I just received an email from Google, quote:

"It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). In the future, we may adjust your payment for any days during which invalid clicks occurred in order to properly credit advertisers for any invalid activity."

The site is only 4 months old, we average 3 clicks per day and less than $1 revenue per day. Daily visits roughly 150 to 300. I'm sorry but we NEVER click our own ads... anyone else had this problem?

Sorry to hear David, but the good news is they don't seem to be banning your account. We all get invalid clicks and I think Google catches most of them right away and before we see them.

What might have happened is that you had some clicks they discovered as invalid after you were able to see them and Google is just letting you know that they may be adjusting things.

I don't think this is implying you clicked on the ads, but that the ads were invalid in some way. For example if someone clicks an ad, clicks their back button right away, and then clicks the same ad again the second click is really invalid.

As long as you're still seeing the ads on your site I think you're ok, but you may see less clicks and revenue in your account.

Thanks VanGogh - I replied politely asking for more data on what is happening so we can address it. Looks like my reply to google was not necessary...always appreciate your posts.

Glad to help. I've actually found the AdSense team to be helpful when I've emailed them. They usually answer in a day or two and while they can't say a lot and it's not always what you want to hear they do answer.

I can't say for certain what the email you got was all about. What I said above is just an educated guess, but when they ban you they ban you so I don't think that's the issue. I certainly hope not since it doesn't sound like you were doing anything wrong.

Originally Posted by seolman

I'm sorry but we NEVER click our own ads.

They aren't saying you do. Invalid clicks are clicks that happen as a result of you breaking the terms. It could be because you have more than 3 ad-blocks on a page, Make the ads look like they are part of your sites navigation, have images to close to the ads or any number of things.

But like Steve said, They aren't banning you by the looks of it, They are just giving you a heads up that you may be doing something that they don't approve of.

Originally Posted by stOx

They aren't saying you do. Invalid clicks are clicks that happen as a result of you breaking the terms. It could be because you have more than 3 ad-blocks on a page, Make the ads look like they are part of your sites navigation, have images to close to the ads or any number of things.

But like Steve said, They aren't banning you by the looks of it, They are just giving you a heads up that you may be doing something that they don't approve of.

Thanks for the insight. I've actually shrunk down the google ad content from 3 items to 2 (text links and search function - dumped an image ad). Links are definitely not disguised as site links - just similar colors to the content (as recommended by google). No images close to links...we should be good to go.

I appreciate everyone's input on ths issue. I'm planning thsi site to become a 'bread and butter' product (or a rice and beans product since we are in Costa Rica), and I don't want any glitches in our relationship with google...

I doesn't sound like you have any glitches with them. Did you ever hear back from the AdSense team? I've emailed them a handful of times and always gotten a reply in a couple of days.