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I think somebody try to get me banned in AdMob - in geo stat clicks from "unknown" country has CTR 80%-90% (other countries < 3%).

Are there ways to block show ads if user form "unknown" country?

Anton Nikitin
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    Same problem right here. Having unusual high CTR (20%) for unknown country, and it constitute a large percentage of total clicks. I disable it right now at this moment. I just want to please Google God. – Cheok Yan Cheng Jul 05 '13 at 03:04
  • Well, I find myself with an unkwnown country topping the clicks as the vast majority of my "users", with a CTR of 95% in ZZ (unkwnown country) and an average of 55% CTR for the whole world. My eCPM raises to 9$ every day. I'm pretty scared. Did you get some news? – Sergi Juanola Jul 30 '13 at 10:20
  • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3659809/where-am-i-get-country – hasan Nov 02 '13 at 13:26

3 Answers3

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The problem with those clicks from an unknown country is the high CTR%, I have a 100% CTR for one of my apps today, I mean, 100 impressions 100 clicks... Really? Can't you be a little less obvious whoever is doing that! It's NOT being paranoid, it's somebody playing dirty, plain and simple. I have had this behavior with my app since around a month ago so it's not something casual.

What happens after you get that amount of unusual clicks for many days is that your ecpm goes down and so does your revenue, it's like if there is an algorithm that detects fraudulent behavior and starts to send the less profitable ads to those apps... Since this started my revenue has been cut to less than half, that's no coincidence.

I sent admob support an e-mail but I'm doubtful they will respond.

Jason
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I suspect you are being paranoid.

"Unknown country" is not uncommon. If the number of clicks from an unknown country is relatively few I wouldn't worry about it.

William
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  • In my situation number of clicks not relativly few. For example last two days: – Anton Nikitin Jul 02 '13 at 02:39
  • In my situation number of clicks not relativly few. For example last two days: Americas 1052 impressions 19 clicks, Unkown 142 impressions 123 clicks. Overal CTR ~12%, in not too big but what if tomorrow "unknown" clicks increased x2 or x3? I hope they stops at all but want to know method to resist this/same situation. – Anton Nikitin Jul 02 '13 at 02:48
  • What was your total impressions and clicks for that day? Your number of impressions is very low so these stats may not be that meaningful. I think you are worrying too much. Monitor it for a few days and see what happens. – William Jul 03 '13 at 08:48
  • here stats (sorry for horrible formatting): Europe EU 3,642 3,641 15 0.41% $0.24 $0.86 Americas AMS 2,627 2,627 32 1.22% $1.02 $2.67 Asia AS 883 883 5 0.57% $0.13 $0.11 Africa AFR 258 258 2 0.78% $0.12 $0.03 Unknown 257 257 211 82.10% $8.79 $2.26 Oceania OC 104 104 0 0.00% $0.00 $0.00 – Anton Nikitin Jul 03 '13 at 09:05
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    as screenshot - http://data2.floomby.com/files/share/3_7_2013/UV2h7eavkCGwDHjyT8qg.jpg – Anton Nikitin Jul 03 '13 at 09:08
  • Unknown country is just that. Ie it couldn't work out which country those clicks came from. It could well be that they came from an even spread across all the other countries. Your total CTR (across all countries including the unknown) is about 3% which seems a little high but is not unusual for some apps. – William Jul 04 '13 at 17:25
  • I too received total 16000 clicks from Unknown country in last 30 days. – Rakesh Patil Aug 21 '13 at 19:26
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I got the same problem recently.

Unknown country with 1,171 requests, 851 clicks.

from the XDA forums, http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2346180, one of the users got a reply from admob.

Hello,

Thank you for your email.

I understand your concerns about the high number of clicks coming from unknown locations.

There are, indeed, invalid activities and they will be filtered out from your finalized earnings. Please be assured that all valid and legit clicks will be counted.

it seems that Admob is aware of the problem, and will just ignore these activities.

user2150939
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