Google Data

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

In the ads ecosystem, advertisers rely on the relevance of our ad placement and the quality of the interaction their ads receive. Publishers in turn count on advertiser participation that contributes to the success of their apps and business. Without this trust, the Google advertising network could not exist. Google treats invalid traffic very seriously, analyzing all clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that might artificially drive up an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. If we determine that an account might pose a risk to our advertisers, we may take actions against the account, such as suspending or disabling it, in order to protect our advertisers’ interests.

Before we continue, let’s clarify the difference between an account suspension and an account disablement.

If your account was suspended due to invalid traffic, ad-serving has been turned off for a fixed period (typically 30 days). While suspensions are not currently appealable, if you would like to provide additional feedback to help us improve our processes and communications, you may do so using our suspended publisher feedback form. If there are no further compliance issues with your account, it will be automatically unsuspended after the fixed period. For more information about account suspensions, please visit our AdSense Help Center (or AdMob Help Center).

If your account was disabled due to invalid traffic, your account is no longer serving ads, and you will be unable to monetize with any Google ad solutions. You’re eligible to file an invalid activity appeal, but please be aware that that filing an appeal does not guarantee reinstatement. For more information about account disablements, please visit our Help Center.

If you would like to file an invalid traffic appeal for account reinstatement, please first review the AdSense program policies and top reasons for account closure. These policies and reasons apply to all Google ad solution products, including but not limited to AdMob and YouTube.

Here are some tips that you may find useful in writing your appeal:

1. Review the top reasons for account closure. Think about if any of these reasons applied to you and your content. Did your friends click on your ads too many times? Did you purchase traffic that led to a surge of invalid activity? Can you make content and/or behavioral changes to prevent the activity from happening again?
2. Review ad implementations on your desktop site, mobile site, and/or mobile app. Think about what your typical user journey would be, and see if the ad implementations may cause users to accidentally click on your ads.
3. In the appeal form, provide the e-mail address that is associated with your disabled AdSense account. This will help locate your account and reduce delays in appeal processing time.
4. Tell us what changes you’ll make for the future. Once again, carefully consider the top reasons for account closure. What systems or behaviors have you put in place to ensure this won’t happen again? For example, tell us how you’ve adjusted your ad implementations, evaluated your traffic sources, hired testers to properly test your content, etc. We will appreciate your honesty in the appeal.

Publishers are a vital part of the online ads ecosystem, and we want to see you succeed while keeping your users happy and engaged. Everyone in the digital ecosystem benefits when publishers provide engaging content and useful resources, which in turn incentivizes advertisers to bid for space on your content. We hope that these resources can provide some guidance.

Posted by Danielle Chang of the AdSense Ad Traffic Quality Team

Research shows that “29% of smartphone users will immediately switch to another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.”

In a world where people are making split decisions about what to consume, it’s increasingly challenging but critical for publishers to figure out how to effectively engage their audiences on their sites. To help lay the foundation to a winning engagement strategy, we’ve created the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement.

This guide help you drive toward your goals for growing your site – from defining your brand voice to tips to make your site’s content easy to consume. Don’t waste another moment developing web pages that leave you with little opportunity to engage with your audience. Download the AdSense Guide to Audience Engagement here.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• How to help your audience become familiar with your brand
• Best practices to design delightful user journeys
• How to develop content that resonates with your audience
• Ways to make your content easy to consume
• Why you should share the love with other sites by referring to good sources

Posted by Jay Castro

Recently we identified “Clickjacking” (aka UI Redress) as an emerging threat to cost-per-click display ads, and we’ve rolled out new defenses to protect advertisers against this threat. Clickjacking is a type of web attack where the appearance of a website is changed so that a victim does not realize they are taking an important action, in this case clicking on one or more ads. For example, a user may intend to click on a video play button or menu item, but instead clicks an invisible ad unit.

	Figure 1: An example of a clickable ad hidden behind a video playback button.

Moving quickly to thwart Clickjacking attempts

Earlier this year when our operations team identified Clickjacking activity on our display network, they moved swiftly to terminate accounts, removing entities involved in or attempting to use this technique to trick users. Our engineering team worked in parallel to quickly release a filter to automatically exclude this type of invalid traffic across display ads.

This approach delivered a one-two punch to publishers who violated our policies: our operations team, which forms an early line of defense against invalid traffic, cleaned out publishers from our ad systems, while engineers built a new filter as a durable defense to protect against Clickjacking traffic.

	Figure 2: An example of mouse-tracking, which leads to a page with lots of ads being opened regardless of where a user clicks.

Publishers can now easily monetize the content they’re creating in Filipino with AdSense, and advertisers looking to connect with the growing online Filipino audience can now reach them with ads that are more relevant than ever before.

Posted by:

Emanuele Brandi (AdSense Lead, PSI) on behalf of the AdSense Internationalization Team

This is the third in our series of posts about micro- and macro-moments. In parts one and two we talked about how to think about these moments of intent and find out what they are for your audience. Today let’s talk about what to do about it.

1) A good place to start is with a moments map. This is where you identify the set of moments you absolutely want to win or can’t afford to lose. Examine all phases of the consumer journey for your business, and look for the moments when people want to find inspiration, learn about something you’re reporting, make a social statement, or anything in between.

Breaking news stories are an

example of moments you

can’t afford to lose

Suppose you have a news site and a user visits your review of a restaurant as they walk through town. They may just want to know if you gave it two or four stars… or they may want to know your reviewer’s in-depth thoughts and recommendations for each course. How you deliver this information will make a big difference. (And remember, they’re impatient!) 

2)  Next up: try to understand customer needs in the moment. Put yourself in the consumer’s shoes for each moment you want to win. Ask yourself, “What would make this easier or faster? What content or features would be most helpful for this moment?” Again, ask yourself: Is your user looking for a quick moment or are they there for the long haul?

In a story or photo feature about fashion, for instance, you could add a widget showing locations of the stores that sell each dress or pair of shoes you feature, or video of the fashion shows where they were revealed.

3)  Third, make sure you use context to deliver the right experience. Contextual signals like location and time of day will help you deliver experiences and messages that feel tailor-made for the moment.

For example, if a soccer fan is having a micro-moment, they probably just want the top highlights and the final score from the match last night. This could be your spot for a social media update or a 30-second video. But if they’re in a macro-moment, they’ll want in-depth match analysis, team lineups and analysis of how the final score will affect the league. That’s your moment for the long-form article or podcast.

What contextual signals can 

you gather from your users?

4)  Be sure to optimize across all aspects of the journey. People move seamlessly across screens and channels. Does your brand deliver seamlessly in return? Don’t let competing internal objectives or departmental silos stand in the way; anchor your action to the consumer and organize around their moments.

Ask: “Is our journey optimized for search?” How do consumers across all the different social channels interact with your sites? Are they optimized correctly?

5)  Now keep the momentum rolling: measure every moment that matters and iterate. Keep improving your content based on what you find; then measure and iterate again.

You can’t afford to under-serve your customers while you deal with measurement gaps. Even if the return on investment (ROI) for certain moments may not be directly measurable (yet), train your team to use credible estimates to ensure nothing’s falling through the cracks. 

We’ll leave you with these questions:

1. Are you ready for the moments ahead? 
2. Can users consume your content (or a form of it) in the queue at Starbucks?
3. How are you capitalizing on seasonal macro-moments like the Rugby World Cup or the upcoming Summer Olympic games?

If you take the time to think about your customers, find their micro- and macro-moments, and then fill their needs in those moments, you’ll be well on your way. And in fact, you’ll likely be getting a leg up on the competition.

Think with Google recently published a research study that takes a deep dive into micro-moments, it’s a great follow up to this blog series. Download your copy today, and win the shift to mobile.

Posted By: Chris Jones, Audience Development Specialist

Are you on Twitter? Follow us for more insights and tips @AdSense

According to this great response to micro-moments and our own interpretations, the three most important types of macro-moments are:

• Affinity Moments, when fans act in unison in support of their favorite team or musician. 

• Buddy Moments, when friends connect and bond everything they see, hear or read — whether that’s a live concert or a funny cat video on YouTube.

• Deep Knowledge Moments, when someone wants to learn deeply about a topic (maybe political issues or financial news) so they can share that knowledge later.

In essence, micro-moments happen on the go and with intent, while macro-moments are more tribal or community-based. They’re deep-dive media experiences that impact individuals in ways micro-moments can’t.

Publishers should remember that preferences and loyalty are shaped by both micro and macro moments. The brands that do the best job of addressing our needs in each moment will gain the greater share of our attention, and they’ll be the publishers we start with next time. They will, in short, win.

Where to begin? 

Determining the right macro moment to target a user is no easy feat, but here are some Google tools that can help you discover what your audience is looking for, set your strategy and start taking action.

Google Trends 

What are the biggest events coming up this year? When do searches spike for football or flowers? The Google Trends tool uses real-time search data to help you gauge consumer search behaviors over time. Find out more »

YouTube Trends 

The world’s largest video site has a lot of content and a lot of users. The YouTube Dashboard lets you track what’s being viewed and shared all over. Compare trending videos by age, gender and location, and see what the world’s watching. Find out more »

Google Consumer Surveys 

This fast and affordable market research tool lets you ask questions to Internet and mobile users on high-quality content around the Web. Users who answer the survey gain access to content or get credits they can use for music, apps and more. Google aggregates and analyzes their responses, so you can make more informed business decisions. Find out more »

Marketer’s Almanac

From the Super Bowl kickoff to holiday gift giving, each year has trends and events that create huge opportunities to connect with consumers. The Google Marketer’s Almanac offers data and insights for these key moments to help you get a jump on planning. Find out more »

And as always, some of your best insights can come from good old-fashioned methods like talking to and engaging with your audience.

Once you have the insights, it’s time for action. We’ll cover that in our next post.

Posted by:

Chris Jones
Global Audience Development Specialist

For a long time, we’ve all heard that we’re perched on the edge of a new golden age of digital, like divers on a cliff.

By now it seems clear that we have well and truly jumped off that edge and are swimming, frolicking (and sometimes drowning) in that futuristic sea of digital, connectivity, cams, drones, the Internet of Things… and especially mobile.

Today, we’d like to kick off a three-part blog series that will look at how publishers can do more frolicking and less failing in this digital sea. In particular, we’ll look at what we call digital moments that matter, and the best ways for publishers to think about those moments. Part one today is Micro-Moments for Publishers, to be followed by From Micro to Macro and then part 3, Acting On Your Moments.

Where to start? In an age where people create and consume their very own newsrooms on a daily basis, expectations for content are growing higher and higher. Just a few examples:

• People over 35 tend to print out recipes, while 59% of 25- to 34-year-olds cook with their smartphones or tablets handy.
• 35+ million hours of movie trailers were viewed on mobile on YouTube in the first six months of 2015. The same period saw a whopping 41% growth in mobile searches related to movie showtimes.
• Seven in ten millennial dads seek parenting information online. 59% of those dads say they use their smartphones for those searches more than any other device. Searches for baby-related terms on mobile have grown 52% year over year, according to Google data.

So the publishing business has changed tremendously over the last two decades, but the big questions are still very much the same:

• How do I reach the right audience?
• How do I make sure I stand out?
• How do I drive enough views and revenue to grow my business?

Today you have more choice than ever in how to approach these questions, thanks in large part to huge changes in mobile consumer behavior.

There’s no such thing as sitting down for an “online session” anymore. Mobile is not just a hand-held device; it is a human and consumer behavior. It’s why we no longer have those empty spaces in our day — at the bus stop, in line at a store, or even at night in bed.

As a publisher, you don’t always have to be there for those moments when users browse their friends’ photos and status updates, or find out that they need to pick up milk on the way home from work. In fact, if you try to insert your content when people aren’t receptive, it can do more harm than good.

But certain moments really do matter for publishers: Moments when consumers turn to their phones to seek information or ideas. In those moments they have an intent: a need that can be met, a curiosity fulfilled, or a decision made.

These countless moments are full of intent signals that publishers can capitalize on. A “time for a new one” moment with a worn-out hairdryer can be satisfied with a product review. An “I can fix it” moment is perfect for do-it-yourself articles from publishers. (Over 100 million hours of “how-to” content have been watched on YouTube so far this year.) What about “I want to watch” moments? Can you give those users short and easy-to-watch content?

“How do I reach my audience?” “How do I make sure I stand out?” The answer lies in creating the content for these micro-moments. And in the next post, we’ll talk about an opportunity that’s similar and yet different: macro moments.

Want to learn more about micro-moments? Check out the Think with Google Guide to Winning the Shift to Mobile.

Chris Jones
Global Audience Development Specialist

Last year we launched Matched content to help increase user engagement on your site by promoting relevant content from your site to your visitors, which may help grow your ad business as well. Starting today, you can use Matched content units to directly generate revenue by allowing ads to appear alongside your recommended content.

Matched content with content recommendations and ads

With the new “Allow ads” feature, relevant ads will appear within your Matched content units, and will be styled to complement the look and feel of your content recommendations. We’ll gradually roll this feature out to all Matched content eligible publishers across the globe over the coming weeks. To enable ads, visit your My ads tab and choose “Allow ads” for your Matched content units.

Matched content is available for sites with multiple pages with unique images and high volumes of traffic. Have a look at the site management settings in your account to see if your sites are eligible and to get started with Matched content. Matched content units don’t count towards your Google content ad limit per page – to get the most out of this new tool, check the best practices in the AdSense Help Center.

As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts about this new feature in the comments section below.

 Posted by Tobias Maurer, Product Manager

As a form of online marketing, some companies today will send bloggers free products to review or give away in return for a mention in a blogpost. Whether you’re the company supplying the product or the blogger writing the post, below are a few best practices to ensure that this content is both useful to users and compliant with Google Webmaster Guidelines.

1. Use the nofollow tag where appropriate

Links that pass PageRank in exchange for goods or services are against Google guidelines on link schemes. Companies sometimes urge bloggers to link back to:

    a. the company’s site
    b. the company’s social media accounts
    c. an online merchant’s page that sells the product
    d. a review service’s page featuring reviews of the product
    e. the company’s mobile app on an app store

Bloggers should use the nofollow tag on all such links because these links didn’t come about organically (i.e., the links wouldn’t exist if the company hadn’t offered to provide a free good or service in exchange for a link). Companies, or the marketing firms they’re working with, can do their part by reminding bloggers to use nofollow on these links.

2. Disclose the relationship

Users want to know when they’re viewing sponsored content. Also, there are laws in some countries that make disclosure of sponsorship mandatory. A disclosure can appear anywhere in the post; however, the most useful placement is at the top in case users don’t read the entire post.

3. Create compelling, unique content

The most successful blogs offer their visitors a compelling reason to come back. If you’re a blogger you might try to become the go-to source of information in your topic area, cover a useful niche that few others are looking at, or provide exclusive content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or resources.

For more information, please drop by our Google Webmaster Central Help Forum.

Posted by the Google Webspam Team