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A growing number of AdSense and Ad Exchange publishers have been talking about a “Two-Click” penalty being placed on their sites. This is also commonly being called a “Double Click Penalty,” “Click Confirmation” “Confirmed Clicks” or a “Visit-Site Penalty.” This ‘penalty’ requires users to click an ad twice, as opposed to once, to validate the user’s intention before redirecting to the advertiser’s destination URL through the ‘Visit Site’ button. This can have a devastating impact on the revenue generated from affected units because users that intentionally click on the ad are required to pass this additional obstacle before they get to the advertiser’s landing page. The confirmation click may then deter them from proceeding, in which case, their click will not be registered and publishers will not earn any revenue because the user didn’t make it to the advertiser’s destination URL. This isn’t a new issue. We first became aware of the issue back in 2014, but circumstantial evidence would suggest that it is becoming more common.
Whether or not the Confirmed Clicks issue is technically a ‘penalty’ is debatable (more on that in a minute). However, any issue that impacts publisher earnings is serious and needs to be understood. If you think you might be affected, read on to learn more about how to diagnose and fix the Two-Click penalty.
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What is Google’s Two-Click / Confirmed Clicks penalty?
In some circumstances, Google will require that a user confirms that they intentionally clicked on an advert before registering and honoring this click. Google verifies that a user intended to click on an ad by placing an interstitial “Visit Site” message and button to appear on the ad following the first click made by the visitor. The user is only redirected to the target URL when they click again on the button, hence the name of the “Two-Click” penalty. If the user clicks on both the ad and the verification button, the click will be registered. Otherwise, the publisher will not earn revenue from unverified on the affected ad units.
Therefore, if you are an AdSense publisher in the CPC environment, you will only generate ad revenue when the second click is made. As the revenue impact in the CPM environment of AdX seems to be similarly impacted, it would appear that CPMs are refunded/discounted inline with this so that advertisers are not paying for accidental clicks.
The health score of publishers that have their own Google Ad Manager account may be negatively impacted. This is because part of the Partner Health Score involves an assessment of quality, which is somewhat based on invalid clicks.
The Two-Click penalty can have a significant impact on publisher’s earnings. The requirement to click twice in order to verify triggers a drop in an ad’s click-through rate (CTR) which causes effective CPMs to plummet, bringing total revenue with it. Despite this, we don’t see this issue as a deliberate penalty by Google to punish publishers. Instead, we see the Two-Click penalty as a test or check for accidental clicks which happens to have a big impact on revenue. As such, we internally refer to this as the “Visit Site behaviour” rather than as a penalty.
When Google issues penalties to publishers, these are announced by email. For AdSense publishers, any such actions will also appear in the Policy Center of their account. The Visit Site behaviour triggers neither of these. As such, we do not believe that Google sees this as a penalty. Google’s top priority is users and the user experience. Therefore, they do not want the user experience to be tarnished by accidental clicks. Click confirmation is there to improve the site’s overall user experience and prevent advertiser’s from paying for accidental clicks. That might seem academic to publishers impacted by the issue, but it can be helpful to understand and resolve the issue.
How do I know if the Visit Site behaviour is affecting me?
It is important to note that this prompt will only impact publishers who have existing issues with invalid clicks or if there is a high risk of accidental clicks. The first noticeable sign that a site has been affected by the Visit Site behaviour is usually the sudden drop in earnings from Google Ads without there being a corresponding drop in traffic to the site. There are a few things that can cause this pattern, but the Visit Site behaviour has a particular footprint to look out for: Impressions will be at normal levels, but CTR rate will have dropped considerably.
Although this is a very strong indicator of a problem, it can be hard to be 100% certain unless you have access to a Google Account Manager or work with a Certified Partner like OKO. As there are no warning emails or messages in your account, the only other way to be certain is to witness the behaviour for yourself which is not possible without clicking an ad. Of course, you should not forget that clicking your own ads is something that is against Google policy. Some older guides suggest installing the Google Publisher Toolbar so that you can safely click the ads to diagnose the issue. Unfortunately, since the Google Publisher Toolbar was retired this is no longer an option and the Google Publisher Console doesn’t have quite the same functionality.
The Click Confirmation / Two-Click penalty seems to be applied differently in different cases. Sometimes it will affect all inventory and sometimes it will affect certain combinations of device type and ad unit. This makes it even more difficult to be certain if you are affected.
Why does the Visit Site button appear?
The Visit Site button is related to invalid or accidental clicks. It appears to be used most commonly when Google detects unnatural behaviour that looks like accidental clicks. It’s not clear whether the Visit Site behaviour is used as a way to block accidental clicks or to measure them, but it seems likely that it involves some element of both.
How do I address the issue?
The Visit Site button appears because Google suspects that you are receiving accidental clicks on your ads and wants to confirm the user’s intention. To remove the issue you need to give Google confidence that this is not the case. As the behaviour is likely to be measuring the proportion of accidental and deliberate clicks, this will happen automatically if you reduce the number of accidental clicks.
Start by identifying units that could be causing a problem. Look for units that historically have a high CTR and for those where the CTR has dropped suddenly in line with your earnings drop. If users have reported the problem, ask them which units were affected.
How to avoid accidental clicks
Publishers must make every effort to avoid accidental clicks. To clarify, Google states that ads should not be implemented in a way that they might be mistaken for other site content, such as a menu, navigation, or download links. One of the most common causes we see are ad units that are close to navigation. This can often happen on some devices that are not part of your common test set-up, so be sure to test on as many devices and device types as you can. Looking for units with high CTRs on certain device types can be helpful to identify these, as can just looking through the common devices in analytics for your website.
Another common cause of accidental clicks is when ads are placed too close to links, including play buttons, download buttons, navigation buttons, game windows, video players, drop-down menus or applications.
If you find units that cause such problems, you need to adjust the placement to eliminate accidental clicks. We advise being very conservative: Give more space than you normally would and maybe consider labelling ads until the issue is fixed. You can always run new tests to optimise later.
Content jumping or layout shifting can also result in unintentional clicks. This occurs when the content suddenly jumps whilst it is loading, often when an ad unit is rendered. Sudden layout shifts can mean that users end up clicking on an element other than the one they intended. If that is an ad then it is a textbook accidental click. This issue is particularly common on mobile. This can be particularly problematic to diagnose as the shifting will often happen on some devices but not others.
If you are having problems with the layout shifting or reflow as it is sometimes known, then you can resolve this issue by putting an extra wrapping div around the ad code and then adding a fixed height (ad unit height) to the div so the ad loads without the content jumping. With the extra div in place, you can also use CSS media selectors to change the height of your div if your ad size changes from desktop to mobile.
Code example for an extra div
The html for the wrapping div : <div class=”adwrap”>Your ad code here</div>
The CSS for desktop with a 728x90px ad unit : .adwrap { height:90px }
The CSS for mobile or breakpoint where ad changes to a 300x250px ad unit : @media only screen and (max-width: 727px) { .adwrap { height:250px } }
Ultimately, the most effective way to avoid this ‘penalty’ is to ensure proper ad placement which will reduce the number of unintentional clicks. Also make sure you have sufficient margins above and below the ads.
How long until the penalty is removed?
Once the causes of accidental clicks are removed, the Click Confirmation will be automatically removed in time. How long this takes would appear to be dependent on the confidence that Google has in how deliberate the remaining clicks are. Google appears to be measuring this as a rolling average, which suggests a couple of particular tips to ensure quick removal:
- Play safe: You want to bring down the average number of accidental clicks you have received over a rolling period. The fastest way to do that is to go as conservative as possible until the Two-Click behaviour is cleared. Don’t try to “chimp it” and make small changes, as this can mean being penalised for longer.
- Don’t dial back traffic: It can be tempting to reduce traffic until the penalty is cleared, particularly if you are buying traffic. This can be problematic though. If you reduce your traffic then the number of “good clicks” on your ads will drop and mean that it takes longer to correct that average.
How does working with OKO affect such issues
OKO publishers are not immune to such issues, but thanks to our pro-active support, publishers are less likely to encounter them. If they are affected then the impacts would usually be less severe, as we source ads from a broad range of quality demand partners rather than just using Google. Our publisher support team are also experienced in identifying, diagnosing and resolving such issues to ensure that any issues are as brief as possible. Avoiding and resolving such issues is just one of the benefits of working with OKO. Find out more about OKO website monetization services here.
To summarize…
If Google suspects that you are receiving a high number of accidental or invalid clicks, they may impose the Two-Click penalty to the affected ad inventory. The ‘penalty’ will then require verification from users that click the affected ads via a second button labelled “Visit Site.” If the user clicks the second button, they will then be redirected to the advertiser’s landing page, the click will be registered and you will generate revenue from that click. If the user chooses not to click the “Visit Site” button, whether that be because it was an accidental click or because they choose not to pass this obstacle, the first click will not be registered and therefore no revenue will be generated. Unfortunately, this can result in a drop in click-through rate (CTR) as well as a drop in revenue.
If you suspect that your ad inventory is affected, you should look into whether your impression level has dropped. If your impressions have not dropped and your CTR has, you may be affected. In which case, you should then take action to improve the user experience and give Google the confidence that your users’ clicks are intentional. This can be achieved by avoiding accidental clicks through the methods outlined above. You should then continue to monitor your site traffic and click-through rate until your revenue and click-through rate returns to normal levels. This is often a sign that the ‘penalty’ has been lifted.
