majority of these claims were probably made by people who were infact guilty of the offence themselves.

I think that Google understands that this is a possibility and that if it happened you would be able to work through it with them.

I agree. I've probably seen the same forum threads. Often the person starts out insisting they've done nothing wrong and in truth they may not have been clicking the ads from their own computer, but when you question them a little they were clicking the ads from a different computer or having friends and family click the ads.

It can happen that someone does cause you to get banned, but I think for most cases it's been someone trying to outwit Google on their own sites.

It would be nice though given the possibility if Google were to just discount the clicks and refrain from banning the publisher unless there are mutliple cases of click fraud over longer periods of time.

It normally does not happen because google does not validate a click on the same ads from the same machine/ip for certain amount of time. [Dont charge on me but I have read it on some adsense FAQ but could not find that as of now.] Even on the google sponsored results the same thing apply.