Conditionals to block spiders from triggering Adsense

[Doug Nelson]

I currently use conditionals to keep Adsense ads from displaying on non-content pages, per their TOS. I also use them to keep ads from showing for one specific usergroup, as a perk.

What I need is a conditional to add to the same string so that SE spiders do not trigger the ads (they can't see them, but Adsense still counts them as a pageview).

Let's say half my site traffic is bots (not unlikely). If I was able to block adsense from those bots and didn't change anything else, my Adsense CTR would instantly double. And anyone familiar with Adsense knows they value CTR highly when deciding how much they pay for an ad click.

So, is this possible? I already use the XML file that identifies many spiders for vb. It's important it not interfere with guests seeing ads.