High % CTR and no of clicks from 'unknown' location

[codeandro]

For a month now, I can see unusually high CTR% and large number of clicks for few apps (android) from 'unknown' location from geo stats. Is anyone else also facing the similar issue? Not sure if it's a malicious attack with wrong intention from app rival, Bit worried as never have seen such nos. for my last 3 yrs with Admob.

Thanks. 

[Alan]

I'm on the same boat, for the last week I've been receiving clicks from an unknown country, every single day the same amount of clicks, so yeah, it smells fishy. In any case, I've been searching around and we are not the only ones with this issue. Just to be safe I've contacted admob via it's contact form tu make them aware of this situation on my account. 

[Francisco Gomez]

I have some click from Unknown, after integrating analytics, I think most of those clicks are from caribean zone.

[Rafael Grossi]

Yes, it has been occurring to me now. Many clicks, more than normal, high CTR and many from unknown location.
I sent a message now to admob to check it for me...

[Rafael Grossi]

I'm having this issue too... what to do?

[Dennis Nilsson]

You're not alone, I don't know what is happening but I'm afraid of getting banned. Hopefully admob knows what's going on.

Here is another thread about the same issue: http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/advertising-networks/2109-admob-incredibly-high-ctr-one-day-zz-somebody-sabotaging-my-account.html

[alex mendelsberg]

Same Problem here. I have an app with a small # of downloads (10 to 50) and i saw that im getting a massive number of clicks form an unknown location. this started the same day as yours.

[Raul Escuredo]

The same case here and... the past 16/9 i was banned... this is maddening...

[Eric Leichtenschlag]

We have investigated your recent concerns about your AdMob ads receiving higher than normal click through rates (CTR), and have found that this spike in traffic is due to clicks generated by a third-party crawler. Because this activity does not reflect genuine user interest, we have filtered it as invalid and refunded the associated revenue to advertisers.  As a result, you may see larger-than-normal discrepancies between your estimated and finalized earnings. Please be assured that your account standing is not impacted by this traffic.

For more information about invalid activity or general policies, please visit https://support.google.com/admob/answer/1307237. Please also visit our Ad Traffic Quality Resource center here http://www.google.com/ads/adtrafficquality/index.html.

Disabled accounts should be unrelated to this higher than normal CTR activity. If you would like to appeal your disablement, please visit https://support.google.com/admob/contact/disablement_appeal.

Thanks,

Eric