Why Google Can Catch the Most Clever AdSense Cheaters

Are you sitting down? Good. Because what I am about to tell you will shock you! Believe it or not there are people who try to cheat Google! They sign up for Google AdSense, then employ all kinds sleaze-ball techniques to get more cash out of Google.

Google pays them for every AdSence ad that gets clicked. As result, there are people who say to themselves, "Ah hah! I'll put Google ads on my Web site, click them 100,000 times a day, and I'll make a fortune! Honey, call my boss and tell him I quit!"

But these cheaters get caught time and time again. There are many web forums where cheaters cry and whine about how they were banned from Google AdSense. "Boohoo! Wahahahaha! My wife caught me cheating and now this!"

Sometimes these idiots nearly admit how they cheated: "How can Google ban me! Don't they check the IP addresses of the people clicking the ads? If they did, they would see that those addresses are not mine."

Yeah! Like there is no way a cheater can switch computers!

But then how does Google catch these cheaters? What follows is pure speculation, but so far, no one else's speculation explains how the most sophisticated cheaters get caught.

It's a no-brainer how novices get caught: they click the AdSense ads from their home computers, not realizing that Google can track cookies and IP addresses. Duh!

But more sophisticated cheaters have their friends, family, coworkers click the ads. Different people and different computers are used. How does Google know about these elaborate conspiracies to bilk it out of $$$?

Then there are the super-secret black mask techniques and paid clickers! Google even catches these cheaters.

Google is God?! Or Santa Claus? (It sees you when you're sleeping. It knows when you're awake. It knows if you've been cheating... ) Perhaps Google snuck into your house when you were asleep and installed a chip in your brain.

Some have speculated that Google must have some super secret and very sophisticated software that can hack your computer and read all your private emails. After all, wasn't that how the Climate-gate cheaters were caught?

There is, however, an easy way for Google to catch anyone who's cheating, no matter how smart or clever the cheater is.

Here's a for instance: Website A has an ad belonging to an AdWords advertiser. The ad receives ten clicks. The advertiser's website records ten visitors and two sales. Website B has the same ad. The ad receives a zillion clicks--but no sales!

Duh, I wonder how Google knows that website B is cheating? Simple. The advertiser complains, Google looks into it, then the owner of website B is banned from Google AdSense.

Now, I suppose one could argue that it was sheer bad luck that the advertiser made no sales from website B. Therefore, the owner of website B could be innocent of cheating. But anyone who has ever owned a legitimate business or has held down a job understands how irrelevant this argument is. Cheaters, by contrast, fail to see the irrelevancy. They fail to grasp the concept that they must produce something of value or they will be cut off, fired, banned!

Why should Google keep paying website B's owner when Google's advertiser gets nothing in return?

So if you visit a forum and see someone whining about being banned from Google AdSense, be sure to tell him/her it's nothing personal - it's just business.