What are the 7 biggest reasons behind Google implementing Limited Ad Serving in AdSense?

Quick Summary

Google has implemented Limited Ad Serving in AdSense to block shady publishers who generate fake clicks and/or impressions. This acts as a security system to protect advertisers’ funds and serves as a final warning to publishers that if they continue breaking the terms of service, their AdSense account will be permanently disabled. In this way, Google maintains the trust of its advertisers and the reliability of the entire AdSense ecosystem, ensuring the free value on the internet's ecosystem can keep running smoothly.

FAQs

Question: What is Limited Ad Serving in AdSense?

Answer: Limited Ad Serving is a restriction where AdSense shows fewer or no ads on the whole account's resources due to violating (knowingly or unknowingly) any AdSense policies of invalid traffic and/or AdSense publisher policy(ies).

Question: Why did Google implement Limited Ad Serving?

Answer: To protect advertisers from fraud and to maintain the trust and quality of the Google Display Network's ecosystem.

Question: Is Limited Ad Serving a permanent ban?

Answer: No, it’s usually temporary. However, if the root issues aren't fixed, it may lead to permanent account disablement.

Question: Can I fix Limited Ad Serving on my own?

Answer: Yes, but you need to first understand the actual reasons causing it before taking action.

Question: Is Limited Ad Serving a new policy?

Answer: No, it has been part of AdSense for years, but its enforcement has become more aggressive in recent updates.

Reason no. 1 – Limited Ad Serving may act as a signal to publishers that external sabotage could be harming your income

Suppose you own a website that's ranking at the 1st position on the first page of Google SERP. Now imagine there's a competitor whose site ranks just below you — in the 2nd position.

Ethically, that person may have already done everything within their control to outrank your website.

But when all ethical efforts fail, they might misuse AdSense publisher policies and invalid traffic loopholes to their advantage — trying to force a Limited Ad Serving issue on your AdSense account.

Why? So that you’ll eventually give up after not being able to fix it. Once you're frustrated enough, you'll be left with only three options: 1) Use ad networks that are alternatives to AdSense, 2) Keep waiting and trying to fix it, or 3) Shut your website down completely.

If you choose option 1 and switch to alternative ad networks, your site could get penalized and de-ranked from the top spot on SERP — and your competitor wins.

If you go for option 2 and keep waiting and spending on hosting, domain, content writers, and SEO with no results, you'll likely end up choosing option 1 anyway. Again, your competitor wins.

If you select option 3 and shut it all down, that's an instant win for your competitor.

Even if you think you’re smart and choose none of the above, your competitor might continue their sabotage. Eventually, you'll pay for that 'smartness' with a disabled AdSense account — and once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

So no matter what you choose, your fate is sealed — unless you're using our "Anti Limited Ad Serving" solution, which keeps the ad limit issue miles away from your AdSense account.

I strongly hope you've now realized that Limited Ad Serving is not your enemy — it's your early warning system. If your website is 100% policy-compliant and still gets limited, it means someone’s messing with your monetization. That’s your cue to act fast and protect your account with our "Anti Limited Ad Serving" solution, so you can keep earning from your once-in-a-lifetime AdSense account — safely and consistently.

Reason no. 2 - To tackle with the shady tactics of some shady publishers

As you've already read in that blog post, you must be well aware that the payment model for publishers of AdSense was "Click(s) on ad(s)," before 2024's AdSense new payment model's introduction.

So, it means that the publishers of AdSense were getting paid based on how many clicks they were able to get on their AdSense ads.

In 2024, AdSense came with a big change towards their payment model that they will start to pay their publishers on the basis of "impression(s) of ad(s)."

So, it means that the publishers of AdSense were started to get paid based on how much number of ads that they can show to their visitors.

Google is transparent to their publishers and advertisers but some shady publishers started to misuse their payment model's detail to their advantage and below are some most famous real life cases.

Reason no. 3 - 2007 AdSense Click Fraud Scam: South Asian Networks Exploited System Until Permanent Ban

They started to buy multiple AdSense accounts along with their monetized resources too, in a large amount. Hired some boys, given them computers, internet and a detailed schedule which was arranged in such a way so that every AdSense account always get considered in the safety zone. Told them to clicks on ads of each AdSense account on a regular basis. Unfortunately, they were able to withdraw tons of money but AdSense took the initiative and permanently disabled such accounts and gave refunds to their advertisers from his own pocket. This happened in 2007 and people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh were in the top 3 list, who were reportedly doing it.

Reason no. 4 - 2023–2024 AdSense Click Fraud: Advanced Spoofing Attempts Crushed by Invalid Activity Policies

In 2023 to 2024, they started to pose as real human visitors by using relevant stuff which enable them to do so (I'm not writing the exact name of what they were using because I don't want to promote it anyhow) and started to click on ads of AdSense which were being displaying on their resource(s) at that time.

To avoid getting caught by multiple safety measures and complex algorithms of AdSense (for a limited time, of course) they started cleaning whole device and erasing digital and local footprints and fingerprints as much as they could.

This thing evolved but AdSense evolved even more than them. Unfortunately, in the early stage, there were some publishers who were able to get that money withdrawn and AdSense had to refund the funds of advertisers from his own pocket this time too.

Right now, if someone tries this, or something like this, then their AdSense account gets disabled permanently and whatever they think that they've earned will get deducted completely under policies of invalid activity and they'll end up losing their once in a lifetime AdSense account and all of their AdSense-linked resource(s) too and yeah - they don't get paid at the end.

Reason no. 5 - 2024–2025 AdSense Impression Fraud: Fake Traffic Tactics and Google’s Permanent Bans

But they didn't stopped there. Because in 2024 AdSense rolled out an update that they'll be paying to their publishers based on just "ad impressions" which means now there's no need to get clicks on ads as they'll get paid whenever a visitor only sees an ad on their AdSense monetized resource(s). 

So, they again thought to use those relevant stuff to pose as real human visitors in order to generate fake ad impressions and they did it again but long story short - they end up like earlier. But still in 2025, there is a huge amount of publishers who are still doing it without any regret. But on the flip side of the coin, AdSense is actively combating with such shady tactics of some shady publishers and they're actively disabling only such AdSense accounts permanently and offering refunds to their relevant advertiser(s).

Reason no. 6 - Limited Ad Serving: AdSense’s Defense Against Incentivized Traffic and Fraudulent Publishers

Some publishers tried to use certain third-party platforms that incentivize real people with small payments to click on ads or visit multiple pages of their sites. This was an attempt to generate fake ad clicks and/or impressions and bypass AdSense’s fraud detection, but these tactics ultimately failed because AdSense permanently disables accounts involved in such practices and refunds affected advertisers.

This time too, Unfortunately, those who did it early were somehow managed to get that revenue to be withdrawn but after that, they weren't able to get more revenue to be withdrawn as AdSense did the exact same to them too and returned the funds to their respective advertisers.

So you see, when such publishers get “Limited Ad Serving,” it’s AdSense’s security system, which stops shady publishers from doing shady stuff. It is also considered a final warning for them, telling them indirectly to stop what they’re doing, or else, according to AdSense terms of service and publisher policies, their AdSense account will get permanently disabled.

On top of that, it secures the funds of those whose money is the heart of the ecosystem on which AdSense operates. Limited Ad Serving is beneficial for stopping shady publishers from clicking on ads, as AdSense starts to stop showing ads to all the visitors of all of their resources.

This means they can’t see ads, which simply means they can’t click on them or give impressions. So, in order to protect the funds of advertisers, Google had to create Limited Ad Serving so that the ads displayed via AdSense won’t get fake clicks or impressions, which ultimately means their funds will always be safe and secure from such shady publishers.

Reason no. 7 - Protecting the funds of advertisers of Google display network (GDN)

You'll be wondering, "why you've told me all this above?" because whenever they did it then the funds of advertisers of AdSense gets used up but they don't get what they're paying for.

For example, just think for a second that you're a person who runs a website. Your goal is to make it a "brand" in its niche. To do so, you want to get people to come to your website who're highly interested in your website's content. To make it a reality, you have multiple choices and as you take it as a business too, then it means your bread depends on it so you start spending on ads thinking that you'll get good ROAS but instead, all of your budget gets completey used up and you'll end up with a highly negative ROAS (which means huge loss) as all these clicks on your ads were fake as there were shady publishers at the backend who're clicking on your ads that you're running using Google AdWords and they're being displayed to those shady publishers' resource(s) via AdSense.

Suppose you somehow got the budget for spending on ads, as a loan, and now your in a very bad position from all aspects as your funds have been used up and your confidence became zero because you thought that you'll run ads and after that you'll make some profit. But now just think as you've used Google AdWords and your ads were being displayed via AdSense and at last you've ended up with huge loss then will you ever think of running ads on Google AdWords again? No, right? The same goes for each and every advertisers out there. AdSense will give you refund if shady publishers messed up with your ads but your earlier confidence has already been shaken and your trust on AdSense won't be that same as it was before.

That's why, when publishers, who're linked with Google's bi-product "AdSense" - do shady stuff like this or similar to this then at the end of the day, Google is the one who loses trust, reliability, dependability etc of their advertisers and these things are priceless in terms of business.

So, I strongly hope that now you have got some pretty good ideas about the reasons that why Google has to create "Limited Ad Serving" and yeah - it's all about protecting the ones who's funds are running the whole ecosystem of free value on the internet.

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