Understanding policy issues and ad serving statuses

In this article, we’ll review what types of issues affect ad serving and what the ad serving statuses mean in the Policy centre.

Issues that affect ad serving

If your site has an issue that affects ad serving, it means that your site either violates our programme policies, is restricted by the Google Publisher Restrictions or has confirmed click on. This includes cases when the ad requests are coming from your pages that you've embedded into the sites with issues.

There are four types of issues: policy violations, publisher restrictions, confirmed click and consent requirement. Only policy violations are required to be fixed. You don’t have to fix publisher restrictions, but note that ad serving will continue to be restricted on your site. We recommend that you act on confirmed click and consent requirement issues as they may impact your revenue.

You may also receive a warning before action is taken on your ad serving. Review the table below for more information about the issue types.

Type	What it means	Ad serving status	Examples
Policy violation (Must fix)	Your site is not currently in compliance with the programme policies. When this occurs, you need to make changes to your site to bring it into compliance with our policies.	Policy violations are marked Must fix in the status column. Policy violations are enforced with either Disabled ad serving or Restricted ad serving.	Examples of policy violations include, but are not limited to: Sexually explicit content Dangerous or derogatory content Layout encourages clicks
Publisher restriction	Your site falls under the Google Publisher Restrictions. While you can choose to monetise this type of content, you'll likely receive reduced advertising as not all ad sources want to bid on it.	Sites with publisher restrictions receive Restricted ad serving.	Examples of publisher restrictions include, but are not limited to: Sexual content Shocking content Online gambling content
Warning	Some policy violations and publisher restrictions have a warning period before action is taken on your ad serving. If you receive a warning, it means that your site is not currently in compliance with the programme policies or contains content that falls under the Google Publisher Restrictions. To resolve this, you need to make changes to your site to bring it into compliance. If you don't make changes, further actions may be taken on your site or account.	Sites with warnings receive Ad serving at risk.	Examples of issues that cause warnings include, but are not limited to: Ads and content overlap
Confirmed Click	Google Ads has determined that certain ads on your site are generating unintended clicks. This creates a poor user experience because the user ends up on advertiser landing pages instead of their intended content. Google Ads has added Confirmed Click on its affected ads. Confirmed Click adds a second click that improves the user experience by letting the user confirm their intent to visit the advertised page.	Sites with Confirmed Click added receive Confirmed Click on.	Implementation examples that you should review for, include but are not limited to: Ads close to navigational elements Navigational elements overlaid on display ads Buttons on top of or close to ads Site content on top of or close to ads Reflow of site content causing confusion. Any violations of the ad placement policies
Consent requirement	You're not currently using a certified consent management platform (CMP) registered with the IAB's Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) when serving ads to users in the EEA and UK. We’re rolling out the TCF requirement in stages, starting 16 January 2024.	Sites with consent requirement issues receive Restricted ad personalisation.	Consent requirement issues are: No CMP: Some ad requests on your inventory from the EEA and UK are missing a TCF string. CMP not certified: Some ad requests on your inventory from the EEA and UK are missing a TCF string from a certified CMP.

Inside the Policy center | Filters

Understanding ad serving status

The status of your ad serving lets you know how your sites with issues are impacted. The table below explains the statuses and what they mean.

Status	What it means	What you can do
Disabled ad serving	All advertising is blocked on your site. Your site isn’t serving ads due to a policy violation.	Review the issue description in the Policy centre to determine the changes that you need to make. After you address the policy violations on your site, you may request a review to enable ad serving.
Restricted ad serving	There are restrictions on the advertisers that can bid on your inventory. Your site is likely to have little or no buyer demand because not all ad sources can bid.	Review the issue description in the Policy centre to determine the changes that you'll need to make, if any. Reminder: Policy violations must be fixed, while publisher restrictions are optional to fix. Learn more about issue types.
Ad serving at risk	Ad serving isn’t affected yet, but you’ll need to make changes to your site to ensure that ad serving continues. This is due to a warning on your site. Warnings typically include enforcement dates, when further action is taken and ad serving is affected.	Fix the issues before the enforcement date to prevent ad serving from being restricted or disabled. Review the issue description in the Policy centre to determine the changes that you need to make.
Limited ad serving	This affects your AdSense account. Limited ad serving means that Google has placed a limit on the number of ads your AdSense account can show. Learn more about ad serving limits.	Make sure that you understand your ad traffic and users. Never click your own ads, and avoid partnering with untrusted or low-quality parties. Learn more about preventing invalid activity.
Confirmed Click on	Some ads on your inventory are creating unintended clicks so Google has added Confirmed Click on these ads.	Review your ad implementations. Learn more about disallowed implementations and recommended implementations. Our system automatically applies Confirmed Click when it detects accidental clicks. Similarly, the system automatically lifts confirmed click when it no longer detects accidental clicks.
Restricted ad personalisation	Some sites are not using a certified CMP to ask for user consent. This means only limited ads will be eligible to serve in the EEA and the UK. Sites using a certified CMP are eligible for personalised ads or non-personalised ads (NPA).	No CMP: If you haven’t already, choose a certified CMP registered with the TCF. Implement your CMP solution. Learn more about certified CMP options. CMP not certified: If you have your own CMP, register for certification. If you use a third-party CMP that hasn’t been certified, encourage your CMP to register for certification. You can also see our list of certified CMPs. Note: If you recently adopted a certified CMP, it may take up to 48 hours for this issue to be resolved and removed from the Policy centre.