Tag Archives: Help Centre

Tips on how you can prevent invalid activity on your apps

Invalid activity is an important topic we'd like to discuss in today's post.

Invalid activity consists of any clicks or impressions that may artificially inflate an advertiser's costs or a publisher's earnings. Invalid activity covers intentionally fraudulent traffic as well as accidental clicks.

Publishers can take many preventative steps to prevent invalid activity on their accounts. If we find invalid activity in your app(s), you may be at risk for account suspension or disablement. We may also refund revenue generated from invalid clicks to affected advertisers.

Publishers must not artificially inflate the impressions or clicks the ads receive, either through automated or manual means. Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest.

We understand that a third party may generate invalid activity on your ads without your knowledge or permission. However, ultimately, it is your responsibility as the publisher to ensure that the activity on your ads is valid.

Here are some tips on how you can prevent invalid activity on your ads:

  • Don't click on your own ads. This includes manually clicking on your live ads and employing automated means, including but not limited to robots or other deceptive software. Testing your live ads by clicking on them is not allowed. Please use test ads (available for Android, iOS, or Windows Phone) to avoid generating invalid impressions and clicks.
  • Don't encourage or ask your friends, family, co-workers, etc. to click on your ads.
  • Don't encourage or ask general users to click on your ads. This includes asking for users to support your app, offering rewards to users for clicking ads, and promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior.
  • Make sure your ad implementations don't encourage accidental clicks. User flow is very important to consider when implementing your ads. For instance, interstitial ads unexpectedly surprising the user, and close proximity of banner ads to other elements within an app, are some of the biggest causes of accidental clicks. Check out our AdMob implementation guidance for more information.
  • Avoid partnering with untrusted / low-quality parties. Some publishers have had issues with invalid activity when partnering with low-quality ad networks or app promotion sites in efforts to increase traffic to their app, which may increase the likelihood of ads being viewed or clicked. Again, it is ultimately the publisher's responsibility to ensure that the activity on their ads is valid. To help determine the source of your visitors, we recommend using Google Analytics for AdMob. For more information please visit our AdMob Help Center.
Posted by Danielle Chang
AdMob Policy Team

Source: Inside AdMob


Updated Guidance on Implementing AdMob Interstitial Ads

We’ve recently made some updates to our AdMob Help Center to help provide further guidance on implementing interstitial ads. These best practices, along with examples of what you should and shouldn’t do, are designed to help developers implement interstitial ads.

Mobile devices have limited screen size, which means that careful planning for your ad placement is especially important. Improper implementation can lead to accidental clicks, and our goal is to build a strong ecosystem that benefits users, advertisers and developers in the long term.

Our goal is to provide examples which help developers create positive user experiences.  Users should not be overwhelmed with interstitial ads. Repeated interstitial ads often lead to poor user experiences and accidental clicks.

Additionally, users should not be surprised by interstitial ads. Placing interstitial ads so that they suddenly appear when a user is focused on a task at hand (e.g., playing a game, filling out a form, reading content) may lead to accidental clicks and often creates a frustrating user experience.

Finally, ads should not be placed in a way that prevents viewing the app’s core content, nor in a way that interferes with navigating or interacting with the app’s core content and functionality.

More examples and details, along with additional visual examples of best practices can be found on the AdMob Help Center. Here you will find disallowed implementations and recommendations on how to fix interstitial implementations, as well as general interstitial ad guidance.

Subscribe to app development insights from AdMob by Google here.

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Posted by John Brown
Head of Publisher Policy Communications

Source: Inside AdMob


Find answers fast with the new AdMob Help Widget

To make it easier for you to access help while you're using AdMob, we've added a new, built-in Help Widget. The Help Widget lets you easily search and read help center articles directly from within AdMob.
To use the widget, click the “Question Mark” icon .
A pop-up will appear displaying help center content related to your current location in AdMob. You can also use the widget to search for other articles. Click any article you’re interested in, and it will still be shown inside the widget, all without leaving AdMob! Once you find your answer, you can leave the widget open on the side to easily follow the steps listed in the article. If you’re done using the widget, you can close it by clicking the “X” in the corner.
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If you've been to the help center recently, you may have noticed a little box at the bottom of some of the pages. We've listened to your feedback and added a little human touch. In that box, you’ll find a picture of the “androidified” author of the article so you can get to know more about the people who worked on creating this content.Screen Shot 2015-09-22 at 5.33.25 PM.png
Next time you’re reading a help center article, don’t forget to scroll down to take a look at the author and maybe give them any feedback you might have. They'll be able to use your feedback to keep improving the article's content.



Omar Kassem
AdMob Support Specialist


Source: Inside AdMob


AdMob Banner Ad Implementation Guidance

We’ve recently made some updates to our AdMob Help Center to help provide further guidance on implementing banner ads. These best practices, along with examples of what you should and shouldn’t do, are designed to help developers implement banner ads.

Mobile devices have limited screen size, which means that careful planning for your ad placement is especially important. Improper implementation can lead to accidental clicks, and our goal is to build a strong ecosystem that benefits users, advertisers and developers in the long term. 

Close proximity of banner ads to other elements within an app is one of the biggest causes of accidental clicks. To avoid accidental clicks, banner ads should not be placed next to interactive navigational buttons, such as a “next” button or on a game play screen where users are continuously interacting with the app.

For example, separating the banner ad from app interactive elements helps reduce user confusion and the likelihood of accidental clicks. Poor ad implementations often cause high levels of invalid activity due to the proximity of the ad to app clickable elements:


Do This
Don’t Do This
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More examples and details, along with additional visual examples of best practices can be found on the AdMob help center.
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Posted by John Brown
Head of Publisher Policy Communications

Source: Inside AdMob