ADMOB's ad serving disabled due to admob's advertisment Policy violation !

koirbiku

I received an email from admob last week saying that they have disabled ad serving on one of my app because it was not compliant wiith Admob program policies. I have attached the email below to share what it exactly says. I dont think there is really much i can do here but was hoping if andromo team could bring out some changes to address the issue to some extent. Also i would love to hear from andromo communitiy if you have been in similar situation and how you dealt with it. According to their email, interestitial ad is the concern to them because it is placed in a way it encourages accidental clicks to the users. The app is online streaming radio app and the interestitial ads are set to trigger in 10 minutes time interval and upon several interaction required is checked for option. I have had this settings for over a year and really thought that would be compliant to their policies since ads are not just randomly popping to irritate the user. But now i am worried since i have the same setup in all of my apps and there isnt much i can change. So i was hoping, in addition to the existing settings if it would be possible to add another condition (especially for streaming and audioplayer activity)where interestitial ad trigger would only go off after user has engaged in the player by either playing or pausing . This can ensure that full page ad wont just pop up randomly and wont promote accidental clicks that can occur due to the ads appearing right before user is trying to touch the screen to play the audio. I have experienced  this myself while testing my apps that full page ads sometimes do appear right before i am about to touch play on the audio player and have to be consious not to click. So that situation does kind of makes it look like the ad was placed for accidental click, if that is what they are referring to in their explanation . I have copied the email below:

Hello,

This email is to alert you that one of your applications is not currently in compliance with our AdMobprogram policies and as a result, ad serving has been disabled to your application.

Issue ID#: 39026221

Ad serving has been disabled to: Bulgarian Radios (com.andromo.dev130378.app155192)

Action required: Check all other remaining applications in your account for compliance.

Current account status: Active

Violation explanation

LAYOUT ENCOURAGES ACCIDENTAL CLICKS - INTERSTITIAL ADS: Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click AdMob interstitial ads in any way. This includes any implementation that may encourage accidental clicks, such as placing an interstitial ad in a way that prevents viewing the app’s core content or placing an interstitial ad in a way that interferes with navigating or interacting with the app’s core content and functionality.

Please review how you’ve implemented interstitial ads and be mindful of the following common examples of non-compliant implementations:

• Interstitial ads that appear before the app has opened or after the app has closed.
• Interstitial ads that are triggered after a user closes another interstitial ad.
• Interstitial ads loading unexpectedly while a user is viewing the app’s content. Remember to only serve interstitials between pages of content.
• Interstitial ads that trigger after every user click.
• Interstitial ads that appear during periods of game play or heavy user interaction.

For more information about our policies and tips for how to comply please read the following:

• AdMob ad placement policy
• AdMob interstitial ad guidance

Action required: Check account for compliance

While ad serving has been disabled to the above app, your AdMob account remains active. We suggest that you take the time to review the rest of your applications to ensure that they’re in compliance with our policies, and to monitor your apps accordingly to reduce the likelihood of future policy emails from us. Additionally, please note that our team reserves the right to disable accounts at any time if we continue to see violations occurring.

Appeals

If you wish to appeal this disabling then you can do so by using our appeal form.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdMob Team

lorne

That's strange. I notice that you had several interstitial ads enabled...I wonder if it would make any difference if only AdMob ads were enabled?

In Andromo the interstitials are triggered within the onStart method of an activity. That method is triggered when an activity is first shown. The only way an ad would be shown later is if there is a long delay in the ad network's SDK code (for example, slow communication with the ad network's server in order to fetch the ad).

So i was hoping, in addition to the existing settings if it would be possible to add another condition where interestitial ad trigger would only go off after user has engaged in the player by either playing or pausing where interestitial ad trigger would only go off after user has engaged in the player by either playing or pausing

It seems that having the ads only pop up after a user interaction would still violate several of the points they listed.

It would be nice to make an interstitial ad only be shown if one is ready, however some of the ad networks don't give enough control over their ads for us to do that.

We may need to change how our interstitial ads are implemented so that we treat the ads that can be preloaded differently from the ads that cannot, and give you that information so that you can select only Google/AdMob compliant ads if that is necessary for your app.

This is definitely something we'll look further into, but given the way most interstitial ads are implemented, it would not be a quick or easy thing to change.

koirbiku

Thanks Lorne for your response. You made a good point, some of our apps have more tha one interistitial ads enabled. If that is really the concern then would be a easy fix. These are mostly just experimentals so we can afford to disable those. There is just no way to know what they were really after. Do you think it would be good idea to appeal to them and explain how ads are placed and what changes were made to address the issue.? Have you guys ever heard from other users with similar issues? I wanted to know if i should be communicating with admob further to resolve issues or people usually just get alerts and make possible changes and can't really do anything to changes that admob has already made  or how and what i should be doing at this situation.

It would be great if the changes you mentioned about implementation of interestitial ads can be done in near future. Please keep us informed about this . if i do get in contact with admob it would be helpful to inform  them about changes that are going to be made to stay compliant to their policies. Google has started being more strict on their rules, regulation and policies so will just have to stay cautious and make sure to stay within their boundary.

aleksej015

I have few radio apps similar to yours Koiribku and now i'm dont know what to do. Settings are same, AdMob interstitial will popup and user can accidentally click on it. Maybe I will turn off interstitial ads for that apps.

meoldTest

At this point I'd hold off making any changes or appealing your app until we take a closer look at what changes we can make and what our plan will be. This issue will be a priority item for us, so let us look into it, and we'll update you when we know more.

wizardny

I just had the same issue with one of my apps. I only have admob ads in it. With these rules all apps with interstitial ads will be shut down. Between google play policies and admob it is becoming impossible to make money at this. We have no control over when these ads pop in. I have been around since before interstitial ads and before they came along the money was so little it wasn't worth the fee to develop them. This took out my most popular ap. How do I get it running again?

Insplisity

@wizardny: That really sucks. Google is constantly complicating with everything. One option is to wait for the Andromo update and then re-publish your app as a new app. Or you can use interstitial ads from another advertising network in your current app. I know neither of these options is optimal, but I'm not sure what else could be done.

AppsDevelopment

I got the very same violation for one of my apps and I only have admob activated.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for updating us ASAP.

AppsDevelopment

Ok, here is the reply I got from my admob contact:
*****

Thanks for reaching out.

It
seems that this publisher triggered a delayed interstitial after the
users completed an action. Pre-loading the ad will fix the issue. 

You can share following link with this publisher that shows how to preload and display an interstitial : https://developers.google.com/mobile-ads-sdk/docs/admob/android/interstitial

I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

*****
I also hope, that this helps to fix this issue ASAP.
Thanks,
Sylvia

meoldTest

@Sylvia

Thanks for the additional information. Yes, we're already in the process of making that change to the interstitial types that support it.

popranda

Darryl when you will finish all that changes and when we can update our apps? Thanks

lorne

Thanks to everyone for your patience, I realize how frustrating it is when the situation is out of your control.

We will make an announcement as soon as an update is ready.

AppsDevelopment

Hi Lorne,
any news on when we can expect the update?
Many thanks,
Sylvia

lorne

We still have some things to resolve but based on our progress today I'm pretty confident we should be able to release something in the next few days.

We have the preloading system in place but we've needed to adjust it to work around issues with individual ad networks. Adding support for preloading required some changes that could break navigation if they aren't handled properly.

Although there are a few exceptions, most ad networks have next to no documentation, and what documentation they do have is often misleading or incomplete. We usually need to decompile the .jar files in order to figure out how to work around issues with their SDKs. To put it more politely than certain SDKs deserve, they can be really, really difficult to work with.

At this point it looks like there will be at least one interstitial network that you will want to avoid using with AdMob or you may risk non-compliance, unless that network changes their SDK in the future. You may still be able to use it if you really want to, but that hasn't been decided yet.

mediay

i received the same violation today, once we get new update i think will be good idea to appeal?

lorne

@naqshbandi: yes you will want to get the next update and rebuild, and then let them know that you've fixed it. If you'd like you could tell them you will release a fix as soon as possible.

Although I expected to have the update ready by now, we ran into some unexpected issues which needed to be worked around.

We also hit two frustrating walls with the Android tools today: first, we ran into a bug after updating to the newest Android build tools, which took some time to identify. Then we ran into a serious situation with DEX limits after updating the Google Play Services library. That last one may be impossible for us to solve without changing fundamental parts of our build system, so for now we have decided to continue using the existing version of the Google Play Services library in Andromo. That library is only built into the app "just in case" it is missing from the device, but Android devices almost universally already have the latest Google Play Services installed, so it is extremely unlikely this will pose any problems.

The good news is that after many tweaks and fixes our new system for showing interstitials seems to be working ok. We need to finish testing across devices and configurations, but if we don't find any glaring issues we should be able to release an update early next week.

One remaining item that isn't in place yet is pausing audio during interstitials, which is listed in the AdMob guidelines as a good practice. If testing goes well on Monday I may take another stab at it, but from my initial investigation it will actually be quite tricky to do, so we may postpone that for a future update; we don't want to delay this release any longer than necessary.

lorne

Thanks for your patience everyone, we've released the update with the interstitial timing changes.

Insplisity

Guys, did you use the same AdMob Ad unit ID after you updated the apps or did you create a new one?

mediay

hendrixs same

Insplisity

@naqshbandi: Thanks! And they enabled it again for you?

mediay

yes just republish your app, then fill in appeal form and say you have implemented pre-loading

Insplisity

Will do, thanks!

ADResearch

Works great much better user experience.

lorne

Thanks guys! I'm really glad to hear AdMob is finding the apps compliant again.