Your account has been closed by Google & Excess Invalid Traffic Deduct

Adsence Account closure and invalid traffic deductions

[mavtrevor]

On 30th of June, 2021 I got two mails from Google that my Google Adsense account has been closed reason being for invalid traffic.

[i.imgur.com...]

[i.imgur.com...]

I have been a Google adsense publisher since 2011 and I have always strived to adhere to the Google Adsense policies so as to avoid deactivation of my adsense account.

On 1st of July after finalizing the earnings for June, -$177.81 was deducted from the account due to invalid traffic as you can see from the screenshots below.

Then on the 5th of July, 2021 another -$11,640.58 was deducted for invalid traffic again which has now left my account in deficit of -$1,078.80.


Am trying to make sense of this because it doesn't seem normal and I have tried to appeal to no avail.

Anyone has an idea what's going on here?

[edited by: not2easy at 5:24 pm (utc) on Jul 7, 2021]
[edit reason] Please do not post email contents- see Charter [/edit]

[gatormark]

@SweetPotato

The problem is that I have been penalized via clawbacks and I do not use Facebook’s paid advertising. I just promote my website in groups and on my Facebook page and Google does not like that traffic.

[Dimitri]

@Dimitri "I do not believe that Adsense is penalizing publishers for their Facebook traffic. There is certainly something more complex than that."

See: [support.google.com...]
Specially:
"Publishers should not use third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf and click-exchange programs."

Facebook PPC campaigns are literally a third party service that you pay to generate impression and clicks.

I am not a native English speaker, but I don't think this remark is related to PPC, but instead speaks about incentives, when people are paid or rewarded for clicking or surfing (using a service).

[gatormark]

@Dimitri

That’s how I read it too.

[azlinda]

Wow! I have had up to 30% clawbacks at the end of the month, and I do not even use Facebook. And I have NEVER advertised with Facebook.

[SweetPotato]

@azlinda 30% clawback is still in the realm of the new "normality".
This guy had > 100% clawback. That's not normal.

[mavtrevor]

Still, I think it would be interesting to know mavtrevor's CTR, CPC, EPM.

I do not believe that Adsense is penalizing publishers for their Facebook traffic. There is certainly something more complex than that.

My CTR is just below 20% and it has been like that for years, my cpc depends on the niche my site is based on and Google solely decides what they pay me per click depending on the location of my visitors.

If i had access to this report on my adsense now, I could've shared more with you.

[mavtrevor]

Does anyone have a suggestion of how I could monetize the site again?

[NickMNS]

My CTR is just below 20% and it has been like that for years

I've seen some high CTR's but 20% is truly amazing, spurious for sure. With all due respect, I'm surprised your account wasn't banned sooner. Pumping the Facebook spend was likely the straw that broke the camel's back.

But I guess that explains how buying ads was profitable.

There are other ad networks, they likely wont pay as well as AdSense but they still can provide revenue. The most common alternative is Media.net.

[ember]

I'd be petrified if I had a CTR that high.

[Dimitri]

My CTR is just below 20% and it has been like that for years

For the records, I asked for the CTR one week ago, ... we would have saved time :-)

[gatormark]

20% CTR?

Holy Smokes!

[Lisa01]

And what's your RPM? Must be a lot since you get around 50k monthly visitors. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[NickMNS]

@Lisa01

Correct me if I'm wrong.

I calculated RPM of about 80$.

Typically the average RPM is said to be at 2$. Now RPM tends to be niche specific. But this appears to be all about CTR because based on RPM 80/2 == 40, now take the 40X mulitplier and divide the 20% CTR and you get 20/40 == 0.5% or 5 clicks per 1000 impressions which is what I would expect CTR to be, again likely niche specific.

[Lisa01]

And how is any of that normal? Why were so many of your Facebook visitors clicking on your ads?

[mavtrevor]

Cos it's a targeted ad, so the audience is already interested in the contents and ads. So it's easy to get such CTR and I can tell you i know so many people with such CTR for years and their accounts are still up and running.

[NickMNS]

Cos it's a targeted ad, so the audience is already interested in the contents and ads

What ads was the CTR for, the purchased ads on FB or the ads sold with Adsense?

[Lisa01]

Social Media traffic never worked me for me. And I'm not talking about Facebook ad traffic. I promoted my website on FB early in 2016 and 2017 and they never worked well for me. Even Pinterest traffic, for that matter. Only organic traffic worked well for me.

[Dimitri]

I can tell you i know so many people with such CTR for years and their accounts are still up and running.

But until when? The same could have been said about you , until last month. May be these "many others" will also loose their account, from one day to another.

So it's easy to get such CTR

Easy money = High risk. From my experience, there is no such thing as easy money forever.

If you earned $10k/mo since ten years, that is a more than a million dollar, once your had paid your income taxes (which I guess you did), this should still be a good amount of money you were able to save and put aside.

[yaashul]

mavtrevor,

I have a different perspective regarding your problem. What was you Cumulative layout Shift Score? Does you Ad responsive(manual) in Android Webview? Have you ever checked? Is your ad clearly marked as advertisement? Is your site responsive(Mobile Usability score in search console)? Were you using Auto Ads? Does you ads content on facebook (ads which you use on facebook to bring users on your site) any way promote users to clicks ads on your website (adsense ads).

Do you use any kind of IVT filter for traffic?

One very important question: does your Facebook traffic source is from FEED or all traffic from Facebook VIDEO (you can check this from facebook ad manager)? If it is from video feed sometime facebook app update has issues like ads appearing in video tends to open in that frame only after clicking and it doesn't add value from adsense advertiser just create a pretty high ctr for publisher.

I am always confused about more one thing about facebook. Most of the time facebook users comes from facebook mobile app. So should we show them adsense ads or admob ads?

[gatormark]

Cos it's a targeted ad, so the audience is already interested in the contents and ads. So it's easy to get such CTR

Every Facebook ad is targeted…and, it’s definitely not easy to get a CTR like than without some clandestine or nefarious methods.

[ember]

Were you using Auto Ads?

Are you suggesting that using the very tool that Adsense encourages us to use - I just got another notice about how magical auto ads are in my account - could be the cause of an Adsense account closure?

[yaashul]

No using auto ads can not cause account closure but auto ads can increase CLS. If most of your ads clicks are around border area of ads and not in almost middle of ad, it might consider a very negative thing for the account. CLS is a very good reason for this kind of behaviour.

mavtrevor, where was your facebook traffic from video feed? In-stream video or Facebook Feed?

[mavtrevor]

My Facebook ads are mostly from messenger ads and Chatbots, so visitors don't just go to my site from the ads, they interact with a chatbot on Facebook and based on their interest are directly to the appropriate posts on my site.

So, the chatbot sort of functions as a filter for people who may not really be interested in the content but interacted with the ads. As for auto ads, Google for a long time has encouraged us to use auto ads on our sites to turn around and close accounts due to auto ads is unfair to publishers.

[dolcevita]

My CTR is just below 20% and it has been like that for years

A quick search shows that in 2021 the average CTR is between 0.37% - 0.64%.

June 11, 2021 - Meanwhile, on the Display Network, the Google Ads average CTR across all industries was only 0.50%, with business & industrial having a high of 0.64%, and health with the lowest at 0.37%.

20% CTR seems to me like from a science fiction movie :). I am personally happy if I reach 0.50%, and I did not reach it as they abolished the AdLink Unit a couple months a go. Since then CTR usually varies between 0.33% - 0.43%

[NickMNS]

@dolcevita
Interesting stats, what is the source?

20% CTR seems to me like from a science fiction movie

Which is fitting because this is also seems like it is out of science fiction:

My Facebook ads are mostly from messenger ads and Chatbots...
So, the chatbot sort of functions as a filter for people who may not really be interested in the content but interacted with the ads.

[dolcevita]

Just copy/paste bold quote above in case url is not allowed. It is from instapage
[instapage.com...]

[gatormark]

Which is fitting because this is also seems like it is out of science fiction:

LOL

[SweetPotato]

"may not really be interested in the content but interacted with the ads"

Come for the ads, ignore content, click the ads, leave.

Yeah ok makes perfect sense.
I'm shocked they banned you just now.

[gatormark]

I’m curious, because this is happened many times over the years to everyone, but what would cause Adsense to take back a few dollars worth of money after they’ve already distributed it. For instance, I may see a negative balance of $1.15 appears a few days after they’ve paid me.

[SweetPotato]

Just a mini clawback. It shows negative because the earnings for that month aren't yet counted.
Wait for the month to end for the real balance and clawback.