Auto-refresh Adsense Ads?

[iref001]

I am trying to find more information regarding the autofresh policy.

Accidentally, my developer put a 5 second refresh tag on all my website banners (instead of the required 3 minutes auto-fresh on my Tribal Fusion banner network) and got all the ads to refresh every 5 seconds.

This went on for the whole night (9 hours) and next morning I discovered that my earning had doubled and pageviews were 10 times more. I was expecting some policy violation notification but didn't get any.

I have a long standing account with Adsense (since 2004) and been pretty consistent with revenue generation.

Are publishers using auto-refresh at all?

[netmeg]

I sure wouldn't.

[AdTrafficQuality]

Please see the AdSense policies here under "Invalid clicks and impressions"

[support.google.com...]

Auto-refreshing can be classified as inflating impressions, so please don't do it.

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John
AdTrafficQuality @ Google

[netmeg]

There you go - straight from the horse's mouth.

[iref001]

How do I check if one of the ads still has a refresh tag? My developer says he has removed refresh from all adsense banners but I still see 25% more page views and lesser CTR.

[netmeg]

Well there is no way other than to look at the code, or sit there and watch to see if the ad refreshes. That one's on you.

[AdTrafficQuality]

An easy way to check is, as netmeg mentioned, to see if it refreshes by observing the page behavior. If you have Chrome or Firefox, you can open the site in developer mode and watch the HTTP requests to fetch static content (html, images, css) and also ad code.

The other way is to check your html tags and Javascript source to see if there is any refresh logic present.

Hope that helps.

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John
AdTrafficQuality @ Google

[iref001]

Thanks John. I just double checked with the developer and he has confirmed that there are no refresh tags on Adsense. However, when I checked my adsense stats, it continues to show high pageviews but CTR's have dropped by 50%. There are no other variables that were changed other than the refresh accidently added on Adsense (It was meant to be added only on Tribal Fusion)

[AdTrafficQuality]

I'm not sure about the specifics of your site setup, but if content is somehow cached for some users, it might be serving the old content (and old code). I would check back after a few days to see if the pageviews return to their normal levels. This might not be the exact reason, but a possibility.

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John
AdTrafficQuality @ Google

[iref001]

Thanks John. Will monitor and get back in 2-3 days. I

[iref001]

My site's revenue hasn't picked up and continues to fall. 30% less on an average that what it was before I added the refresh tags by mistake. Later, I also realized that the developer had changed the tags to Async mode and got him to switch back to Sync mode. Even then, my revenues have not picked up or gone back to the same pre refresh tag date.

We have had same kind of traffic since weeks and revenue were pretty consistent but they have taken a dip ever since..

Sync mode vs Async mode

1-19th March - Consistent Revenues
20th March - Refresh added by mistake on Adsense and revenue jumps by 100%
21st March - Refresh is removed from adsense but still Async mode - Adsense Revenue continues to fall
1st April - Refresh is removed from Tribal Fusion Adnetwork as well and tags changed to Sync mode for Adsense.

I am wondering if there is any co-relelation between Snyc mode and revenues?

From 1st-5th April, revenues continued to fall but suddenly on 6th revenue seems to have gone up a little.

I have no idea if revenue would go back to the pre 19th March level... as traffic is pretty much the same but something somehwere has certainly gone wrong as my Adsense/Analytics don't show anthing unique to come to some kind of conclusion.

[Chrispcritters]

Keep in mind that it's also a new quarter and that may have an impact on your earnings. I generally see minor disruptions at the start of a new month, and then bigger disruptions at the start of of a new quarter. YMMV.