Huge invalid traffic posted to my AdMob account in last two days

Hi All,

I have an Android app which I use AdMob banner at the bottom of the screen. I am using the AdView from the Google Play Service library if that matters. I also have my test device ID added to the adRequest. Despite of doing that, on my AdMob account, I still see invalid traffic posted almost everyday, though the amount is not big most of the days (less then $1 typically). However the invalid traffic suddenly goes very high ($10!!) in last two days!! What goes wrong with my AdMob account? Admob itself doesn’t give any clue on why or where the invalid traffic comes from. What else I can do to prevent that or figure out what is the root cause of that huge invalid traffic? I’ve followed the rules laid out by Google.

Below is how I add my test device ID to my app for requesting ads:

    AdRequest adRequest = new AdRequest.Builder()
    .addTestDevice(AdRequest.DEVICE_ID_EMULATOR)       // Emulator
    .addTestDevice("92B413D52EFADEE67EA4C3B6F88B55C7") // My Nexus 4 test phone
    .addTestDevice("7A4A748BD64546A6581DBF1899498C4B") // My Nexus 5 test phone
    .addTestDevice("67A298B52A0CAF81CC1CD5D3DC2E80AE") // My Nexus 7 test phone
    .addTestDevice("46847501FDA395DFEA7A96D33086D083") // My S5 test phone
    .build();

    adView.loadAd(adRequest);

Thanks in advance for your help.

And I thought I was the only one :smiley: Every month I have very low invalid traffic comparing to revenue, but like you in last two days my daily invalid traffic is bigger than total invalid traffic of previous month. I have only two explanations: maybe AdMob improved invalid traffic detection or like any Google project they f*cked up something. This is completely on AdMob side because in last days I haven’t used my apps nor I have made any tests.

You’re not the only one, i usually get between 0.5$ - 1.5$ invalid traffic, something weird happened this past three months, look here:

I have them too… $1-2… don’t worry about them.

I hate google

I got the huge increase in invalid clicks too. Two months ago, it’s only $0.5, last month jumped to $4. Suddenly, it’s $19 yesterday. My guess is Google just employed a new algorithm to detect invalid clicks. But, I don’t want to be worried yet since Admob just sent their payment to my bank account :slight_smile:

Thanks everybody for replying. It does sound Google is behind this abnormal invalid traffic. Hopefully that doesn’t affect our accounts.

same with me, used to get 0.2-0.3 euro every month, during 21-23rd of June it increased to 3.25 euro (4.5$). Actually it came after the payment was in process, so now it is written: “(€2.84) Amount owed” )) I owe them money )

Most of the time, invalid clicks are those which did not convert. It’s like affiliate works since decades.

User gets banner (cookie saved) -> user visits website, cookie confirmed. if not confirmed -> no conversion, illegal click. google does this somehow but it may follow this direction. there may be several additional checks depending on what data google has available to use.

Nothing you can do about it actually and you also cannot check it, you have to accept it :slight_smile: in the end you are server, not customer.

Seem problem here

I think its more likely to do with the massive attack on Admob a few months ago. Loads of developers were seeing clicks from an “unknown” location. Google nullified all this data as “invalid traffic” which was subsequently removed from total earnings. The attack was contained to the most part, but now this happens on a tiny scale and seems to still correspond with the “unknown” location of this traffic.

Either way, like you said, there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.