“Google AdSense Ad Serving Has Been Disabled to Your Site”: Here’s the Fix

Whenever we talk about blog monetization methods, AdSense is discussed as one of the favorite methods because it offers us recurring income and it is currently one of the highest paying ad networks.

These days Google AdSense strongly considers the quality of pages where ads are displayed, and they take this very seriously.

An email which no blogger or webmaster wants to receive from Google AdSense is one with the following subject line: “Google AdSense Ad Serving has been Disabled to Your Site“. A few days ago I joined the club of unfortunate recipients of this email. Following is the email which I received from the AdSense team in its entirety:

Hello,

During a recent review of your account we found that you are currently
displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our program
policies
(https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-1pp-en).

————————————————–
EXAMPLE PAGE:
http://shoutmetech.com/594/websites-to-watch-free-movies-online-without-downloading/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ShoutMeTech+(ShoutMeTech+%7C+Technology+Blog)

Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may
exist on other pages of this website or other sites in your network.

VIOLATION(S) FOUND:

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL: As stated in our program policies, AdSense
publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on sites involved in the
distribution of copyrighted materials. This includes hosting copyrighted
files on your site, as well as providing links for or driving traffic to
sites that contain copyrighted material. More information about this
policy can be found in our help center (
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=105956
).

ACTION TAKEN: We have disabled ad serving to your site.

ACCOUNT STATUS: ACTIVE
Your AdSense account remains active. However, please note that our team
reserves the right to disable your account at any time. As such, we
encourage you to become familiar with our program policies and monitor
your network accordingly.
Issue ID# xxxxxxx

Problem with AdSense disabling my account and how I fixed it:

I have written in the past about how to avoid violating AdSense policies, and I have taken the utmost care to avoid any such violations myself. However, while I was aware of the fact that the AdSense team does not allow us to host copyrighted content, I did not realize that if we are linking to sites that share copyrighted material illegally, this is considered a policy violation. Amit Banerjee, has given a detailed insight on this subject which is worth reading.

In short, if your blog has external links which link to pages or websites that are distributing copyrighted content, your AdSense account might be in danger. I must say, however, that this is certainly a grey area, as many sites that are famous for free file hosting such as RapidShare and many others including torrent sites might fall into the same category.

Let’s assume your AdSense Ad serving has been disabled for a particular site, but your account is still active.  Here are the steps you can take to re-initiate your AdSense serving on that particular site:

• Delete all posts which violate AdSense policies
• Disable AdSense on all such posts (this might not be considered the best option)
• Change the domain, remove the content and re-apply for AdSense (a “last resort” option, which is least recommended)

May 2016 Update:

Once you have made all these changes, log in to your AdSense account & head over to policy violations page (Direct access here). Depending upon your violation, you would see your site listed on either one of the violation tab.

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Click on mark as resolved.

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In my case, I removed that content upon receipt of the email noting the violation. I had been linking to some free movie watching sites, and this was apparently a policy violation, and I thought I had corrected it. However, seven days after taking this action, I received this email from AdSense:

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Obviously I was very surprised to receive this email, and I immediately connected with the AdSense team and asked them to look into the issue directly, as I had removed the content violating their policies.

Steps to re-initiate your Adsense account:

Should you find yourself in this situation, this is the page which you will want to refer to closely. In addition, use this contact form to contact the AdSense team to tell them when you have made the necessary changes correcting the stated violation. When you reach out to contact the AdSense team, make sure you are logged into the same Gmail account with which your AdSense account is enabled.

As a reference, here is the email I sent to the AdSense team:

Hey AdSense Team,

I have been an AdSense publisher for the past three years, and it has been one of the main monetization methods for my blog network. I make sure to follow all of the quality guidelines and best practices mentioned for AdSense. A couple of days back, I got an email stating that some of my content is violating AdSense TOS, and I removed the content immediately. A week later I got another email stating that the AdSense ads were disabled for that particular site.

I believe this is a mistake, as I have made all necessary changes as requested. I would like to have a second review of my issue, ID=#####, and I am willing to work closely with you to make any changes necessary to offer more value. Looking forward to your response.

Regards

Harsh Agrawal

I sent my email using the contact form linked to above, along with all necessary details such as publisher’s ID, issue ID and the URL of the affected site. Within three days I received this email from the AdSense team:

Thank you for making the requested changes to your site in order to comply with our policies. After thoroughly reviewing shoutmetech.com, we have now re-enabled ad serving to this site. Because ad serving to your site was temporarily disabled, you many notice a delay of up to 48 hours or more before ads begin appearing on your site again. We appreciate your patience and cooperation.

So, if you face any such issues with AdSense banning a particular site of yours’, you know what steps you need to take to correct the issue, and how to get AdSense re-enabled.

I suggest that you take care to maintain the quality of your blog, do not copy and paste, and do not place ads on domains which contain auto-curated content. Indeed, if you are using any other method to automate your site, it is time to rethink your strategy, as the AdSense team is getting more and more strict about their policies.

Have you faced any such issues recently? Is your account renabled now? What corrective actions did you take and what channels did you use to contact the AdSense team?

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