What to do if your AdSense ads serving is limited
Once hit with limited ad serving, most publishers just wait for the limit to be lifted. Whatever a publisher does, they are going to have their ad serving limited until Google is satisfied that it has analysed enough data and is confident that there is not a problem. Frustratingly, this means that removing AdSense (to serve alternative ads for example) could mean the limit being in place longer whilst Google collects data. For this reason, we don’t recommend removing the AdSense tags.
What publishers can do is maximise their chances of the testing being done resulting in a clean bill of health for their account. Whilst it can be difficult to diagnose issues when you can’t see ads being served, you can still go through your site and account addressing issues that could lead to invalid traffic:
- Check your traffic sources : Are you confident that you do not have significant traffic that is not from humans with a genuine interest in your content? If not, then turn off of block any potentially problematic sources
- Check ad placements : Accidental clicks are a common source of invalid traffic. That that you have sufficient space between ads and other clickable elements on all common device types. Check that navigation doesn’t cover ads and that the placements aren’t going to encourage clicks (such as lining up with images or near next buttons). Consider whether the way you insert ads might be causing problem placements (this includes “Auto-ads” as well as ad insertion plugins). When in doubt, ad space.
- Check policy center : Many publishers don’t realise that invalid traffic can include ads served outside of what policy allows. AdSense policy centre can include plenty of clues to where Google has an issue with your ad serving. Work through the points flagged and fix them.
More details on these points can be found below where we discuss preventing limited ad serving.
Should I delete all my ad units and recreate them?
We have seen others sites advising that publishers delete all their AdSense ad units from account, remove code from page and recreate the units. These sites report that limited ad serving issue then fixes itself in a couple of weeks.
This isn’t a route that we are currently recommending. Where we have seen this approach used it is not clear whether the issue was cleared because of the changes or would have been cleared in the same time anyway. Although it isn’t clear that it does work, it could theoretically work by interfering with Google’s internal reporting rather than either tackling the cause or allowing Google time to gain confidence in the placement. As such it would seem inadvisable anyway, as the limited ad serving issue would seem more likely to reoccur.
Someone has offered to fix the problem. Should I let them?
We are being made increasingly aware of publishers who discuss the option openly being approached by people claiming that they can fix it for them. These people generally promise quick results without convincing explanations of how they will fix the problem. As part of the process they will usually request access to sensitive systems like the AdSense account, Ad Manager, Search Console and/or website login or payment up front.
We would always urge extreme caution when sharing this access. Many scams that target publishers start with the same requests. Our advice would be not to share such access with individuals and companies that you don’t already have an established relationship with unless they have been vetted as part of the Google Certified Publisher Program (GCPP).
How can publishers prevent ad serving from being limited?
As publishers, it is our responsibility to ensure the quality of the traffic we send to our ad partners. This not only keeps our accounts in good standing but helps ensure strong bids and good long-term revenue. In practice, that can be difficult. Publishers don’t have the same visibility on traffic quality that partners like Google do. There are steps we can take prevent traffic quality issues though:
Play fair
The vast majority of publishers are not out to trick advertisers out of money, and those that are will be unlikely to read this guide. However, it can sometimes be difficult to make changes that have a short term cost impact. Publishers will often spot (for example) an ad unit that has an unexpectedly high CTR, and be slow to implement a fix that costs them money. This inaction can be costly if advertisers start reducing bids, ad serving gets limited or in the worst case accounts get suspended.
Being mindful of providing ad inventory that delivers value for publishers is a good way to promote long term success. After all, the highest-earning publishers didn’t get there by tricking their users into accidentally clicking ads.
Seek out strange patterns
Most AdSense publishers will be familiar with the CTR of their main ad units, but when did you last look at the relative click-through rate of a unit by Geo? Or Browser, or time of day? IVT isn’t always indicated by high CTR, but unusual CTR patterns can certainly be an indicator of an issue.
Periodically checking for these patterns can be a useful way if identifying issues early and seeing off problems before they occur. However, the same techniques can be crucial if you are trying to solve an issue with ad serving being limited.
