AdWords Help members are a straightforward bunch, and have been known to ask some rather blunt questions. Today, we'd like to briefly answer one such question, quoted verbatim below, though excerpted from a longer message:
So, here's my question...Has anybody heard of Google artificially inflating hits by having someone in their office click on their AdWords client links to improve the click through (and make themselves money)?
The AdWords team does in fact click on AdWords ads, for a variety of reasons, but primarily during the ad review process in which we check that the Destination URL is functional, that the back button works, etc. However, Google does not charge advertisers for these clicks.
To go into a little more detail: any and all clicks and/or impressions that originate from the Google team are automatically filtered out of advertiser accounts, and do not become a part of an account's statistics (or reports of those statistics). This means that neither impressions nor clicks made by Google folks will impact an advertiser's clickthrough rate (CTR) and, as mentioned, advertisers will never be charged for any clicks made by our team.
We hope this information will set a few minds at ease and, perhaps, inspire you to visit AdWords Help (on Google Groups) every so often. You're likely to find it both interesting and informative.
Posted by Blake, Inside AdWords crew
