Guide to Preventing Invalid Traffic on Google AdX

Google Ad Exchange (Google AdX) has always been very strict in monitoring traffic, and has recently tightened the standards, imposing corresponding penalties on accounts with a large number of unqualified traffic. If an advertising account is restricted or even disabled, it will be very detrimental to the publisher's revenue generation. To avoid the negative impact of invalid traffic, you can refer to the following content.

Ⅰ. How does the platform monitor invalid traffic?

1. Intelligent Algorithm

The platform will use a variety of complex algorithms to monitor and analyze traffic in real time and identify abnormal behaviors, such as invalid clicks, displays, browsing, interactions, and suspicious traffic that cannot be confirmed temporarily. At the same time, the monitoring and filtering procedures will be continuously updated, which means that the monitoring will become more and more stringent.

2. Deny List

Like many platforms, Google also has a "blacklist" that includes IP addresses that have violated regulations or have banned accounts. If any IP overlaps or is associated with an IP on the blacklist, the platform's filtering program will detect and intercept the relevant traffic before advertisers pay.

3. Abnormal data

If a publisher's click-through rate is too high, or a user brings more data and traffic to an ad than normal, this will be considered abnormal data.

4. Manual review

If the platform's filtering program cannot determine whether certain traffic is invalid in a short period of time, these suspicious traffic will not be let go and will be marked. Auditors will analyze these suspicious traffic and their long-term data, as well as the user's interaction with the advertisement to determine whether this is invalid traffic.

Similarly, certain features and data of these suspicious or invalid traffic will also be "blacklisted", and the platform will intercept new traffic with the same features in the future.

Ⅱ. How can publishers prevent invalid traffic?

1. Use network tools properly

According to the rejection list mentioned above, it is necessary to prevent association. In addition, some publishers may have multiple accounts, and multiple accounts may target markets in multiple regions. IPFoxy can be used to provide independent IPs for accounts, which can prevent association and protect account operation security with its high-speed and stable connection. At the same time, more than 200 regional options can easily meet positioning needs.

2. Comply with platform regulations

No artificial clicks: Do not click on your own ads, and do not request, encourage, or induce others to click on your ads.

Choose a scientific promotion method: If you want to cooperate with a third party for promotion, confirm in advance whether the promotion method violates the platform rules. For example, using pop-up and pop-under windows is not only illegal, but also has a strong negative impact on user experience and is not conducive to generating high-quality traffic.

Place ads in a reasonable position: Do not place ads near page content or interactive buttons, otherwise they will be easily judged as click-inducing behavior. Keeping a distance can prevent accidental clicks and invalid traffic.

3. Monitor traffic in a timely manner

Monitor and record traffic conditions in a timely manner, identify traffic sources, ensure that traffic comes from legal and compliant channels, and promptly check and block unqualified traffic and suspicious user behavior to avoid the risk of account deactivation due to being judged as abnormal behavior by the platform.

Ⅲ. Final Thoughts

Complying with platform regulations and using network tools properly can effectively solve the invalid traffic problem of Google Ad Exchange and provide guarantee for the normal operation of the account.