Correct. Much like I just shared on another recent topic:
not every ad counts. You only see ad count increase if it’s a paid ad. If the ads you are seeing are about Brave, such as Brave VPN, Brave Technologist Podcast, or whatever then it pays 0 BAT and does not move the counter up.
It used to increase the counter for all ads seen. Now it doesn’t.
You can see this at the Github for https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/31019
do not count Ads in Rewards whose value is 0.0 BAT for connected users
Only ads that pay us will increase the ads viewed counter. If you view any Rewards ads which pay 0 BAT, it will not increase the count.
This means the 5 or so ads you saw likely were 0 BAT ads. As such, they don’t move the counter.
You can look into your ads history to see. Go to brave://rewards/ and click on 30-day ads history. You can see all ads viewed. Which ones did you see?
Example from my history
Then can check https://sampson.codes/brave/ads/my_region/ to see ads and their pay.
fanon.club
It pays 0 BAT. So it would not show in ad count.