Need to stop invalid clicks that Google AdSense on your WordPress website will misinterpret? No wonder—this advertising platform is often a primary revenue source for websites, regardless of size and niche. Jeopardizing AdSense can spell financial disaster. That would force site owners to work harder to reinstate their accounts, look for advertisement alternatives, or place their ads. They may even scrap this advertising strategy. Either way, they would be at a disadvantage when these mishaps can be stopped in their tracks with some precautions and a bit of time. After a brief explanation, we’ll demonstrate how to prevent invalid AdSense clicks in WordPress.
What counts as an invalid AdSense click?
AdSense counts accidental or fraudulent clicks coming from any unusual traffic as invalid, which can be:
- Website owners clicking ads on their website
- Shady practices that trick users into clicking ads accidentally (examples in method 2)
- Bots or forms of automation to trick Google AdSense into fake clicks or traffic, set up by owners or others
- Repeated clicking on impressions or ads by one or more users (mentioned in method 3)
- Traffic coming from low-quality or untrusted websites or suspicious accounts, groups, or pages on social media
These are all things to keep an eye on or configure protection from. You can never fully block all instances of invalid clicks, especially as your website grows, but that is normal.
Is Google AdSense detecting invalid clicks?
Don’t fret—Google uses an elaborate system to detect invalid clicks and is on your side unless your actions dissuade them. As mentioned, a minor amount of invalid traffic or actions can be safely ignored. The lowest form of punishment is getting less money since the platform will simply note those down and subtract them from your earnings. This can happen on the go or at the end of the month, depending on the situation.
However, if the platform detects a massive number of double-clicks on ads, crawler or bot traffic, or malicious actions, they can penalize your AdSense account. This can also happen if someone else has a vendetta, which we’ll cover in method 3. Nonetheless, you’d still be on the hook for activities and poor account standing, making methods 1, 2, and 4 essential.
1. Use analytics to understand your WordPress site’s ad performance and traffic
Having access to detailed analytics helps you understand who is following your WordPress website. However, besides knowing what works and getting motivation from numbers going up, this data is crucial for understanding the lousy part of traffic. Employing analytics WordPress plugins and cross-referencing that information with Google AdSense lets you segment traffic and identify problems quickly. For instance, you may notice you’re getting lots of or constant traffic from a backlink on a suspicious website.
Additionally, crawlers or bots may find and follow a link to your website from another, such as Reddit, Instagram, or Facebook, and begin spamming. Finally, make sure you’re partnering with a respectable website, brand, or company. Many third parties employ click bots and create fake traffic to make up for not delivering a genuine one. To view the difference between fraudulent and organic traffic, do the following:
- Head over to Google Analytics and sign in.
- Visit Admin Settings.
- Click the Channel Settings tab on the left-hand side.
- Find the Bot Filtering option and put/remove the checkmark in the empty box in front of “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders”. Toggling this option on and off won’t block anything. However, it lets you distinguish types of traffic to help your analysis.
2. Optimize your website ad placement to stop accidental clicks
Ad positioning is a complex and time-consuming part that every website owner needs to work through. Common marketing practices that exploit human psychology or make telling colors apart tough make the situation even more difficult. That’s because many obvious ways to nudge visitors into clicking on ads are forbidden. Also, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Consequently, Google has composed an exhaustive AdSense ad placement guide for website owners. Tweak your WordPress theme, edit the coercive language, and make sure visitors can easily distinguish ads from other content.
3. Report click bombing to Google AdSense
Website owners, though responsible for their accounts, aren’t always guilty. If you’ve ever heard of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks, you know people with malicious intent can orchestrate raids at any moment. At this point, it’s clear that click bombing represents a situation when someone (say, a rival or a scorned employee) starts blasting your ads with hundreds of clicks.
They may also compel people into clicking on ads in all the wrong ways. In short, they will do anything they can to get your AdSense account suspended. The first step to combat this is to report an AdSense violation to Google after logging in. This, sadly, is not enough, hence you must employ method 4 promptly.
4. Prevent invalid AdSense clicks using a WordPress plugin
Are warnings about invalid ad clicks persistent? Are you undergoing a click bombing attack? In both cases, unless you’re knowledgeable and patient to isolate the attack and forbid access via IP using .htaccess or code snippets, we propose installing a WordPress plugin. There are several handy options, but a popular choice we are unaffiliated with is Ad Invalid Click Protector (AICP) by Saumya Majumder, Acnam Infotech. Here’s what to do:
- Install and activate a plugin you chose.
- If you’re also using AICP, select the Adsense Invalid Click Protector section that appeared in the left sidebar in the WordPress Admin.
- Go to General Settings, and you’ll see a list of crucial options:
- Ad Click Limit: The maximum number of clicks per ad. A general recommendation is to enter “2”.
- Visitor Ban Duration: If the plugin bans a malicious user, they can’t see ads for this duration, typically 5 to 7 days.
- Click Counter Cookie Expiration Time: How long before a user can click the ad again? Lots of site owners set it to 5 to 7 hours.
- Do you want to block showing ads for some specific countries? If you want to prevent invalid AdSense clicks from specific countries in WordPress, select Yes and enter corresponding country codes.
- After you’re done, click on Save Changes.
You now need to modify the code you used to add AdSense to WordPress. We will presume you used one of the AdSense plugins for WordPress or a code snippet. After you find the code, wrap it inside this code:
if( aicp_can_see_ads() ) {
<div class="aicp">
//* AdSense code here, typically starting with <script> and ending with </script>
</div>
}