Other sites are using my ad code. What should I do?

Hello AdSense Publishers, if you are seeing sites on your performance reports or under your sites list that don’t belong to you, this post is for you!

First off, you are not under attack. Although you may feel some alarm seeing another site show up in your account, there's nothing to worry about. The most common scenario is another site has copied your site code and pasted it onto their site, also copying the ad code in the process. Since your publisher id is still in the ad code, the new site will now appear in your account.

To combat this you’ll want to make two quick changes to your account.


  1. Verify which sites in your account are yours.


    • Sign in to your AdSense account.
    • Click Settings in the sidebar. 
    • In the dropdown, select My sites.
    • In your site list, locate the site you want to verify and click the Down arrow

Down Arrow
    • Next to "Verified site", turn the switch on
 
2. Once verified, enable site authorization. Site authorization is an optional feature that lets you identify your verified sites as the only sites that are permitted to use your Google ad code. 

    • Click Settings in the sidebar.
    • In the dropdown, select My sites.
    • On the "Manage sites" page, click More 
More
    • Click Site authorization.
    • Next to "Only authorize my verified sites to use my ad code", turn the switch on 
On
    • Click Save. Your changes should take effect within 48 hours.

Once your sites are verified and site authorization is turned on, ads will still show on the unverified site(s), and impressions and clicks will be recorded. However, advertisers will not be charged, and you won't receive any earnings for that site. Any policy violations that occur on these sites also won’t count against you. 

The URLs will still show up in your list of sites so you are aware of who else is using your ad code. The sites may also still show in your performance report in order to keep a definitive record of activity. If you are seeing the sites in your reports but don’t want to, consider setting your report type to “Verified Sites” to ensure you are only seeing data related to your verified sites. More on managing your sites here.

Post by Brandon Canniff, AdSense Support Specialist

Source: Inside AdSense