Don’t Use Any Other Underhanded

Methods Click fraud is just one of the underhanded methods that some people use to increase their AdSense revenues. Whether you’re using click fraud or some other deceptive practice doesn’t matter though. If you’re trying to get the upper-hand on Google, you’ll probably fail. That doesn’t keep some people from recommending the wrong methods of increasing Web site traffic and therefore increasing AdSense revenues. What do these people care if you’re kicked out of the AdSense program? You getting kicked out doesn’t affect them at all. It’s much smarter to avoid anything that seems less than honest. I talk about some of the methods that you might see recommended — but that you should never try — in the list here:
*Cloaking: By putting one set of content in front of a search engine crawler and then presenting users with another set of content, cloaking deceives potential site visitors into believing they’re entering one type of site when in fact they’re entering another. Cloaking can apply to AdSense, too. If you’re using cloaking techniques, you could be baiting AdSense ads for extremely high-paying keywords, but the content on your site doesn’t relate to those keywords at all. Site visitors click into your site, but because they don’t find what they’re looking for, they often click the ads that are displayed instead. Cloaking is a bad practice that Google figures out very quickly. When they do, you pay the price for your deception — as in, kiss your membership in the AdSense program goodbye.
* Duplicate content: No one wants to see the same boring stuff all over again — just like no one wants to watch reruns on TV — which is why I’m always recommending that you use as much unique, fresh content as you can generate, rather than loading up your site with content found elsewhere. What makes duplicate content so troublesome for AdSense is that if dozens of sites all carry the same content, a limited number of relevant ads can be shown on those sites. Duplicate content can also indicate that a Web site isn’t regularly updated, meaning that it won’t have as much traffic as a site that maintains dynamic content. Google wants AdSense (and AdWords) to be successful. So, naturally, the more diverse the sites are within a topic, the more ads that can be shown. Although duplicate content probably won’t get you banned from AdSense, it certainly reduces the effectiveness of your site and value of the ads that are shown on the site. You know what that means: less revenue.
* Hidden text: This is yet another “helpful hint” you may have suggested to you in the context of improving the AdSense ads that appear on your site. Hidden text involves text that, while present on your site, is colored the same as the background so that it blends into the site and isn’t seen by site visitors — only Web crawlers can read the text. Most of the time, hidden text is used to target a specific keyword that’s unrelated to the actual content of the site. People use this tactic to draw ads for higher-paying keywords because these ads are likely to pay better than the ads that appear based on the actual content that the visitor sees. The problem here is that the ads that can be influenced by hidden text aren’t likely to be as relevant to your site visitors, which means that they’re likely to get clicked less. That means a reduction in your revenue volume, even if the payment-per-click is higher. In the end, hidden text doesn’t work because it’s usually more effective to have more clicks at a slightly lower payout than it is to have fewer clicks at a higher payout. Having relevant ads also means that your site will be more useful to your visitors, making it more likely that they’ll come back in the future and click your ads again.
* Spreading malware: Malware involves applications that are created specifically for some malicious intent. These days, most malware is created to help the process of identity theft. It’s not at all uncommon for criminals to pay Web site owners to spread malware, even though it’s not exactly a nice thing to do. If you’re distributing that malware on your Web site, Google wants no part of your activities. Besides, spreading malware is illegal, and the pay-off could be jail time. Is it really worth the risk?
* Using false tactics: Any kind of false tactics that you might employ to trick users into clicking your AdSense ads is forbidden. I know, when you’re looking at click revenues of pennies a day, a lot of different strategies look appealing — especially if they increase the amount of money that you’re making. Just remember, it’s only more profitable if it helps you to build a longterm AdSense revenue stream. If not, and if it seems even the slightest bit out of line, don’t do it. Any risk to your good standing with AdSense means that you could lose whatever revenue stream you’ve legitimately created.