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]

[Dimitri]

On 1st of July after finalizing the earnings for June, -$177.81

Then on the 5th of July, 2021 another -$11,640.58

How much in % does it represent ? What is/was your CTR?

Are you sure-sure you didn't use any kind of black hat methods to generate earnings? Even border lines. Being with adsense since 10 years, doesn't mean your account was compliant, ... it just meant you were not caught.

Are you sure there was no warning in the policy center?

[futureautomation]

Border lines? What is that in relation to adsense ads being displayed on a page.

[NickMNS]

Are you sure there was no warning in the policy center?

In regards to the policy center, typically for invalid clicks there are no warnings, rather the warnings come in the form of frequent and sizable clawbacks (deductions) at the end of the month.

Was last month the first time you received large deductions for invalid clicks?

[freitasm]

@futureautomation

Border lines? What is that in relation to adsense ads being displayed on a page.

I think he meant "borderline black hat".

[mavtrevor]

As you can rightly see from the analytics report on the images below, I ran mostly Facebook ads to targeted audience. My Niche is immigration and I have never used any blackhat method to promote my site.

[i.imgur.com...]

[i.imgur.com...]

You can also see from the previous six months payment that I have not had any crazy deductions for invalid traffic until last month.

[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]
[i.imgur.com...]

It doesn't make sense in any way that Google could decide to close an account for invalid traffic and deduct more than a month's earning.

[NickMNS]

Harsh! wow.

But the problem is:
"Facebook"

Now I'm not sure if this due to the ads. I must assume that you have been advertising with FB for a while. But suffice it to say that buying ads to sell ads is grey area so it may be the cause. (Note I'm not judging, just stating fact)

But others have complained about sizable clawbacks occurring and it all appeared to be related to Facebook and it appeared to be related to the "Android Webview" browser and to a lesser extent to Safari in-app browser. Both these apps allow Facebook users to access your content from within the Facebook app as opposed to from your website directly in the browser. This appears to cause issues for Adsense, this could be because the content isn't properly displayed, or because Adsense can't track the users properly. No one has been able to find a definitive reason.

There is one work around found, it was to disable It is to disable first-party cookies. Of course for you at this point, it probably wont help much. None the less here is a thread that discusses this issue. It might provide some useful information [webmasterworld.com...]

I guess the only thing you can really do is try to make reconsideration request, but I not even sure if it will be possible.

Good luck.

[ember]

Re: Facebook and Google, my personal opinion, for which I have no proof at all, is that FB has taken a chunk of Google's ad business and so in retaliation, Adsense punishes publishers for advertising with FB in hopes that they'll stop spending money with FB. Just my possibly paranoid two cents.

[engine]

Buying ads on FB to drive traffic to your adsense site is risky.

See this thread [webmasterworld.com...] and this thread [webmasterworld.com...]

The chance of reinstatement is pretty much zero.

[mavtrevor]

How best do you advice I monetize a site such as <snip> if I am to continue buying Facebook Ads as my main traffic source?

[edited by: engine at 10:03 am (utc) on Jul 8, 2021]
[edit reason] no specifcs, thanks, please see WebmasterWorld TOS [/edit]

[gatormark]

That's a huge jump in revenue in one month. Your skyrocketing revenue over one month (almost 400%) suggests a shady practice. That type of increase is certainly is a trigger to get Google's attention. Anyway, I had a 15% clawback last month. My biggest clawback ever. Not coincidentally, last month I promoted my website the most I ever have using Facebook. I did NOT purchase ads, I just posted more in FB groups and on our Facebook page. I have noticed major clawbacks before when I used FB to promote my websites. I was told by some in this group (won't mention names) that this was only a coincidence. However, I do not believe that. Adsense and Google do not like you using Facebook to promote your websites even when they are promoted honestly. That has been clear in my case. I am not using Facebook this month, so it'll be interesting to see what happens with clawbacks. I'm almost certain it'll be lower. I'll report back.

[mavtrevor]

The jump is as a result of increased promotion, I had problems with Facebook advertising that month so I couldn't promote as much as my monthly budget, so I doubled my budget the next month, there is nothing shady about this if I decided to spend more on ads.

[engine]

Did you read those posts on the links?

[gatormark]

@mavtrevor

All I’m saying is that to have an increase of that amount over one month you would have to spend $40,000 in advertising on Facebook. Concerning arbitrage, this is not a case of arbitrage on your part because Facebook advertising is considerably more expensive than any resulting revenue. Something doesn’t add up.

[edited by: gatormark at 2:09 pm (utc) on Jul 8, 2021]

[ember]

You might not think spending money on FB is shady but it seems fairly obvious that Google doesn’t like it. Unfortunately, that’s really all that matters.

[NickMNS]

You might not think spending money on FB is shady but it seems fairly obvious that Google doesn’t like it

This seems like the logical conclusion, but then you have comments likes those made by Gatormark's

Anyway, I had a 15% clawback last month. My biggest clawback ever. Not coincidentally, last month I promoted my website the most I ever have using Facebook. I did NOT purchase ads

Then you must question if this has anything to do with ad purchases or simply to do with Facebook traffic in general. From what I have seen from following this issue over many month is that the one common thread among all those impacted is always Facebook with or without ad purchases. The other common factor is "Android Webview".

@MavTrevor
Have you looked at your analytics for the month? Look at users by browser and filter for "Android Webview" my guess is that you will see some very spurious value, extremely high CTR's with very low impressions, or 0 impressions.

@gatormark
Have you tried disabling "First Party Cookies"?

[NickMNS]

To add to my point the above:
I just went through my own analytics to find examples. I get very little traffic from Facebook, less than 1% of the total. But still I am able to find spurious stats.

As an example from Facebook I had one page that 5 ad clicks, now this doesn't appear strange at first but the nature of my site is such that it is rare to see the same page viewed many times and even more rare to get ads clicked on the same page. There were a total of 19 page views of that page, all with Android Webview, all from the same city. So far everything appears suspect but not abnormal. But I keep drilling, all the page views occurred within the same minute as did all the ad clicks.

The only explanation for this is that the somehow the metrics got messed up for this one page view. Note there are no other messed up metrics like this. The only time this occurs is with "Android Webview".

My educated guess at this point is that there is a bug relating to the handling of First Party Cookies in Android-Webview.

@gatormark check your stats, I bet you'll find similar results.

[NickMNS]

One more question for @mavTrevor
Are you using AMP?

[gatormark]

@NickMNS

Then you must question if this has anything to do with ad purchases or simply to do with Facebook traffic in general.

That is what I have always suggested. It has little to do with purchased ads and everything to do with Facebook traffic. However, your Android Webview theory is a VERY interesting one and makes sense. I'll delve into this deeper.

[SweetPotato]

I'm so sorry to see this.
I'm astonished by your numbers, i wonder how much you invested in PPC for that return.

Your traffic sources are in my opinion unhealthy, i believe a healthy site should get the majority of it's traffic from organic search.
Your organic traffic is close to nothing.

Google doesn't consider Facebook traffic as quality traffic. I consider it straight it up dangerous. I would never promote my site on Facebook, I'm terrified by it.

It clearly works wonders for you and I assume others. Until it doesn't it seems.

I wish Google were more upfront with their policies.
If this is a cause for ban they should specially say it. Instead of banning and going full rain man.

Again sorry man, bans are tough.

[mavtrevor]

@NickMNS no i do not use AMP.

[CertifiedSammy]

I'm in same place as mavtrevor. I particularly promoted my site using Facebook, had another site on the account whose major source of traffic was search engine. The account was closed at the end of June. Same 30th of June.

I've been using the account since 2011 and I've tried to adhere to adsense policies in the best way I could. I wouldn't think Google was against Facebook's traffic because checking through my analytics, everything (to the best of my understanding), ticked to not being invalid traffic.

Bounce rate in the last 30 days is about 62% for the Facebook traffic. Average time on site from Facebook was 2 minutes with an average session of about 2.2 which to the best of my understanding showed people were really engaging with the content, and not just the ads which I made sure wasn't more than 3 placements on a page.

Again, everything seemed really normal. Even better than the stats on my tech blog whose primary source of traffic is search engine with no promotion whatsoever.

Just like in the case of mavtrevor, with the Adsense account being canceled by Google, usual invalid traffic deductions was made on the 1st of June in the volume of about $200+. On the 5th of Same July, another deduction was made in the outrageous sum of "almost" $28,000 from an account that had earned just about $17k in the month of June leaving the account balance in negative (-) of "almost" -11k.

How? Honestly, I do not know.

Again, everything regarding the facebook traffic checked out in Analytics as real humans to the best of my understanding. If anyone could guide me on how to actually spot invalid traffic better from analytics, that will be appreciated.

As SweetPotato rightly said, it would be nice if Google can be upfront about being against Facebook traffic. That way, we know to steer clear and prevent our account from being closed.

Now, if feels like I've lost my major source of income that's been there for me since 2011 for something I didn't think or know to be wrong because Google didn't explicitly say Social media traffic was bad for adsense :( &#128542;

[gatormark]

@CerttifiedSammy

More than invalid traffic I would be concerned about suspicious growth or increases in traffic. Especially if these are sustained over a period of time; days. Anytime you have sustained spikes in traffic 200, 300, or 400%, that is going to raise a red flag. Typically, sites grow organically and their growth is small and progresses over a period of time.

Anytime I see my traffic and or AdSense revenue increase substantially, even within one day, I get scared. I will immediately start trying to determine the “problem” because that is not normal growth.

Recently, one of my websites went from earning about $25 in Adsense revenue a day to well over $100 a day. I started to panic. I then found out that the number one player in my niche had a server crash and their site was as down for a week. I then began to relax because all of the traffic was coming organically since I am the number two guy in the niche.

[SweetPotato]

This is worrying for everyone:

I can now promote your website on Facebook India really cheap until you get banned from adsense. And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me.

This happened in the past, when Google made up Penguin punishing us for links that we had no control over.

They learned nothing!
I'm not responsible for things external to my sites!

Don't count the traffic, clawback it but don't ban! You can't know who made the Facebook campaign!

[Dimitri]

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.

After all, Google has an interest in reaching (showing ads) to Facebook users.

The issue has certainly to be searched elsewhere.

Anyone can hide the referrer when it comes from Facebook, and then Google can't know from where it came from. (will interpret it as direct hit).
(For those using Google Analytic , keep in mind that you are feeding Google with tons of information from the origin of your visitors, which can be good or bad for you ...)

@NickMNS's experiences and observations are always valuable.

[edited by: Dimitri at 5:49 pm (utc) on Jul 10, 2021]

[NickMNS]

I found this link that may be helpful, it leads to the Adsense appeal form for invalid traffic.
support.google.com/adsense/contact/appeal_form_adsense_admob

If your analytics include spurious stats from "Android Webview" as I suggested in my previous posts, you would definitely want to include those in the report.

@sweetpotato

I can now promote your website on Facebook India really cheap until you get banned from adsense. And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me.

This is not true. You can report invalid click activity when you see it. Here is a link to that form: [support.google.com...]

The problem is that as a publisher one is reluctant to report traffic that is bringing money. Just remember if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. You may benefit from a short term gain, but it will likely result in long term pain.

[gatormark]

The problem is that as a publisher one is reluctant to report traffic that is bringing money. Just remember if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. You may benefit from a short term gain, but it will likely result in long term pain.

Truer words have never been said.

[not2easy]

I can now promote your website on Facebook India really cheap until you get banned from adsense. And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me.

If you become familiar with your access logs you can see and stop any UAs that FB uses for ad campaigns and block them. So long as you are not running a campaign it is one way to prevent others from doing so. If the bots can't see the content there won't be any campaign.

I found someone using my URL for an AdWords campaign well over a decade ago and decided that since their bots are compliant, simply adding a "User-agent: Adsbot-Google" Disallow to my robots.txt file prevented that from being a concern. The FB bots may be compliant or not (I would not bet on it) but you can block by UA - just search around here a bit and you'll find how to do that.

[Dimitri]

I am not sure Facebook has different user agents, for different purposes.

[SweetPotato]

@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.