Many people have asked me what forms of traffic are illegal in the eyes of google adsense. Some have said that they felt they were using totally legitimate methods to attract visitors to their pages only to receive the dreaded "adsense wrist slap email". Something like "It has come to out attention that ads on your site are being clicked by visitors using non-approved techniques…If this continues we will be forced to discontinue…etc. I think you get the message.



So what exactly are legal sources of traffic in the eyes of google adsense?

Well, google adsense says that clicks must come from genuine internet users. So isn't someone who clicks on a redirect sub-domain from bought traffic a genuine internet user. Not if the link is sending bulk traffic to your site from the same IP address. So most of the traffic you can purchase is illegal by adsense standards, but not all. Finding a supplier of good traffic can be like finding a needle in a haystack and is probably not worth the effort because the chance of it being relevant is minimal. Anyway, traffic like this will increase your page clicks but not the adsense ad clicks. And this defies the purpose!

Other forms of traffic that are contrary to adsense regulations are paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, click exchange programs or any type of software that can automatically send traffic to your site. Google uses the words "Includes but are not limited to…" when stating the above so it leaves it pretty open. These prohibitions also include but are not limited to robots, automated clicking, impression generating tools or third party services that generate clicks.

So what are the legal ways of attracting traffic to your google adsense ads without being penalized?

Well ironically, one can buy clicks from adwords which also belongs to google and they will send traffic to your site. Having said that, if this system is set up correctly it will bring targeted visitors to your adsense site and the ROI is quite justifiable.

One of the best ways to draw visitors is to focus on SEO techniques to improve your adsense site placement and ranking in the search engines. Relevant link partners are also a good source of targeted traffic. Signatures in forums, emails and on blogs which have the same subject matter as your pages.

Some people recommend safelist but I have never had any success with them. But I have had great success with solo ads as far as selling my products and getting clicks. But again you have to be sure you are getting targeted traffic for your dollars.

Testing and tracking are also vital to attracting traffic and maximizing clicks. It is crucial to know which techniques are working and which are not in order to fine tune your adsense strategies.

So yes many forms of luring visitors to your site are illegal by google adsense law but more often than not the methods are unfruitful and a waste of time anyway. Common sense should also be a guiding factor in deciding which methods to use. Remember that you should be trying to build up a rich content blog or site and that if you consider adsense as a secondary bonus it will naturally yield fruit in the end.