Invalid AdSense activity

How you can help to prevent invalid activity

As you may know, AdSense publishers are ultimately responsible for the traffic on their ads. For this reason, it’s critical that you diligently monitor your ad traffic to ensure that your account is compliant with our policies and not accruing invalid activity. If you see something suspicious after following the tips below, you’re welcome to notify us.

We encourage you to review the information in our beginner’s guide to AdSense policies, as well as our full program policies and Terms and Conditions. In addition to that, here are some tips to help you prevent invalid activity on your ads:

  • Understand your ad traffic and site visitors
    Break down your traffic reports into meaningful segments using URL channels, custom channels, or even DFP ad units. This will help you gauge how changes to traffic sources or implementation can affect your ad traffic. Next, use Google Analytics to get detailed information about your site visitors, and be on the lookout for any suspicious user behavior. (Where do my users come from, either geographically or on the Web? Which pages do they view on my site?). Learn more about how you can understand your traffic.
  • Avoid partnering with untrusted / low-quality parties.
    Some publishers have had issues with invalid activity when partnering with low-quality ad networks, search engines, or directory sites in efforts to increase traffic to their site. Learn more about traffic.
  • Don’t click on your own ads, even if you think it’s okay to do so.
    Even if you’re interested in an ad or looking for its destination URL, clicking on your own ads is still prohibited. Instead, please use the AdSense publisher toolbar. Please keep in mind that even when we filter clicks on your own ads, we don’t ignore those clicks completely; if it appears to us that a publisher has been clicking on his own ads to inflate his earnings or an advertiser’s costs, we may disable the account to protect our advertisers.
  • Double- and triple-check your implementation.
    Some publishers use custom implementations that may have unintended consequences on their ad requests. Make sure your ad implementation has no programming errors, make sure it conforms to AdSense policies, and test interaction with the ads in different browsers and platforms to ensure that all users will interact with them as you expect.
  • Use the authorized sites feature to prevent unauthorized use of your ad code.
    Our authorized sites feature ensures that your account will only accrue stats for your ads that appear on sites that you’ve specified. That said, make sure that you’ve added your sites correctly, otherwise our system may filter traffic that you’d prefer to retain.
  • Consult the AdSense Help Forum.
    If you have a question, it’s likely that another publisher has encountered the same issue, so join in a discussion to learn more, or start your own. Let others know if you’ve encountered a third party or situation that tends to generate invalid activity.

How Google prevents invalid activity

Our specialists carefully monitor clicks and impressions on Google ads in order to protect your interests as well as those of our advertisers. To do this, we use both automated systems and human reviews, analyzing all ad clicks and impressions for any invalid click activity that may artificially drive up an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings.

Google’s proprietary technology analyzes clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that may artificially drive up an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. Our system uses sophisticated filters to distinguish between activity generated through normal use by users and activity that may pose a risk to our advertisers. Some examples of this activity include clicks or impressions generated by unethical users, automated robots and traffic sources, and publishers encouraging clicks on their ads. Our system enables us to filter out most invalid clicks and impressions, and our advertisers are not charged for this activity.

In addition to our automated system, we have a team dedicated to detecting invalid activity using several specialized tools and a wide variety of techniques based on extensive experience tracking and monitoring user behavior and analyzing scenarios. We continually upgrade our detection mechanisms to proactively combat invalid activity.

To prevent invalid clicks in your account, ensure that your ad implementation complies with our program policies, and that you haven’t paid for traffic from an unreliable source. You can learn more about invalid activity and ad implementation by reading our beginners guide.

If you’re concerned that a third party may be generating invalid activity on your ads, please see this page for tips for preventing invalid activity in your account.

What is sabotage and how to prevent it

We understand that a third party may generate invalid activity on your ads without your knowledge or permission. This can be done in two ways:

  • Manually: the party generates the activity himself, or encourages others to do so
  • Automatically: the party uses some sort of automated process, such as a click bot

Because this kind of activity doesn’t reflect genuine user interest in the ads, we’re constantly improving our detection systems to identify these patterns and filter them as invalid. Learn more about how Google prevents invalid activity.

However, ultimately it is the publisher’s responsibility to ensure that the activity on his or her ads is valid. For this reason, we highly recommend that you review our tips for preventing invalid activity. You can also notify us of sabotage incidents.

If your account has been disabled for invalid activity and you believe it was due to sabotage, please visit our FAQ for disabled accounts for more information.

AdSense account disabled for invalid activity

We understand that you have questions about your account and the actions we’ve taken to protect our advertisers. Below are some of our most frequently asked questions.

If you have any additional questions regarding invalid click activity, please visit our Help Center article on invalid clicks and impressions.


Why was my account disabled? Can you tell me more about the invalid click activity you detected?

Because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any information about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that might have been involved.

Google treats invalid click activity very seriously, analyzing all clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that might artificially drive up an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. If we determine that an AdSense account might pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable that account to protect our advertisers’ interests.

To learn more about the most common reasons that accounts are disabled, see our top reasons for account closure.

Lastly, as outlined in our Terms and Conditions, Google will use its sole discretion when determining instances of invalid click activity.

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Can my account be reinstated after being disabled for invalid click activity?

We’re always willing to work with you to resolve any issues you might have. If you feel that this decision was made in error, and if you can maintain in good faith that the invalid activity was not due to the actions or negligence of you or those for whom you are responsible, you may appeal the disabling of your account.

To do so, please contact us only through our appeal form.

Once we receive your appeal, we’ll do our best to inform you quickly and will proceed with appropriate action as necessary. Please understand, however, that there is no guarantee that your account will be reinstated.

Once we’ve reached a decision on your appeal, further appeals may not be considered, and you might not receive any further communication from us.

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My account was disabled and my appeal was denied. Is there any way I can rejoin the program? Can I open a new account?

We understand your concern about the actions taken against your account. Our actions are the result of careful investigation by our team of dedicated specialists, taking into account the interests of our advertisers, publishers, and users. Though you might be disappointed with our decision, we are unable to reinstate your account.

Please also note that publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed any further participation in AdSense. For this reason, these publishers may not open new accounts.

Lastly, Google does reserve the right to disable an account for any reason, including invalid click activity from any source.

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My account was disabled for being related to another disabled account. Can you tell me more about this relation?

Just as with invalid click activity, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any information about relations we find between publishers’ accounts. Please understand that we take this precaution with all of our publishers for the sake of protecting our proprietary detection system.

Google reserves the right to disable an account for any reason. If we determine that an AdSense account might pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable that account in order to protect our advertisers’ interests.

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Will I still be paid out for my AdSense earnings?

According to our AdSense Terms and Conditions, publishers disabled for invalid click activity may not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.

Please also note that we place stop payments on any outstanding checks for accounts that have been disabled for invalid click activity. We ask that you refrain from depositing any checks you may receive in the future, as your bank may charge fees for depositing a stopped check.

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I’ve just received my PIN. What should I do with it?

You may disregard the PIN mailing you’ve recently received, since publishers disabled for invalid click activity do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.

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I want to let another AdSense publisher place their ads on my site. Will this create a problem for their account? Is my site disabled as well?

As you know, AdSense publishers are allowed to place their ads on any site that complies with our program policies andTerms and Conditions. Please note that a publisher’s account status may be separate from a specific website’s compliance with our policies.

However, if we determine that the other publisher’s account may pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable it in order to protect our advertisers’ interests.

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If someone related to me creates an AdSense account, will their account be disabled as well?

If we determine that a related publisher’s account might pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable it in order to protect our advertisers’ interests.

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Will I still receive tax forms for the payments I’ve received?

If you’ve received a payment from us in the past, you will still receive a tax form from us if necessary. To find out if you should be expecting a form 1099 or 1042-S, please visit our Help Center article on IRS forms.

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My account was reinstated. Why aren’t ads showing up on my sites, apps, or videos?

After your AdSense account has been reinstated, it may take up to 48 hours for all of our servers to be informed of the change and ad serving to resume. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience.

If you’re a YouTube publisher, you might need to re-associate your YouTube account with your AdSense account.

For more information on Multi Channel Network’s and YouTube how to videos please check back weekly or subscribe here.

Suite of Free Tools

$0.45 USD - $4.00 USD

Note: The accepted formula that Auxiliary Mode Inc. uses to calculate the CPM range is $0.45 USD - $25.00 USD.

The range fluctuates this much because many factors come into play when calculating a CPM. Quality of traffic, source country, niche type of video, price of specific ads, adblock, the actual click rate, watch time and etc.

Cost per thousand (CPM) is a marketing term used to denote the price of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one webpage. If a website publisher charges $2.00CPM, that means an advertiser must pay $2.00 for every 1,000 impressions of its ad. The "M" in CPM represents the Roman numeral for 1,000.

$0.00 - $0.00

Estimated daily earnings

$0.00 - $0.00

Estimated monthly earnings

$0.00 - $0.00

Estimated yearly projection

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