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Jul 31, 2024
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Invalid YouTube Traffic: How to Avoid Money Loss?

Often content creators are faced with a situation where their ad revenue is getting lower. Sometimes the reason is poor quality content, lack of diversity in videos, etc. However, there is one serious violation that half of creators don’t keep track of: invalid traffic. What is it and how can you avoid losing your earnings? We’ll tell you in this article.

What is Invalid YouTube traffic?

To put it simply: invalid traffic refers to actions that are not performed by real users. In general, this term can include fraudulent and artificial ways to increase advertising revenue – even when the invalid traffic is unintentional.

Unfortunately, YouTube has very strict rules that are checked by a huge team, artificial intelligence, and algorithms. Any (even minor) violation of a requirement for YouTube monetization can be perceived as an attempt to circumvent the rules of YouTube video hosting. Any creator who flouts the rules runs the risk of getting an AdSense block or the entire channel blocked in the worst case scenario.

What is considered invalid traffic?

  • Increasing views and other activity under the video with the help of third-party services (even if the creator didn’t do it intentionally or independently)
  • Calls-to-action from a content creator to “click on ads” in any form (even if it represents a charitable fundraiser)
  • Adding videos to playlists and special 24/7 viewing from friends/acquaintances/fake profiles

In general, any actions aimed at artificially increasing your profits from ad views can be suspicious.

What are the dangers of invalid traffic for a creator?

To answer briefly: a sharp decline in income. Why? We’ll explain in a moment. When invalid traffic is detected, YouTube and its algorithms will act gradually. First, invalid views will be removed and, as a result, the creator’s AdSense income will change.

Then the amount of ads in the video will get smaller and smaller. Don’t worry: your AdSense will not be blocked immediately, the YouTube team needs some time to analyze your case. Nevertheless, if you find a decrease in the number of ads, analyze your channel activity.

And eventually, ad payments will be deducted or even frozen for 90 days if invalid traffic is proven!

In such a case, it’s not the advertiser who suffers, but the creator. Your income from invalid traffic will be deducted from the profits in AdSense for YouTube before payments are made. The deducted amount will be listed as a separate item on the “Payments” page in AdSense for YouTube.

How to avoid invalid traffic and disconnection of AdSense?

  1. Don’t engage in activity spoofing under the video (and don’t use third-party services to do it).

Sooner or later, algorithms will figure out suspicious activities. After that, it will be quite difficult to unblock the channel.

  1. Don’t encourage subscribers and viewers to “click on the ads.” 

If they are interested in the advertisement, they will follow all the necessary links themselves.

  1. Don’t try to click on ads on your own (for the sake of interest or to increase revenue).

Same note as with subscribers: alas, artificial activity under your video won’t help you make money.

All in all, just follow the YouTube community rules. Then you will definitely avoid any problems with your earnings.

“My AdSense has been disconnected. What should I do?”

Often, when any invalid traffic is found, YouTube first freezes funds in AdSense, and then makes a complete disconnection of the channel of earnings. What to do? Of course, file an appeal! If you didn’t commit any actions on scoring activity or consider the blocking to be a mistake, you can always write an appeal.

The main thing to remember is that if after the appeal it will be proved that the invalid traffic is really present on your channel, then AdSense will be blocked forever.

Conclusions

Our team is always committed to abiding by the YouTube community rules.  That means that all the creators of our affiliate network are always protected from troubles such as blocking for invalid traffic.

By Veronica Kovalenko
Veronica Kovalenko

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