jotsheet

Sound strange? It’s not. Here’s why.

1. You are not allowed to click on ads on your own site. Google takes this very seriously—they’re basically nazis about it.
2. Google provides no way for you to view AdSense ads on other sites while excluding your own. Thus, if you’re working on your website one day and viewing it quite a bit, you’ll skew your statistics, particularly if you have a small site.
3. Google likes sites with high CTR. Adding #1 and #2 together, you’ve got useless pageviews from YOU that are guaranteed no-clicks, leading to decreased CTR. That means worse ads targeted to your site.

Solution: Block AdSense ads.

Oh, and I tell you how to do it. Go ahead, call me hypocrite for running ads and blocking them. Do it!

This solves the problem nicely. It ensures you don’t accidentally click on ads and get yourself in trouble. It ensures you don’t skew your stats. And it ensures your CTR is as high as possible.

Nice job, Google. With your characteristically obtuse policies and failure to give publishers decent tools, this is the best alternative. (”Channels” is the best you can do? How about telling us what pages are generating the most revenue. Oh wait—we have to resort to a third party for that.)

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