It was in March 2010 that I started using AdSense, and ever since it has been a huge part of my blog monetization technique.
In the first 5 years I earned alot of money from AdSense, and realized no matter how many AdSense alternatives we talk about, AdSense is by far one of the best and the highest paying ad network for any blogger.
I have already shared some of the working tips to increase your Adsense revenue but as I mentioned, Adsense is very strict about AdSense TOS, which means you have to take care of certain things to make sure you don’t violate AdSense policies. We all know that getting Adsense approval is not easy and we need to do many things to keep our AdSense account active.
Recently, I got an email from Adsense team saying that Adsense serving had been disabled on one of my sites. I realized it was the right time to update this post and make new AdSense publishers aware of Adsense policies and the things to avoid, which may lead to an account ban.
Little out of context but since 2011, when Google launched Google Panda, they also made some major changes in Adsense quality guidelines. Especially, in 2011-2012 we noticed that many Indian and Pakistani Adsense publishers had been banned due to copyright violation and low-quality pages. Another major reason for Adsense ban is an invalid click, which is altogether a big topic, and I will cover it in another post.
Google Adsense is very strict about the policies.
These are the simple mistakes you and Adsense publisher should avoid getting themselves banned:
Understand Adsense TOS and Stop Violating Adsense Policies
Invalid Clicks
This is how maximum Adsense accounts get into the danger zone. Most publishers who start with Adsense usually ask their friends to click on ads or click on their ads from different IP addresses. If the Adsense team detects any such activity, they put your account in the ‘disabled mode’ to safeguard their advertisers.
Also, many new publishers ask their readers to click on ads, which is also discouraged by Adsense as stated in their program policies.
Using Adsense on an unsupported language blog
At the time of writing, Google doesn’t support all languages to qualify for Adsense program. If you have an approved AdSense account, and you are using it to show it on a blog, the language of which doesn’t qualify as per Adsense TOS, you need to make changes ASAP. If you use any method to make your blog multi-lingual and serve ads on it, it can be considered a violation.
Here is the list of AdSense supported language.
Sending ads on email
Many publishers started the trend of sending AdSense adverts within the email, and sometimes it goes viral. Google finds it against the program policies.
Advertisement label
Many publishers started using tricks like “Click here”, “Click to see hot babe, etc., which encouraged clicks. Encourage clicks? Oh, time to look at point 4.
You use pop-up scripts to show Adsense in pop-up and readers have to click on it to read the content? Another BIG NO.
Competitive contextual advertisement
Make sure you don’t use any other contextual advertisement program. Let Google Adsense be your one and only favorite advertisement program. Though for monetization, you can use many other ad networks. Here are some which I have used, and they comply with Adsense TOS.
Altering the Adsense code
So you are a programmer? Doesn’t matter. Changing your Adsense code in any way is not permitted by Google.
Shading with Image: Placing Google Adsense Image ad unit with the adjacent image can be a great and smart move, but guess what? Do it and Google AdSense might ban you. Google TOS doesn’t allow the use of shading your AdSense image ads with the adjacent image.
Hosting Copyright content
If you are running Adsense on a site that distributes copyright content like Movies, songs or any other files, you are most likely to get an instant ban. Adsense doesn’t allow putting Adsense on the site that distributes copyright stuff.
Linking to the site that distributes illegal and copyright content
This is something which I got to know about in 2012. This is also the biggest reason why most sites are getting the Adsense ban. If you are linking to sites like (streaming movie), illegal or pirated software, Keygen sites, your AdSense serving might be disabled for that particular site. Here is the other type of content, which is not allowed for Adsense sites:
- Porn, adult material
- Violent content
- Racial content
- Hacking/Cracking
- Gambling/Casino
- Pages selling Drugs, Alcohol (Beer or hard alcohol)
- Pages selling Weapons and ammunition
- Distribution of course work. Eg: Student Essays
These are just examples. There could be many more. So, you should avoid putting any such content on your blog or at least avoid serving Adsense on those pages.
Paid Traffic
If you are buying traffic for your AdSense enabled sites, it’s not permitted according to AdSense TOS. Also, consider reading Adsense landing page Quality guidelines, which will give you ample amount of idea as to what Google expects from your pages.
Promoting your post on social media or buying traffic from quality sites is not the violation.
Making ads look like part of the content
You are free to make your ads blend with the content by changing the color or size, but don’t make it look exactly like content.
Quick things to know:
- Don’t make your AdSense ads sticky. Making it sticky is against AdSense implementation policy.
- Using AdSense ads on a site which curates videos from YouTube or other video hosting sites, can put your account in the ban radar. To avoid this, ensure you also have original content on your blog. A good idea is to add 200-300 words content in your words describing the video.
- Don’t place AdSense ads on 404 error page, exit pages, log-in pages and thank you pages.
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