Urgent! Really strange Adsense Issue. Never seen it before. Help!

[groundhog88]

Hi guys,

I run a high-traffic sports website, and today, things seem to have gone haywire on the adsense side of things. For some reason, my CTR and RPM are at ridiculous levels. Currently:

* 21% CTR
* £34 RPM
* £200 earnings
* 1200 clicks

Averages are usually 1% CTR, and £1.50 RPM (!)

I noticed this surge earlier so I removed adsense ads, but despite doing that, the figures continue to rise. How is that possible if I don't have adsense ads on my site anymore?

I thought it might be clickbombing, but I checked statcounter, and the figures don't match in any way. Also, it just seems to be a steady stream of clicks, and someone would have to be constantly clicking for he last six hours, which seems unlikely.

Additionally, Google Analytics is showing no data for today (1 Feb)

I've emailed Adsense to alert them of this issue, but I'm at a loss to explain it. How can clicks/income etc keep rising if I've removed adsense ads!?

Also, I have the 'allowed sites' feature activated, so no other site could be using my code.

Could this be some kind of Adsense glitch? Anyone experienced this before?

Any help/suggestions much appreciated.

Thanks a million.

[netmeg]

Maybe it's the Super Bowl click bots activated early, since you're sports related (although I assume you're not US). There are apparently bots that register clicks that don't even show up in Analytics or StatCounter (at least that's what AdSense told me) You can email support if you're eligible, but they're usually not there over the weekend.

AdSense will *probably* recognize it and take off any invalid earnings without penalizing your account. Particularly if you've emailed them and temporarily taken the ads off.

[chrisv1963]

I think it's a glitch. The click through rate on my account is more than double of what it usually is. I've never seen this happen before.

[londrum]

I had the same thing happen on mysite. One particular channel had a CTR of 50%, totally out of the blue. Normal rate is 1 to 2%
I emailed adsense about it, to let them know, but im glad im not the only one to get it

[Peanut45]

Happening me today. I have a CTR of over 1000% for two ads.
I removed the ads and still the "clicks" are appearing at a steady rate.

Presumably it will get adjusted later?

[MrDC]

Same here. One ad unit skyrocketed over the past hour. I removed the ads and notified Adsense support but I can see already that the clicks are continuing to add up even though ads aren't there...

[Peanut45]

Reported it also, funny glitch, at least it doesn't seem like an external source of invalid clicks.

I'm just waiting for them to get back to me now and say that it's a planned earnings adjustment from 2013... lol

[MrDC]

Ha, I'm hoping for the same!

I still haven't heard anything back from Adsense. I hope they get to this today. It's freaking me out.

[londrum]

has anyone managed to get a reply from google about this? im still waiting for mine.
i know that they don't reply to all messages, but it would be nice if someone got one

[groundhog88]

I usually get a reply at some stage, so I'll let everyone know when I do.

The money is still in my account, but I have no doubt Google will take it all back at some stage.

Thankfully, this only happened on one day (!)

[LuckyLiz]

I had the same thing happen in January. It took a few days for me to get an answer from Google when I reported the strange clicks. From the home page it looks like the money is still in my account, but looking at the payments page (Ie, clicking the payments link in the new interface) shows the errant clicks are not being counted.

[extremist]

I'm having same issue today. I got, and still getting incredible amount of clicks today, (CTR %97). I removed all ads, and unauthorized my own site from adsense couple of hours ago but click count still continue to increase. I've emailed Adsense, and waiting for the response.

Any news from you ?

[MrDC]

Most likely you won't receive a response from Google. I think you have done all you can do. It should stop at some point today. I don't think there has been any further information on this. Wait it out and I'm sure our accounts will be reconciled at the end of the month. Hard to say how that will play out, I'm assuming we will lose the entire days earnings, but hopefully not.

[jvmills]

I also saw this in my account yesterday. CTR on one url channel well over 100% - traffic and impressions same as normal though.

It must be a reporting bug?

I have emailed support and also filled in the invalid clicks form. Not heard back yet. Yesterday's figures still look skewed, although today seems normal.

[Peanut45]

I heard back from them that they were still looking into it.

I wouldn't think that you need to do anything drastic with your account if you see this, assuming you're reasonably confident that it's not the result of some other suspicious click activity.

[londrum]

just wondering if anyone has received any more news.
i had another crazy day yesterday — totally nuts. my CTR for one particular page was a ridiculous 153,000%. my RPM or eCPM, or whatever it is called, is over a million (no joke!). and this page supposedly received one single visit all day

those crazy earnings i mentioned at the beginning of the month are still sitting in my account, untouched.

i thought about removing my site from the "allowed sites" list this time, but unfortunately you need to enter at least one site — and i only have the one, so i'm stuck.

fired off another email to google, hopefully they will reply this time

[extremist]

i still didn't get any response from the adsense traffic team.
and also the money is still on my account too.

[londrum]

i just got a reply from google, about the email i sent this morning (that was a pretty quick reply)

they basically just said that they've looked at it, and that there was invalid activity, but they're not allowed to tell me any more than that.
and they said my finalized earnings at the end of the month should show the correct amount. so i guess it's going to carry on showing the wrong amount everywhere else.

but it's nice to get a reply anyway, because now i can forget about it.

[bwnbwn]

I had a click yesterday register 2,347.75 Doesn't show in earnings but when I am looking at page revenue it has this amount for 1 click coming from that page.