Filtered traffic on your zones

Why some impressions don't earn

We record every ad we render, then run each one through invalid-traffic checks. An impression that fails a check is filtered: it still appears in your counts, but it does not earn, and the advertiser is not charged for it. This keeps both sides honest. You are never paid for traffic an advertiser would later dispute, and the same event log reconciles on both sides.

Your reporting shows filtered impressions grouped into a few plain categories. We show the category, not the exact rule or threshold, because publishing the precise trigger would just teach bad actors how to pace under it. The categories are:

Category	What it means
Automated	The request came from a known bot or automated user-agent, not a person.
Rate-limited	Too many impressions from the same network or the same viewer in a short span, a volume pattern real users don't produce.
Duplicate	The same viewer re-rendered the same ad in the same zone inside our de-duplication window.
Rate protection	Serving on the zone was automatically paused for a cooldown because its rate spiked, and impressions during the pause don't earn. See Automated rate protection. It's temporary and not a penalty.
Other	A filter reason that doesn't fit the categories above, usually a newer check.

What to do about it

A small, steady filtered share is normal. No ad network delivers 100% valid traffic. A category that suddenly climbs is worth a look: it usually points at a traffic source that changed. If Automated or Rate-limited jumps on one zone, check where that zone's traffic is coming from.

Country and network blocks are counted separately and are not included in these numbers. A blocked request never renders an ad, so it never becomes an impression here.

If a filtered figure looks wrong, contact us with the zone and date range and we'll walk through it. For how billing and counting work end to end, see How we count & filter traffic.