Admob accounter terminated - ideas?

[Ach]

Hi,

I am still a newbie here, but got 2 games running on playstore with admob integrated ( interstitial ads only after a level is complete) .

Everything was fine for about a month (first I ran only tests ads - then -normal ones for 4 weeks without any issues).

Then one day I received quite high traffic and revenue. Next day - google suspended my account for a month.
Few days ago they lifted this suspension which resulted in 5 impression (only) , one click within the same day. After those 5 impressions - they suspended the account again.
Even worse - today I received an email that they are terminating my account.

This is my "code" for running Admob:

* Start of Frame
AdMob : Make Interstitial Request

* Layer object: Layer 6 is visible? //this is end of level condition
+ Only one action when event loops
+ AdMob: is Interstitial Ready?
AdMob : Show Interstitial

Any ideas?

[Janette5]

It may be that someone hacked your game. I had that with a game and unfortunately Google assumes you're guilty unless you can prove you're innocent - and that's impossible to prove since they won't tell you what's actually happening.

But basically people write software to always click on an add, and then to test this software they randomly select an app or game from Google Play store and run it through their software so all of a sudden people are clicking on your ads like crazy (but it all comes from one single source) - and then Google closes the account accusing you of doing it. It's messed up, because Google is big enough to go after the people doing this, but it's easier for them to step on ants which are small developers.

If that is the situation with you, you'd have to switch to another advertising provider or a different monetization method, because Google won't care.

You can see from your analytics in your advertising account - if the clicks on the ad are legitimate i.e. if there's long enough time between them for someone to have played the level. If it is, then it might be something else. If the time delay is too quick, then sadly it's someone who hacked your game.

[dsilvers]

Off the top of my head, I think you could implement a simple time check using an alterable value. Once an ad is clicked, you set a timer for say 5 minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, etc. (just multiply your game's frame rate by the amout of time you want to set and presto). Just some decent amount of time during which an ad cannot even appear (yes this means ads will sometimes not appear in between levels). In a global event, when the timer is greater than 0, subtract 1. When the timer hits 0, ads can appear and be clicked again (have like a No Ads flag that turns on when it's greater than 0). Yes this won't stop bots from spamming your ads, but it WILL throttle their server interaction, which is really all Google really cares about. You can even store this value externally in the player save array, which would mean the bots can't close and reopen your game to circumvent the timer.

So yes, the bot will instantly click an ad every 5 minutes, but they won't be spamming it every 5 minutes. Their effect on the server will be negligible, and Google will be much less likely to suspect you of trying to game their ad network.

[Janette5]

I don't think that would work. If there's only 1 source always clicking on an ad, and no other sources, it also triggers an alert and when a game is new and not popular - or not yet popular - then there aren't many people playing it - that constant trigger from a single source, even if it's only once an hour or so would still raise a red flag - especially if it's continuous.

[Dobermann]

Can you please post a link to your game?

Also, verify your spams, they may have sent you some emails about ads display issues. Sometimes, an ad can be showed at a wrong moment, and users could makes accident click (that happened to me, i'd just had to verify that the ad is correctly loaded before to display it so i can control the exact time it is displayed).

[Ach]

Can you please post a link to your game?

Also, verify your spams, they may have sent you some emails about ads display issues. Sometimes, an ad can be showed at a wrong moment, and users could makes accident click (that happened to me, i'd just had to verify that the ad is correctly loaded before to display it so i can control the exact time it is displayed).

Hi, thank you for the feedback. This is a link to the game: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...y.pumpkins.com Yesterday I got really frustrated and removed the Admob and placed Chartboost instead (which is not configured yet, so there are no ads serving at the moment).

The email I got from them is quite standard: "With our advertising programmes we strive to create an online ecosystem that benefits publishers, advertisers and users. For this reason, we sometimes have to take action against accounts that show behaviour towards users or advertisers that may negatively impact how the ecosystem is perceived. In your case, we have detected invalid traffic or activity on your account and as a result it has been disabled. We understand that you may want to know more about the issues that we’ve detected. Because this information could be used to circumvent our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with information about specific account activity. (nice) . Once you’ve made changes to your site(s), app(s) or channel(s) to comply with our programme policies and terms of service, you can reach out to us using our appeal process. Please make sure that you provide a complete analysis of your traffic or other reasons that may have led to invalid activity in your appeal. "

[Dobermann]

Hi, thank you for the feedback. This is a link to the game: https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...y.pumpkins.com Yesterday I got really frustrated and removed the Admob and placed Chartboost instead (which is not configured yet, so there are no ads serving at the moment).

The email I got from them is quite standard: "With our advertising programmes we strive to create an online ecosystem that benefits publishers, advertisers and users. For this reason, we sometimes have to take action against accounts that show behaviour towards users or advertisers that may negatively impact how the ecosystem is perceived. In your case, we have detected invalid traffic or activity on your account and as a result it has been disabled. We understand that you may want to know more about the issues that we’ve detected. Because this information could be used to circumvent our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with information about specific account activity. (nice) . Once you’ve made changes to your site(s), app(s) or channel(s) to comply with our programme policies and terms of service, you can reach out to us using our appeal process. Please make sure that you provide a complete analysis of your traffic or other reasons that may have led to invalid activity in your appeal. "

All hope is not lost, just answer you did what they asked and voila. I got a warning about an app that was breaking rules, i've checked everything in the app and didn't find any issue, i've just answered that i was unable to find any issue with the ads and that if they could provide me a screenshot, and they just reactivated my app without any comment.

And, effectively, if we can't see the ads in your app we can't see if there is something wrong here...