Google Adsense is responsible for bringing freedom and pleasure to millions of families across the globe. You probably use Google Adsense to earn money and for some of you, Adsense accounts for 100% of your online income.
Adsense is a great product that allows you to monetize their websites without worrying about advertisers, budgets, etc. It is very easy to copy and paste their javascript code onto your website/blog.
However, in recent days, it has brought a ton of pain.
The Darkside of Google Adsense
I am absolutely horrified as I read countless forums, blogs and stories about innocent Adsense publishers who lost their accounts for no apparent reason.
There are a lot of people who have been “banned by adsense” and are completely lost on what to do next. This is mainly because their entire income revolves only around Google adsense.
If you’ve been an AdSense publisher for a while, you must have surely encountered people who complain about being kicked out of the AdSense program for no good reason.
Nothing is worth than spending months and sometimes years building a sustainable flow of visitors & earnings then watching your entire dreams blow up in a few hours.
Worse of all, Google will take any unpaid earnings from you no matter how big or small. Some unlucky publishers have over $20,000 dollars when their Adsense accounts was terminated.
You send an e-mail desperately asking for an explanation, yet often will receive none. Your hard work and earnings vanish without a trace unless you take careful action.
If you do not protect yourself, you may experience pain, frustration, anger and extreme financial loss. You must pay attention for the sake of your income and your family’s wellbeing.
The Dreaded Google Adsense Banned E-mail
This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
——————————
Hello,
After reviewing our records, we’ve determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense account. Your outstanding balance and Google’s share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.
Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the effectiveness of Google’s advertising system, particularly the advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.
If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we’ve taken, how you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find more information by visiting http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
How to Get Your Adsense Account Back in 5 Steps
Remember, most bans come from an automated machine. Something went wrong and it caused a Red flag to pop up at G Headquarters. Your goal now is to to have a human review it.
1. Try and determine why your account was banned.
This is important because you need to know what happened before you can gather evidence. Google will not always tell you and many times they’ll tell you it’s because of “Invalid Clicks” which can mean anything under the moon.
2. Contact the Google Adsense team and be nice about it.
If you’re email starts with “You Jerks at Google Banned My Account For No Good Reason,” then you’ll not likely get it unbanned. Your emails should be very nice and non-judgemental. Assume it was an honest mistake by Google, because it may very well have been.
3. Provide Proof Of Your Innocence.
If you have a good idea of why your Adsense was banned, offer to give it to Google. This could be everything from server logs, a letter from the webhost or a WhoIs file. Be nice and politely show Google where they went wrong.
4. Have some patience.
The folks at Adsense won’t be tripping over their self to get to your case. I’d be sending follow up emails every other day or so and checking on the status of the human review. Remember to keep them nice and polite. You may also want to keep offering to give them evidence. Try and show you really want to help in the investigation.
5. Persistence pays off.
If you give up only after an email or two, then chances are you may never hear from them again. Stay with the follow up emails! Eventually they’ll get tired of you and either give you a Yea or Nay. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil!
There is no guarantee that these tips will help. But if you’re going to fight to get your account reinstated, this is the way to begin.
I can’t stress this enough, read the Adsense TOS before you cry about getting banned. You may have accidentally broken the rules so be careful with this method.
Is it Easy to Get Your Adsense Account Back?
In most cases, no. You can appeal the decision, but chances are the Adsense team will say no. If you fail to get a response, learn how to apply for a new account (I will explain this later).
If you’re not sure whether your website was banned, use this tool to check your domain name.
Why is Google so strict on its publishers?
It is understandable that Google are very strict when it comes to fraud. People who click on their own online ads aren’t stealing from Google, they’re stealing from the advertiser who has placed the AdWords Ads with Google. Google is protecting their advertisers’ interests because Adwords makes up the bulk of Google’s annual revenue.
Google has millions of Adsense publishers and will not hesitate to disable your account. Not only does the account become disabled, but also existing click-through earnings are refunded back to the advertisers. So play safe and try and report any suspicious matter to Google.
In other words, if you notice any of the below activities, report it.
Suspicious Clicks
accidentally click your own ads (it happens)
your site is suddenly featured on Slashdot, Digg, or some other high-traffic site
you know something (press release, review, etc.) is going to send a lot of traffic your way
you’re in doubt about anything
Please note that Google always takes the “guilty until proven innocent” approach in its dealings with publishers unless you show a pattern of co-operative behavior.
11 Most Common Google Adsense Mistakes Publishers Make
Ever visit a forum or blog and read something along the lines of this….
“Help! My adsense account got banned today…….“
It makes me wonder what the person did to get banned. It must have been probably one of the following items. Here are the top ways (in no particular order) to get “banned from AdSense”:
Generating Suspicious Clicks
It is against Google AdSense TOS to click on your own AdSense advertisements or to get others to click on your advertisements. Note that it is also illegal to solicit clicks from your visitors either verbally, or through your writing.
Accidents may sometimes occur, however, and according to the Google AdSense Team, infrequent accidents will not get you into trouble. Here is a list of common suspicious clicks questions and answers by Google.
Sometimes, you may also be sabotaged. A third party may decide to do a series of illegal clicks on your advertisements for the purpose of getting you banned. If you notice any suspicious clicks of this nature, Google encourages you to report it to them.
Use Google Analytics or other website statistics tracking software to obtain as much information as you can about the suspicious clicks. This will get them banned instead of you.
Instead of reporting the incident to Google, some people suggest that it is better to stay under Google’s notice and to just temporarily remove Google AdSense advertisements from the locations where there is suspicious activity.
Here is a useful post on the Google AdSense forum on how to deal with click-bombing. In addition, check out Google’s blog entry on invalid click activity and their Ad Traffic Quality Resource Center.
If your Google AdSense account gets banned because of invalid activity, you can appeal to Google using this form.
Publicizing your Google AdSense earnings information.
Opinions vary on this. Some people say that you are only not supposed to publish your Google AdSense CTR and eCPM figures publicly. Others say that you are not supposed to publish all exact earnings figures – including CTR, eCPM, number of clicks, and exact earnings numbers.
It is best to not publish a screenshot of your Google AdSense report page under any circumstances.
If you do screenshots of your other Google AdSense pages or of other Google tools (e.g., Google Analytics) make sure that none of your account information shows up in these screenshots – including your earnings numbers, your e-mail, and your Google AdSense ID.
This is important for your own privacy protection, as well as to stay on the good side of Google AdSense.
Clicking On Your Own Adverts (Click Fraud)
Never click on your own Adsense ads because Google can track clicks via IP addresses. Go to WhatIsMyIP to find out your IP address and use a proxy server if you are worried about accidentally clicking your own ads.
Not Following The AdSense Terms and Conditions (TOS)
Many people never fully read the AdSense terms and conditions, often referred to as the TOS (terms of service). Though the TOS can be vague at times, it is very explicit about various things you can’t do.
Not Following The Google AdSense Program Policies
The AdSense program policies are technically part of the AdSense terms and conditions, even though they’re listed on a separate page. This is where you’ll find the information about how many link or ad units you can use on a page, what kind of sites are acceptable, etc.
Opening Multiple Google AdSense Accounts
This has become much harder to do since Google has added algorithms to detect multiple accounts belonging to the same person or entity. Each person or entity can ONLY have one account.
If you have a legitimate need for two or more accounts, you must create a separate legal entity (like a corporation) for each additional account, and that entity must separately apply and be approved for a new account.
Ignoring Warnings And Questions From Google
Although certain events cause Google to automatically terminate your account, in most cases, terminations are preceded by a warning note from the AdSense team. This is your chance to defend yourself and to change.
If you’re not responsive, they’ll just go ahead and ban you. (If you’re going away for an extended period of time, you should check your mail every day or two and keep an eye on your AdSense earnings as well. Be sure to report any suspicious activity as soon as you see it.)
Showing pornographic material or linking to pornographic sites.
Google AdSense does not allow advertisements to be placed with certain types of content including adult, violent, and racist content. Content relating to alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and gambling are also not allowed. For a full list of unacceptable content topics, refer to the Google AdSense Program Policies.
For this reason, do not distribute content, including website templates or blog themes that contain your Google AdSense advertisement capsules. Since you have no control over what others publish in their website using your themes or templates, you may end up getting banned because of what others are publishing.
For even better protection, you can go to AdSense Setup >> Allowed Sites on your Google AdSense page to restrict your Google AdSense-ID to only trusted websites.
Some sites that support pornographic or other unacceptable content may point to your online site or articles. There is nothing you can do about that, so you will not be penalized for incoming links, just for outgoing ones. Be careful not to show pornographic material, use pornographic related text, or link to any pornographic sites.
Not Having a Privacy Policy
Google requires all AdSense sites to put a cookie disclosure notice in their privacy policy.
AdSense publishers must have and abide by a privacy policy that discloses that third parties may be placing and reading cookies on your users’ browsers, or using web beacons to collect information as a result of ad serving on your website.
~~ [Excerpt from Google AdSense Program Policies]
This only applies to AdSense publishers that run their own site, such as apersonal website or a personal blog. Publicly hosted sites such as HubPages, Blogger, and others have their own privacy policies, that will likely meet all the requirements of Google AdSense.
If you maintain your own website or your own blog, then it is important to include a similar privacy policy for every page that contains Google AdSense advertisements. It is easiest to include a ‘Privacy Policy’ link near to your website’s copyright message as is done in most professional sites. Refer to the Google AdSense Program Policies to determine what you should put in your website’s privacy policy.
Showing Ads on Non-Content Pages
Make sure you only display ads on contact rich pages like how to articles, blog posts and informative guides. Never show ads on the following pages:
welcome pages
error pages
thank you pages
A rule of thumb is at least 200 words (400 words is better) or the Adsense team may disable your account.
Show Ads on Language Supported Pages
Google Adsense supports the following languages: “Chinese (simplified), Japanese, Danish, Korean, Dutch, Norwegian, English, Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Swedish, Italian and Turkish”.
In addition, Adsense for search is available in Czech, Slovak, and Traditional Chinese. If your web pages language is not supported, do not use the code on such pages.
