[Edited the title. Google might think that I am the one who is asking for clicks. Thanks to Benj for pointing it out]

“Bilang handog pasasalamat sa paglink sainyong blog, manyari lamang na pakiclick ng patalastas (ads) sa itaas. Walang mawawala sainyo. God Bless you.”

Ops, wait lang, I’m not telling you to click on MY ads. The message above was from a post on a seemingly new blog called PinoyRecords. What the blogger did was he linked up to over 500 blogs and asked them to click on his Adsense advertisement in return for the free link. Talk about being desperate. [Check the post here]

I give free links almost everyday here in PinoyBlogero to blogs that I think are worth linking to. I sometimes put links within posts that are related to the topic that I am talking about and I also do a weekly recap of the blogosphere every week that are full of links to other blogs and blog posts.

When I link to other blogs, I don’t ask anything in return. I don’t ask them to link back nor do I ask them to click my ads as a sign of thanks.

The case with PinoyRecords is obviously another way of fooling people so that one could earn easy money out of Adsense. Such an act falls under the activity of click fraud which is defined as:

“…a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link.” [source: Wikipedia]

Upon careful research on the Google Adsense Program Policy, we would find out that encouraging clicks on Adsense Ads is not allowed and would lead to being banned from the service.

Publishers participating in the AdSense program… may not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language.

As you can see, the blogger behind the blog has clearly violated the terms of agreement by resorting to getting easy money through Adsense. I bet the blog had already fooled a number of bloggers into clicking it especially from those newbie bloggers who are not aware that such an activity is not allowed.

This is a call to all bloggers out there that click frauds are unfair and must not be used to earn money the quick and easy way. It is unfair on the part of other bloggers who are trying to earn money legally through Adsense, especially on the part of the advertisers who are spending a lot of money just to promote their products.

Be vigilant and help stop click fraud! Happy blogging!

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