It was in March 2009 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 about 2.2 million INR just 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 and that is why I removed the Global Translator plugin to save myself from getting banned from Google Adsense.
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.
- Read few more from official Google page
- Meanwhile, do you know a guy named Aaron sued Google AdSense for banning his account? Read the interesting Aaron story here.
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. In below image you can see what kind of mimicking is not acceptable:
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.
But if you are a victim of the AdSense ban game, ShoutMeLoud’s earlier post on AdSense alternative program will be very useful for you.
Tip: Use Affiliate marketing to increase your blog income.
Hi Harsh,
I applied to Google Adsense (with my personal email instead my blog’s domain) a week back and today I got this message “Issues:Insufficient content” but I’ve 100+ posts. Please look at my website “webblogsforyou.com”, and if possible let me know what could be the reason for disapproval. I’m really interested in getting Google AdSense but if you can suggest me any alternative then it would be be fine (Actually, I saw your other posts about adsense alternatives but facing very difficulty to find out best that suites best for my blog as per current statistics).
Website statistics: Domain age: 6 months, Daily visits: 100-200/day and I’m updating contents regularly.
Any kinda of help would be appreciated, thanks in advance.
Regards,
Meet
I just want to know if we use youtube video links or showing any youtube video on our blog. Do they gonna ban adsense account?
@Deepanshu
This doesn’t violate any AdSense policies. You can embed Youtube videos on your blog. Make sure these videos are not about the prohibited content like hacking, poker and other topics which are banned on Google AdSense.
@Harsh
I just started blogging. just a single post. I posted a content about downloading videos from facebook with picture steps. does posting about facebook or youtube or any other software violates adsense rules? I read adsense’s tos but i couldnt find an answer.. Does posting pictures and videos of other sites violates adsenses tos? I read something like framed windows on tos…
@Jatin
ADSense team definitely take action against sites talking about downloading Youtube videos, which I have seen in the past. Regarding Facebook videos, I don’t believe that should be an issue.
can some one add adsense to a dating site?
@Moses
Remember this “The AdSense network is considered family-safe, which means that publishers aren’t permitted to place Google ads on sites which contain pornography, adult, or mature content. If your site has content which you wouldn’t be comfortable viewing at work or with family members around, then it probably isn’t an appropriate site for Google ads. Please note that we also don’t allow AdSense for search (AFS) search boxes to be placed on adult content pages.”
I have written a post on fake windows activators affecting a computer and have told how they do it furthur i have told not to use them, still is that post against adsense TOS???
@Udit
If you not telling them how to activate Windows or something in similar line which promote piracy, I believe you not violating any AdSense rules.
Dear Harsh, I have a website and the domain age is four months. I’m getting 150-200 visitors per day by all sources (Organic and Social Media), and having more than 90 posts and each posts are of almost 1000 worlds. Can you please let me know is my website illegible for Google Adsense?
@Sameer
The stats and information you provided, seems like you are eligible for AdSense approval. Go ahead and apply for you. If possible use domain Email address. i.e: [email protected] or [email protected]
Here is a guide to help you: http://wpfreesetup.com/configure-professional-domain-email-address-via-outlook-on-bluehost/
Hi Harsh,
Amazing post. Please can you tell why we should use domain email address? What are the benefits and can we use this email address “[email protected]” to create Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tool & Google Adsense account?
Please reply..
Thanks.
@Andrew
You can use “[email protected]” to create Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tool & Google Adsense account
When using domain specific email address, it makes your application look more authentic, professional.
Harsh,
Thank you so much for your reply, could you please guide me how to create Google Analytics , Google Webmaster Tool & account with “[email protected]”?
Hello dear i have a Google adsense blog but traffic is low can i use adword for increasing traffic to my blog ????
@Ashok
Instead of using AdWords, I would recommend work on SEO and Social media marketing of your blog. AdWords is useful when you are selling anything on your blog…. Else it will not be that fruitful. There are various other ways to drive traffic. Here are two articles to give you a start:
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/top-5-ways-to-drive-traffic-to-your-blog.html
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/roundup-of-useful-tips-to-drive-traffic-to-your-blog.html
Hi.. Harsh..
You wrote “Using Adsense on unsupported language blog :”
But I see many news websites like http://dinamalar.com has google ad units..
I double check here https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/9727?hl=en&topic=140 about indic langauges, there is no tamil language support. But http://dinamalar.com shows adsense ads..
How is it possible ?
@Venkat
They are using it till the time AdSense bans that domain or that AdSense account.
I got same email Adsense serving has been disabled on one of my site which is free classified ads site and it got moren 8k ads now i am unable to identify which ad is making problem can you suggest me any other tips regarding content violating
Thanks for all the points Harsh, eespecially Paid Traffic.
I never knew that paid traffic is not good for adsense, through I never bought paid traffic.
Hi, is edited pics are not copyright of blogger? like dresses and tourist places etc
i just wanna ask is advertising my website that don’t violates Adsense policy like blogs or forums legal?
also is getting a huge traffic from one source violates adsense TOS?
because i’m aiming to advertise in a big forum and i want to know if this will be right
thanks for your attention.
Just got my Google Adsense for a while and trying to understand it.
Thank you for your sharing.
@Selena
Congrats for getting your AdSense account, and feel free to ask for any help or questions.
Harsh, someone sent a long article on gambling business as a comment on one of my post. After that I noticed that google ads has withrawn all their adverts on my blog. The ads are no more showing. I am a new blogger pls what do I do.
@Ogechi
Delete that comment or any other similar comment. You should moderate your blog comments.
How to protect our ads from getting invalid clicks from a particular area? and if we are using other websites images but give them credit, is this in copyright issue?
Hi,
I have created my adsense account yesterday but the ad still showing as “NEW” status ? Anyone knows why is that ?
Do I have to resubmit or wait ?
Regarding your last point that “WE CANNOT BUY TRAFFIC” for our Adsense site. But I have seen many websites who run their ads on Adwords and at the same time there are displaying Adsense ads on their websites. An example is “OLX” website.
So, Is this point really true that we cannot buy traffic ???
Hi Harsh am new to adsense am using Embeded video from dailymotion on my blog does it consider on copyright violation because most of the videos are not uploaded by i just embed them to my blog Kindly reply me quickly
Hi Harsh,
I have started my new blog on blogspot which contains a collection of “inspiring and entertaining YouTube videos”. Could you please let me know if i apply for the Adsense account for this blog will it be accepted or not?? Becoz as you mentioned about the copyright stuffs, most of the videos on YouTube are created by others and Google might not consider my Adsense account request. I am really confused as i am thinking that all my efforts is wasted now. Please suggest. 🙁
Thanks
Lokesh
@Lokesh
In most of the cases, Google AdSense accepts such application, as you are not violating anyone copyright.
Hi Harsh,
Really thanks for your reply but just to correct you here, before your replied to my question I posted the same query in the Adsense community forum and here is what they replied to me:
(1) Applications from India need to be 6 months old-: This I already knew.
(2) They are looking for text rich sites rather than image/video sites.
(3) Its against YouTube’s TOS for advertising to appear on pages with their videos unless there is substantial original text content to justify the page in its own right.
(4) In general Adsense don’t approve sites that are attempting to make money from other people’s content.
(5) As a general rule, think 20% videos/images and 80% text.).
Hope these points will help others as well, when newbies like me when they will apply for adsense account.
Thanks
Lokesh
Hello Harsh, I saw some sites who were giving link to free music sites, so is it legal? As they have Google AdSense still and also that article is nearly one month old.
Hi,
I have obtain youtube moneytization using the partner program. My videos are all software tutorial. Basically the screencast of how to use the soft/particular feature.
Youtube says we should have a copyright about the software visual. Does that mean if i have a genuine windows, i can apply for moneytization of those videos