Search Engine Journal

You might be noticing a decrease in your Adsense referral earnings lately, well that’s because Google Adsense has placed a restriction on referral earnings while it checks on whether click and and conversion data generated from Adsense Referral ads are valid. Since the start of validation, Adsense has restricted the earnings generated from Referral products to less than the maximum amount that you can earn from valid clicks of Referral Products. So if you are earning $1 dollar per valid click from a Referral product, you might earn only a fraction of that amount.

The Inside Adsense post did not mention of a definite date as to when this validation period would end. Advertisers will be charged of the maximum rate once the validation period. But publishers’ maximum earnings from Referral product will only return to normal once they are passed through the validation test.

This is somewhat an understable move from Google Adsense, since everybody knows how rampant click frauds have been going on with Adsense. But to be uncertain on how long that validation period is going to last is somewhat a bit off the mark. The validation process should have been done simultaneously for all publishers, since that is how the earning restriction is being carried out. It would certainly result in a big loss for high-referring publishers.

And we should only wonder how come, click fraud validation is being done only now and only for Referral Ads. Given that Referral Ads are remunerated on a per conversion basis unlike regular Adsense units which are remunerated on CPC basis, the more bases for those Ads to be validated for click fraud first.

But then, it is Google’s decision and we could only comply with them or if not, better consider other advertising options.