Understand policy issues, regulatory issues, advertiser preferences, 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 center.

Issues that affect ad serving

If your site has an issue that affects ad serving, it means that your site either violates our Program policies, is affected by a regulatory requirement, or is receiving less advertising due to an advertiser preference. This includes cases when the ad requests are coming from your pages that you've embedded into the sites with issues.

There are three types of issues identified in the Policy center: policy issues, regulatory issues, and advertiser preferences. You will not receive advertising where there are policy issues. Repeated policy violations may lead to an account suspension. You don’t have to fix regulatory issues or advertiser preferences, but you'll likely receive less advertising, which may impact your revenue.

You may also receive a warning before action is taken on your ad serving.

Review the tables below for more information about these issue types and their associated ad serving statuses.

Policy issues

Policy issues are caused if you fail to follow the Program policies when displaying ads on your sites. When this occurs, you need to make changes in order to receive advertising. Violations of the Program policies may result in ad serving restrictions, disabled ad serving, account suspensions, or account termination.

Here are some examples of policy issues:

Example	What's happened	Ad serving status
Sexually explicit content	Your site is not currently in compliance with the Google Publisher Policy for Sexually explicit content.	This policy issue is enforced with Disabled ad serving.
Google-served ads on screens without publisher-content	Your site is not currently in compliance with the Google Publisher Policy for Google-served ads on screens without publisher-content.	This policy issue is enforced with Restricted ad serving.

Regulatory issues

Regulatory issues are caused when ads on your site are affected by a country or regional regulatory requirement. Examples of such regulations include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), US states privacy laws, etc.

Regulatory issues can affect the type of ads users see on your site, such as personalized or non-personalized, or ad serving restrictions in some geographical regions.

Here's an example of a regulatory issue:

Example	What's happened	Ad serving status
Consent requirement: No CMP	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, the UK, and Switzerland.	Sites with consent requirement issues receive Restricted ad personalization

Advertiser preferences

Advertiser preferences means that some advertisers choose not to bid for ads on labeled content because these advertisers don't find certain content (e.g., alcohol, tobacco or sexually suggestive images) appealing or a good fit with their brand. Advertiser preferences could also apply as a result of how you place ads on your pages.

Advertiser preferences include issues that fall under the Google Publisher Restrictions, as well as treatments such as Confirmed Click. Issues labeled as advertiser preferences will likely receive less advertising. Fixing an advertiser preference is recommended as it can affect your revenue.

Here are some examples of advertiser preferences:

Example	What's happened	Ad serving status
Sexual content	Your site falls under the Google Publisher Restriction for Sexual content.	Sites with publisher restrictions receive Restricted ad serving.
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.

Warning

Some policy issues, regulatory issues, and advertiser preferences 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 Program policies or contains content that falls under the Google Publisher Restrictions. If you don't make changes, further actions may be taken on your site or account.

Here's an example of a warning:

Example	What's happened	Ad serving status
Ads & Content Overlap	You've received a warning that your site is not in compliance with the Ads & Content Overlap Program policy. You need to make changes to your site to bring it into compliance. Check your Policy center for the "fix by" date.	Sites with warnings receive Ad serving at risk.

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.

Example	What's happened	Ad serving status
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 center to determine the changes 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 center to determine the changes you need to make, if any.
Ad serving at risk	Ad serving isn’t affected yet, but you’ll need to make changes to your site to ensure 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 center to determine the changes you need to make.
Limited ad serving	This affects your AdSense account. Limited ad serving means Google has placed a limit on the number of ads your AdSense account can show. Learn more about ad serving limits.	Make sure you understand your ad traffic and users. Never click on 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 personalization	Some sites are not using a certified CMP to ask for user consent. Sites that do not adopt a Google certified CMP will not be eligible for personalized ads. Sites using a certified CMP are eligible for personalized ads, non-personalized ads (NPA), and limited ads.	No CMP Some ad requests on your inventory from the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland are missing a TCF string. 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 Some ad requests on your inventory from the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland are missing a TCF string from a certified CMP. 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 center. Low coverage A majority of ad requests on your inventory from the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland are missing a TCF string. You’ve implemented a CMP, but you haven’t implemented it correctly across all of your inventory. You have a CMP solution, but there’s an issue with the configuration or certification.