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AdSense Account Disabled – What Should You Do?

Justin Cooke Updated on September 23, 2021

So you try to login to your AdSense account today and find it’s disabled. You frantically try again with no luck and then check your email to find Google’s contacted you to let you know your AdSense account has been disabled. Ugh…

We’ve had some readers and listeners email us about the fact that their Google AdSense account was disabled and were wondering how we continue to operate with such a potential risk looming. We were even called out in the comments section on Joseph Archibald’s blog about why we might be avoiding the topic or not sharing those risks with our readers.

While we did write a post about the risks of online publishing, we didn’t address this issue directly and I thought I’d lay out some of our thoughts here in this post. If you’ve found us vague on this subject in the past it’s mostly because it’s something we haven’t dealt with directly.

Most of our content is focused on building niche sites and AdSense monetization, so if you no longer have that as an option there hasn’t been much to say. Still, it’s a pretty serious issue for those affected and we wanted to give them the options that we know are available and would use if such a thing were to happen to us.

Are you sure your AdSense account was disabled?

Some have found that their AdSense ads were not appearing on their website or YouTube channel, but they still had access to their AdSense account. This may be due to the fact that AdSense has been disabled for that particular site, but their account is still active. (Alternatively, it COULD be that there’s a lack of advertisers in your niche, although less likely)

The best thing to do would be to check other sites to ensure ads are appearing or you could try adding someone else’s AdSense account to the site to see if the ads appear for them.

When your account is disabled, Google sends you an email stating as much and puts a general answer as to why the account was disabled. Google will likely NOT elaborate on the specific causes of the ban as that would give away specifics about their internal workings they’d rather not release.

You can read more about their through Google’s disabled account FAQ.  They also have a forum dedicated to disabled accounts that you can check out.

Why does Google disable AdSense accounts?

In reading and talking with many (not all) people who have had their AdSense accounts disabled it becomes apparent that most understand exactly what it is they were doing wrong. For those that were not aware, it becomes pretty obvious after just a bit of discussion that they’re blindly unaware about what is and is not allowed under Google’s ToS regarding AdSense accounts.

It’s extremely important for Google to protect their advertisers and they’ve obviously made that a priority within their system. If the advertisers aren’t comfortable they’ll be receiving legitimate and useful traffic, all of the affected advertisers would dry up and us publishers would be left with a system that doesn’t pay nearly as well.

Even if we don’t always get credit for clicks, get lowered value due to smart pricing, etc…we’re thankful Google is protecting the long-term viability of the AdSense program.


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Here are the primary reasons Google will ban AdSense accounts:

  1. Fraudulent Clicks – Google is extremely good at determining invalid clicks. Some publishers have thought that by contacting friends and family, having them search for their site, find, and then click on the ads keeps them in the clear but this is a huge risk and not at all worth the minimal rewards you might receive. Others have attempted to cloak their traffic or use automated software that will click on the sites for them which, of course, is unacceptable and deemed invalid activity.
  2. Fake Traffic – Publishers will either purchase loads of invalid traffic from often-shady sources or will buy websites where the majority of traffic is coming from shady sources. (Note: When I mention shady sources I’m referring to traffic that may be incentivized or directed to sites through traffic shares, social media, etc.) Often this traffic will have no interest in the particular subject, but does results in clicks that cost the advertiser money. This type of traffic is harmful to advertisers…they’re paying for traffic that will, ultimately, not convert for them. Sticking to search engine optimization (SEO) is a safer route for bloggers and site owners.
  3. Previously Banned Account – Sometimes publishers that have previously been banned will attempt to sign up for another account by changing their name, using a friend’s contact information, etc. Google is very adept at catching this and will shut you down when caught. Instead of signing up again yourself, consider the options we give below.

There is a 4th option that seems to happen much less, but does get reported from credible sources. Some have claimed to have done none of the above and still suffered with Google disabling their ad account for no reason. It’s tough, because there’s always a nagging question as to how truthful they are being about what they’ve done with their account and their sites.

I think, in some cases, they’ve ended up having problems with their account because they have told others about sites under their control. Whether to help or to harm, it’s possible that others went to their sites and were clicking on their advertisements. (It could be a function of readers of theirs going to their sites and trying to “help” their revenue by clicking on their ads or it could be jealous competitors doing it to cause problems with their sites.)

It’s also worth familiarizing yourself with Google’s AdSense Program Policies. Cross-check your online business with this set of policy violations to make sure you’re not in breach before moving on to the next steps.

How can I get my AdSense account back?

The only way to get your account back that is accepted by Google is to file an appeal form. You can file an appeal here or check out this article or this article about bloggers that appealed and were successful.

While the appeal process is the only way to legitimately reinstate your personal account, Google also allows legitimate businesses to apply for and join the AdSense program.

Many top AdSense earners intentionally setup and run multiple businesses (corporations or LLC’s) to diversify their AdSense income across accounts or to take advantage of smart-pricing rules and policies. No matter the reason, it’s important that these companies ACTUALLY be separate entities, both from a legal and banking perspective.

It’s also important to remember that whatever it was that got your AdSense account banned from the sites you had it on previously may again affect you if you decide to put that AdSense code on the same sites. If those sites had previously put the advertisers at risk, it’s somewhat safe to assume that another account may be considered to pose the same risk to those advertisers.

What alternatives are there to AdSense?

If you do find your AdSense account disabled, your appeal denied, and are not interested in setting up a company specifically for AdSense, all is not lost. While AdSense is known to have the best RPU (Revenue Per Unique) when compared to their direct competitor ad networks, you may be able to recover some of your lost income through the following AdSense alternatives:

  1. MonetizeMore– High requirements but also solid CPMs when you get in.
  2. Mediavine– Medium requirements to get in, but will outperform AdSense typically.
  3. AdThrive– Similar to Mediavine, depending on your niche AdThrive may outperform Mediavine so worth testing both.
  4. Ezoic – Often the next step once graduating from AdSense. They’ve created solid ad tech, tend to have lower requirements..

Another approach would be to take a hard look across your sites and focus on monetizing those with the highest revenue and see if you can closely match them with products at Amazon.

The problem for most of us would be the fact that the content would have to be changed significantly to be written more as pre-sale content, but interesting studies have been done that show Amazon or affiliate advertising, pound for pound, is a better earner than AdSense anyway…you might end up making more money on a few of your sites if you can get this down.

Switching monetization strategies from AdSense to the Amazon affiliate program is an interesting strategy anyway. If you can get this down you can carve out a niche for yourself purchasing AdSense websites and strategically converting them to Amazon. (Or…best case would be to find AdSense sites and find a way to sell your own product directly.)

You can also check out the exact “disaster plan” we have in place including an in-depth review of your AdSense Alternatives here.

Having your AdSense account disabled can be extremely difficult and frustrating.  If this has happened to you, we hope the above information helps you decide which route you should take next by giving you the options you need to recoup some revenue.


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Disclaimer: We are not speaking for Google or anyone working in the AdSense department. Additionally, we are not legal experts. Any advice given regarding AdSense or legal issues should not be construed as legal advice. Consult legal counsel if you have any questions regarding the advice above.

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Discussion

  • Imon Reza says:

    You have updated the post at February 29, 2020, but you didn’t update the information. Chitika Has Shut Down months ago, and 2 other website is inactive since long.

    • Greg Elfrink says:

      Hey Imon,

      I appreciate the comment. We recently did a web redesign and it auto updated hundreds of our old blog posts, including this one. I’ve just updated that link to reflect more current providers that are common in the industry nowadays.

  • Sana says:

    My site was disabled from google adsence, they didn’t mention reason behind disabled my account…we send appeal for Google..

  • Media.net is also a good alternative that was not mentioned in the least above, sometimes does better than Adsense, but it’s has location restriction, cos it’s mostly for publishers living in the US.

  • Arshdeep singh says:

    hi,
    previously my 2 adsense individual accounts got disabled.
    my question is that, can i create a new business account?

    • Greg Elfrink says:

      Hey Arshdeep, I recommend asking people in the Proper PBN group on facebook. This article might be a bit outdated for what is the best practices on reinstating your Adsense account

  • Manju says:

    Thanx Alex. I love your blog is really informative. Have signed up for chikita and got approved thanks a lot bro

  • Hi, My Adsense is disabled. Can I re-apply for AdSense with same website and other accounts?

    • Greg Elfrink says:

      You can certainly try. I would recommend joining facebook groups like the Proper PBN Group and asking in there. A lot of people there have dealt with this issue and might provide some good insights for you

  • My AdSense account recently got banned for no reason. Please what should i do??

    • Greg Elfrink says:

      Hey Wisdom!

      That is a tough call. I would go into the Proper PBN facebook group though and ask there. I’m sure tons of people with a similar experience there that might be able to help you out.

  • Kathryn says:

    Are these methods eligible to do if monetization has also been disabled?

    • Greg Elfrink says:

      What do you mean by the monetization being disabled? As in you took the Adsense units off your website?

      Depending if your website had anything offending the terms of use, then it might help you get the account back by taking off those ad units from that specific site.

  • Abu Hanzla says:

    Last Few days ago my Adsense Non-Hosted USA Account Was disabled by Non-Verified Billing Address. Now with your helping article, I have sent an appeal to the AdSense by adding my Publisher ID and Relevant Email account address. Now am waiting for a positive reply from Google AdSense. I Hope my request for enabling will be approved. Thanks once again.

  • Sawan says:

    Hi there,
    Recently i got my Adsense disabled due to an unknown reason, my friend was using that for his own websites and then gifted it to me, i just changed the details like password and verification info and next day got email with the disability of account. What should i do?

    • Greg Elfrink says:

      Hey Sawan,

      I would avoid sharing an Adsense account like that if at all possible. I would recommend trying to create a new account on a different IP.

  • Arun says:

    Really Great information……

  • Last Few days ago my adSense Non Hosted USA Account Was disabled by Non Verified Billing Address. Now with your helping article I have send an appeal to the adsense by adding my Publisher ID and Relevant Email account address. Now am waiting for positive reply from Google AdSense. I Hope my request for enable will be approved. Thanks once again.

  • very valuable information for new bloggers thank you

  • Sarah John says:

    Hey you’ve shared Great info, Now after reading your article I’ve Send a Appeal To Google to enable my AdSense.

  • AJ says:

    My adsense account is banned by the “invalid clicks” activity, then I send a appeal to google,I don’t get any reply from there! What can I do next?

  • Nathaniell says:

    I was wondering if you guys have any tips or lists of things required (at least in guessing) to make the LLC a separate entity. I’ll have the LLC registration, and EIN, and a separate bank account, but do I need a separate phone number? Should I be worried about forwarding emails to other emails associated with an email I used under my banned account?

    As you say, Google is adept at figuring out who you are. I am concerned that I will go through this whole process and something stupid like email address commingling will get me banned again.

    • Justin Cooke says:

      Hey Nathaniell,

      I would go above/beyond to make “everything” separate. Yes, I would have a separate phone number, email address, etc. Don’t have anything connected to your personal accounts.

  • shamsh says:

    very good/useful information.
    thankyou.

  • Zaina says:

    Lots of judgment in the post and in the comments.

    I had my account disabled for “invalid clicks”. What that means, I have no clue. I made a vegan cooking channel and was uploading video recipes. I invited my friends on Facebook to watch and showed my videos to my friends at home whenever they came over and invited them to subscribe. I made a website that outlined the recipe instructions and linked the videos to it.

    What exactly have I done wrong? I have never clicked once on a single ad. No one as far as I know clicked on any ads. I as given no warnings, no advice, and no explanation except that. The TOS need to be explained further I think. Some people genuinely might have no clue what went wrong.

  • josaih ukpabi says:

    please i didnt know why my account was disabled,pls help me reinstart my account and i want to know how i violated google terms and service to avoid violation again,thanks for consideration.

  • Ileana says:

    Very Informative post…i had faced these problems in past and i even submitted the reconsideration request but my request was rejected as my reconsideration request was not up to the mark.
    I want to ask how to file a good reconsideration request to Adsense, so that it could have better chances for approval. I mean what are the criteria and important points that we should keep in mind while submitting a reconsideration request. A example of the reconsideration request would be really helpful.

  • Hi nice suggestions.. I had experienced with those companies and they should work well with the right niche you will put them on.. I always thought clicksor would be on this list as its one of the companies i used when i got banned with adsense too..

  • vamsi says:

    yesterday my adsense account has been disabled and for copyrighted content and is there any chance to account back…?

  • Devon says:

    If anyone from Google is reading this, please let me know if its possible to get my AdSense account back. Link is below. Appreciate it!

    An Appeal For Google AdSense To Establish A Second Chance Program
    http://www.addictootech.com/bs-google-adsense-doesnt-think-people-deserve-second-chance/

  • LC says:

    Thanks for the article…I am not sure if you see this anymore..
    But I really need some suggestions on my situation now…

    Recently I got banned from Google Adsense, I do asked some of my friends to click on it and I have accidentally clicked the ads a few times during last month…

    Is there any chances I can get back my account, if I violate the policy? I have read the policy again very carefully and now know I am deserved to get banned, but is there any chance that I can get back my account?

    Thanks so much!

  • Will says:

    So, my account was disabled about two weeks ago, I created an appeal basically stating that I have done absolutely nothing wrong, highlighted that my main site got a significant amount of traffic from Facebook & Google organic search, told them I could provide data for the last 18 months if needed and ended the appeal by mentionining that I know exactly how Adsense & Adwords works having worked alongside Google for the past 5 years in a digital advertising agency.

    They have yet to reply, but…I noticed advertising was on my site again a couple of days ago, logged in to Google Adsense thinking to my self, no way…they are never going to have re-instated the account that fast, to my surprise they did…and the revenue that goes with it.

    Not sure what to think about it, obviously their automated systems for banning accounts makes mistake, someone clearly saw this appeal and re-instated the account based on that, scary business though!

    I dare to think how stressful this could be for someone who solely depends on Adsense as their main revenue driver.

    Anyways, to those who have had their accounts suspended, go through the appeal process – it obviously works, and good luck!

  • reg says:

    Google actually doesnt manually check the website.
    I was banned on a site and rewrote the content. The link was checked but not the site but the site (as a whole) was claimed to be scraped. It comprised 50 articles I personally wrote. My next option was to remove the offending link and then reapply for appeal to have the charge reversed. This time I didnt place the offending link URL in the objection but placed a link to the main page. The Google “manual reviewer” based on my visitation statistics came in once again via the offending url (which now doesnt exist) and still declined my website.
    End result. Loads and loads of time wasted writing articles down the toilet. All of a few seconds visit by google to claim an entire site is scraped.

    Meanwhile i see many ads on sites that lack content, thin content, contain gibberish etc.

    After that I triedsome of the companies above and some of the results were so pathetic in major niches i discontinued. The earnings were so low to not even warrant promoting those networks for pennies as thats what I was essentially doing.

  • Great article, My adsense is disable due to some in activity. I don’t know why? I reapply for it in Google . Now god know what will happen?

  • myaspirantmyleader says:

    My adsence account was blocked 1 year ago. I made an apeal and I was not successful. I lost a lot of money. But the alternatives above are a waste of money. Can I register a new domain and move the websites there then create an adsence account afresh using my other gmail account? Is it possible?

    • Justin Cooke says:

      You can try, but always run the risk of being banned again.

      You might try:
      – Different site
      – Different ownership/name
      – Different hosting account
      – Don’t login from same IP
      – Different bank account attached
      – Different name/person
      – Different address

      All that and it still might not work. 🙁

  • akonline limited says:

    We are a limited company and were monitizing our sites from adsense. One sudden day we noiced that adsese have disabled our account and all our sites. They have never even given us any single warning before. We had around 13,000 dollars in our account when they banned us. Please let me know If I have any legal way of challenging them?

  • mumbai aao says:

    Very nice and helpful article sir , I am from hitblogger.com

  • Chiranshu Monga says:

    Helping Tips To Stop Adsense Ban

    http://www.blogoturn.com/tips-to-stop-adsense-ban.html

  • Prime Aque says:

    Thank you for this helpful article. You are right, the world will not fall apart without Adsense.

    I have a question though, if a particular site is blocked by Adsense (Google), is it possible that after a certain period of time, it will be unblocked?

  • Parveen Kashyap says:

    I think you all guys must check your website HERE after your account is disapproved, may be it has been banned by Google Adsense Itself

  • Krishna Chaitanya Kollu says:

    Sir Presentlly I am Banned So I am like to change the .com to .net and again apply for new adsense with new account is there anything result while in getting them

    • Justin Cooke says:

      Hey Krishna,

      Once you’re banned, that’s it, unfortunately. Applying for another account isn’t likely to work. Even if it does work, they’ll likely find the second account and ban you there too. 🙁

  • http://pastebin.com/qh6Tta3h — Whats really going on with Adsense

  • OnlineAdPro says:

    I work much more with advertisers than with publishers, but, interestingly, I see the same fundamental problem with both sides: over-reliance on Google. I see many companies, including major, international companies, waste a ton of money on Google advertising, when much better, more cost-effective methods abound. Sure, AdSense can be great for monetizing niche web sites, but there are many fine companies other than Google around the world, and much great technology to help you monetize web sites. My recommendation for most publishers is to utilize a portfolio approach to monetizing your sites. For example, maybe use AdSense, 1 – 2 affiliate networks, and 1 – 2 CPM/CPC based networks. This way, if you have any issues with one of them, you’ve still got your other revenue sources in place. Google does flex its muscle like a monopolistic player, and publishers really don’t need to accept that, as there are many viable monetization options available.

  • kas says:

    I got banned today, and I sent in my appeal right away. My blog has been mostly slow for a few months on my part, but I just really got back into it over the last couple of weeks. I set up adsense, got approved and was excited and hopeful. Then I started noticing I was getting traffic and lots of it. At first I thought it was legit, and then googled it to find it was actually trawling malware bot-sites. I read about thhem, and read that there is nothing I can do anyways and that google sifts thru their illegitimate traffic at month-end and adjusts your revenue based on that. Never did I think that I would get shut down. I just set up my fan page last night, and a new post. These bot-sites “attack” your pages more frquently when you post often. And I think that is what happened. I didn’t do any of this, it happened to me, and I got penalized because of it. These sites are very familiar to many bloggers; it’s an epidemic of sorts. I’m at a loss for how to get these bots off my site 🙁 (examples: vampirestat, adsensewatchdog, 7secretsearch). I advise against visiting the sites, they aren’t good. So, tell me again how I did this to myself?

    http://Www.conquertheclouds.blogspot.com

    • Justin Cooke says:

      Hey Kas,

      Sorry to hear this happened to you. It won’t help you now, but when you see traffic spike and then notice it’s from bots you’re best off contacting AdSense to make them aware of the sketchy traffic. You can also disable your AdSense on the site until you’ve noticed the sketchy bots have died down.

  • CSEOS says:

    Don’t put AdSense on any sites that are getting a lot of local traffic.

    “Local Traffic” being from IP addresses close to your home address, and your home IP address.

    We did the research, and found that many honest/legit publishers are losing AdSense accounts because the above reason.

    • Interesting, can you provide a link with your research to support this claim?

      • CSEOS says:

        that would mean showing all of our domains and I learned never tod that the hard way back in 05 – research is this basically – all 4 accounts had identical themes, layouts, etc.- all traffic organic – all accounts going fine (two since adsense inception, and two since 2005)

        Then we added a site that had local traffic – once that traffic was getting a good flow the account was shut down.

        So we used account #3 for all sites from the shut down account except the blog getting local traffic and tested for three years because I suspected it as maybe the reason.

        After the local traffic site had too much traffic to resist we added it to an Adsense account – account was disabled a week later.

        We ALL Adsense from local traffic site/blog in 2010 and no issues since

      • सौरभ पटेल says:

        I aM. , My account desabled

    • Hurki says:

      That’s the reason I got banned. I had local gaming website, and many players was within 50km around… and now I’m permanently out of adsense :/

  • Sapna says:

    NOW A DAYS GOOGLE TARGETING ENTERTAINMENT WEBSITES (I THINK ) BECAUSE MY IS ALSO DISABLED

  • Albert says:

    Since Dec 2011 I’m waiting for matured payment from Bidvertiser! But still it is coming and coming. 🙁 I suggest stay away from Bidvertiser.

  • Rohit says:

    Thanks for info.. my adsense account is also closed..

  • brian says:

    I would like to add, it might be smart to wait until a website gets indexed, and starts receiving traffic before you add adsense. To be extra safe, you could wait like a month.

  • Brian says:

    I never had an account disabled, but Google did disable the ads on 1 of my sites. It’s always great to have additional ways to monetize.

    Great article btw, I have had success with monetizing with simple CPA offers, above the fold, and centered on the page, in a simple top 3 review format, using the same process you guys use. If you place amazon on a niche site you could do the same thing.

    Have an amazon product image, 2 sentences under the image and a text link to the product.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Hey Brian,

      We should definitely revisit Amazon sites sometime in the future…I wonder if we could be as successful there. With all the traffic we get we could probably get up to the higher tiers without too much difficulty…

  • Steve A says:

    Oh joy, I just got this dreaded email this morning. I’ve spent since December creating 85 niche sites and generated around $400 so far, none of which I’m going to receive now because my account is disabled.

    I’m just starting to go through my sites and try to figure out WHY and here are a couple of things I have noticed so far.

    On my latest batch of 11 sites I forgot to disable adsense on the privacy policy and contact page (i only activated adsense on these sites 24 hours ago so they are my prime suspects)

    On some of my earliest sites I only made the contact page available via the privacy policy page, so I’ll need to improve the navigation on those sites.

    Apart from that, I honestly can’t see why my entire account was killed. I was receiving normal amounts of clicks based on the traffic I was getting so I don’t think I had invalid click activity.

    I haven’t done anything suspicious in terms of traffic either. All my back links have been generated from UAW, MAN, Traffic Kaboom and SocialADR – maybe some of those sites are sending bad traffic?

    Anyway, after I somehow suppress this sinking feeling I have in my guy right now I’ll get around to fixing the problems that I suspect are causing the issue with my account and see what happens, but who knows if I’ll even get a response from the big G?

    • Most likely your best bet is to start another account. Use a different name, address and tax ID or you will get denied.

      My guess it was due to your Traffic Kaboom service. Remember to keep most traffic from search engines. Never buy traffic.

      • Steve A says:

        Thanks for such a quick reply Joe, you guys are really on the ball 🙂

        As far as I was aware Traffic Kaboom isn’t paid traffic, it’s a blog network much the same as MAN but with higher quality back links – unless i have sorely misunderstood something.

        This may be a silly question, but a new adsense account means all new sites too, right? Damn

    • JustinWCooke says:

      One thing Joe left off, I think, is that you should NOT apply for another AdSense account personally if it’s your personal account that got banned. That’s one of the top reasons “new” sites get banned…that same person had a previously banned AdSense account.

      Joe is mentioning that you should create a separate business (corp, LLC, etc.) and use that Tax ID, new address, etc. to create a new AdSense account. That new AdSense account would be attached to a completely separate legal entity and not to you, personally. I’d be careful going back and reapplying that new AdSense account for your business to sites where you had your AdSense account disabled personally. If you don’t know why it was that you were disabled, I would think you’d be setting yourself up for it to happen again, unfortunately.

      Disclaimer: Not a lawyer and this is NOT legal advice! As with anything, always check with an attorney when you have legal questions.

  • Anshul says:

    Its funny that the day Google rolls out the “Page Layout” algorithm penalizing sites for too many ads above the fold, i get an email from (as many others did) AdSense to put more ads on my sites but I guess as Justin noted that the two departments probably dont talk to each other!

  • Pankil Joshi says:

    I haven’t receive any emails about account disbled but ads are not showing on any of my websites m stucked

  • I appreciate your content – well thought out and based on good data as usual.
    But I am reading the post below and thinking ” I can’t keep up. Just when I wrap my mind around the idea of having Adsense only sites to maximize conversions (or Amazon only or whatever ) – the reader below that a site should have several different methods.
    And I just read the suggestion to put the ads below the fold today.
    I am attracted to this type of monetization, but oy vay!
    What do you think?
    Do you ever run other products on your sites besides Adsense?

  • Sudarmajilamiran says:

    Good observation WN,
    Yet if you stick into Adsense,
    What’s your best recommendation?

    Sud.L

  • World News says:

    Just my opinion (based on partial fact) I think you are about to see Google come down hard on “adsense only” sites, both in terms of search algorithm penalties and in some cases outright bans.

    It’s no secret that google’s search algorithm has been going through a lot of changes and they are striving to provide an optimum “user experience” and search results.

    As a result, Sites with too many adsense ads above the fold will be severely penalized by google (this is already happening)

    It just makes good financial sense to diversify anyway, so other advertising (monitization) methods should always be used.

    • Keith Mander says:

      Google don’t like too many ads, especially if they’re above the fold. That’s official: http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

      • JustinWCooke says:

        While the Google AdSense team may disagree…I see where the search quality team is coming from. I get a bit irritated when searching for something and I ONLY see ads above the fold.

        While we have some sites that are a bit heavy when it comes to above the fold advertising…not all of our sites are that way. To be honest…i get irritated when I find those types of sites too. Ultimately…that seems like a good change for user experience.

        As niche marketers…we can’t be against things that build a positive user experience. That’s where we’re going, ultimately…and I think it’s positive overall…both for searchers and for niche marketers!

    • World News says:

      Yep – here it is from google’ official webmaster blog – “In our ongoing effort to help you find more high-quality websites in search results, today we’re launching an algorithmic change that looks at the layout of a webpage and the amount of content you see on the page once you click on a result.

      As we’ve mentioned previously, we’ve heard complaints from users that if they click on a result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, they aren’t happy with the experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away. So sites that don’t have much content “above-the-fold” can be affected by this change. If you click on a website and the part of the website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience. Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”

  • Sudarmajilamiran says:

    a bit of OTT:

    Google does not love too much ads at above the fold.
    You could be penalized for this.
    What do yo think?
    Any ‘second opinion’?

    Thank
    Sud.L

  • Paul says:

    Great article as usual. I what it shows is that you need to treat your web properties like an actual business (obviously you guys do). What I mean is, have a plan in place prior to something like this happening where you switch how it’s being monitized immediately.

    Heck, you should really be testing alternative solutions anyway.

    As always great stuff! Keep up the good work.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      BOOM! Couldn’t agree more, Paul. Ultimately…this is your business! Even if you’re doing it for “Gettin’ Ahead” money as mentioned on FoolishAdventures (A site worth checking out)…you should definitely treat it like a business.

      • Paul says:

        I talk to so many people who want “passive income” I say “me too!” that’s the whole point. But what’s your plan when that income stops coming in…

        Back-up plans are for the cool kids!

  • Great article, Justin!

    Another Adsense alternative that isn’t that well known, but has excellent EPC is Media.Net. You must be approved by them, but the decision is generally quite fast, within 24-48 hours.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Hey Norma…thanks for your feedback!

      I felt like a bit of a jerk writing this post, to be honest. We’re pretty negative when it comes to people being banned. Our thoughts are that a HUGE majority “get it” after they’ve been banned. Most others deny it, but start to understand why it’s wrong after their AdSense account has been disabled. A VERY small minority have found themselves banned for outrageous reasons…

  • Jesse Skeens says:

    There’s one more alternative to add to the list: media.net, does very well some of my ecpms are higher than Adsense.

  • razvan says:

    f@!# google , they are the most crooked company in the whole world.
    they are the bosses of ppc and they ban publishers without any explanation with a simple email that they send away.

    “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.”

    so i posed a risk , which means that i havent done anything wrong but i still got banned.

    Well , guys i did what you guys do , i created micro niche websites and i managed to make about 400-500 euros a month. A very good revenue for me , and my only revenue , most of the revenue i kept investing in more sites.
    I got paid for about 7 months but this month on 13 january i got that f@!$#ed up email, “your adsense accounts is disabled”

    I’ve read tons of forum post where people got banned without any reason , just for posing a risk.
    Of course i filled an apeal and got denied .

    Well , google screw you and your scamming adsense .They took away my money from last month and this month as well, those were money for food and stuff like that. I worked hard on my sites for about 1 year and a half and now i lost i all because of these crooks.

    What i want to ask you guys is if anyone who purchased your sites got banned ?
    And the reason why you haven’t got banned yet is because you are friends with a google employee, a woman if i recall from a previous post of yours,you went and had a coffee with her.
    ]
    anyways , now i’m really sad sad sad.

    If you guys want any help with seo on your sites , please contact me , i would be more than happy to help you out , i’m very good at seo .

    • Keith Mander says:

      I can understand your pain.

      If you’d like, hit me up with the sites and I’ll take a poke around to see if I see anything amiss. But it sounds like an issue of false clicks or paid traffic, according to that email.

      I’m after SEO help as it so happens, so shoot me a note if you’d be interested in some work.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Hey Razvan,

      For about a minute I considered deleting your post…but I’m not a big fan of censorship and, due to the nature of my post here, I thought it was relevant.

      There are going to be PLENTY of people that are upset with Google and their AdSense program. While I think there are exceptions…most of the people banned actually DO pose a risk to the advertisers on the Google AdSense program…and on the publisher side…I DO think those people should be banned.

      There will be mistakes…but overall it’s extremely important that Google respects and responds to issues where the advertisers are “wronged”…I WANT my traffic to convert for the advertisers…that’s the only way this thing works!

      Ultimately, we want the people that visit our sites to be compelled by the advertisements…visit the sites that are advertising on our sites…and BUY from them! That’s the only way this program continues to work…

      While we did get an invite to meet with a rep from the AdSense team…we are NOT affiliated with them in any way. Having a meeting with a rep and discussing the best way to improve our sites is definitely NOT having someone on the inside that is “protecting” us. Funny you mentioned that and…in the same breath…asked to do SEO for us or our readers. Ugh…I think I’d prefer to not receive whatever traffic it is you had coming in…no offence intended…

      • razvan says:

        no offence taken , the traffic i got was organic from google itself.
        and thanks for not deleting my post ,
        but who knows maybe someday you will get the ban hammer , and i hope you wont , i really like you guys , and then you’ll see how crooked google really is,,,

        • JustinWCooke says:

          Ack…Razvan…

          I definitely hope we don’t get the ban hammer.

          I seriously understand what you’re saying, though…absolutely uncool…

          All things considered…I’m a Google fan. Joe and I have debated this…over the “evil” empire Google may or may not be creating…but I think it’s mostly about intention. In my opinion…their intention continues to be GOOD…the worry is, though, that if that intention changed…they have an awful lot of control that could be quite damaging to an amazing amount of people…we’ll see!

          Thank you for your continued support…

      • Why were you about to delete this guys post? He was simply conveying an experience that many Adsense users have experienced. This is to do nothing wrong and get suspended because the site posses “a risk.” The open-ended language Google uses make them not liable to explain anything you and that is not right. Is this an Adsense cheer leading website or a place to honestly discuss Adsense related stuff? And how can make baseless claims like:

        “most of the people banned actually DO pose a risk to the advertisers on the Google AdSense program.”??

        There is another side to what has happened here and it doesn’t only affect cheats but seemingly small publisher in general.

        • As much as I hate to admit it, I think none of here really understand what goes on behind the scenes when Google bans an account. Google really needs to step up and open up the process, explain what’s going on, and help publishers avoid such bans in the future. Right now it does seem to be a case randomness — some people get banned, while others don’t for doing the exact same thing.

  • Very timely post, guys. I was just writing an article for Best of Fiverr on the many dangerous AdSense gigs you can buy on Fiverr. At last count there are over 1500 gigs that promise to create accounts for you even if you’re banned, deliver $30 or more in revenue in exchange for $5, click on your ads without raising your CTR, etc.

    Now the unwary who buy these gigs and get burned can come here for comfort. 🙂

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Hey Charleen!

      As you know…we LOVE Best of Fiverr…big fans of what you got going on there! We’ve seen the gigs you’re referring too…it’s really insane. We’re pretty relaxed when it comes to allowing people to do what they like in IM…but those types of gigs are clearly ridiculous. We’re hoping you can help shed light on how those are ultimately bad for the advertisers, the publishers, and the users…thanks!

  • Shinu says:

    I have a question for you guys… How long did it take for this microniche adsense sites business to make some substantial PROFIT (revenue minus the costs of outsourcing, backlinking, content, etc)? By substantial I mean $4,000 in 1 month.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Hey Shinu…great question!

      Actually, we were in for just over 10K total before it started to turn around for us…not an insignificant investment. As a “real” business investment it’s only a drop in the bucket, but from a part-time IMer that’s probably a tough pill to swallow.

      We finally started to “break even” in costs/revenue in Q2 of last year (5-6 months after starting) and made around 3K profit and 4.5K profit in June/July, respectively. (6-7 months after starting)

      It’s tough to say, though, because we can sell sites whenever we want and can change our “profit” for the month based on that. We sell on our BuyOurSites page, but we could just as easily offer up a few additional auctions on Flippa if we wanted to make more money. We’re trying to stabilize earnings through this year so that we have measured and consistent growth…but we’re open to larger chunks or sales if the opportunity presents itself, of course!

  • Neale says:

    I was reading through my reader and saw “AdSense Account Disabled” I nearly had a heart attack LOL then I realized I was in reader not email.. then I thought you guys had got disabled.. Obviously not now i have read the whole post…

    I think that we all fear this one, my strategy this year is really simple, get back to a place where adsense is just the gravy and not what I need to eat. Exactly as it was when i was working full time.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Lol, Neale! I definitely meant for the headline to be “shocking” but didn’t want to scare people about THEIR accounts being shut down…oops! lol

      One of our readers was “beating us up” in the comments section of a blog I linked to in the post (Ok, maybe not beating us up…but definitely taking us to task about not mentioning this risk…I thought it was fair, actually) and I thought it was worth a blog post.

      Also, when we get emails about this I now have a blog post I can direct them to and explain our thoughts on the issue…

      • Neale says:

        You may not know it yet, but if my account gets disabled I’m coming to work for you guys or Dan, lets hope I can just visit sometime this year.

  • Brian says:

    I wonder what google thinks of using their trademaked brand “Adsense” in your domain name and brand…adsense flippers

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Hey Brian,

      I have no idea. Looking back, I think we probably would have branded ourselves differently given the chance…but it is what it is and we’re rolling with it!

      We’ve been careful to be very clear we’re not associated with Google, but if we have to change at some point in the future then we’ll have to change….it is what it is, heh.

      • Keith Mander says:

        You might have problems if you had AdSense running on the site. Otherwise you’re okay from a legal perspective – you’ve made it clear that you’re not associated with Google at all and people would not be confused by the branding.

        • JustinWCooke says:

          Funny…I was messing around with our Feedburner feed and selected the option to show ads there ad it was “denied”…my guess was because of the AdSense in our domain.

          There’s another well-known bloger (GoogleLady I think?) that uses Google in her domain and it doesn’t seem to be an issue. We’ll see, I guess!

  • Matt_at_NSB says:

    Hi Justin,

    Thanks for the great post as this is something that isn’t brought up very much. One option may be to diversify income streams before anything happens just in case. I am using Amazon in addition to Adsense on some of my sites and finding it a good combination for certain sites.

    I would hope that if you stick to the TOS and make quality sites then everything should be ok.

  • yk says:

    Thank you for this post.
    The additional problem with this disable is that Google does not provide any information on what caused the disable. My account was disabled without any warning and explanation on the cause of the “invalid activity”.
    May be somebody knows how to find out what is the real cause of such disable? What site?

    • Keith Mander says:

      They’re not going to provide information that someone could use to re-engineer (ie. by testing waters to the extreme) to find areas that could be exploited. Harsh but quite understandable.

      There are 3rd party tools which help you from identifying and stopping invalid activity, but they’re not full proof.

      • Keith Mander says:

        The email might allude a little to the problem – there is a slight difference in the language if you’ve bee found to have “invalid traffic” or “invalid click activity”.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Yes, unfortunately Google won’t really give any more information. You should have received an email with whatever email account you signed up with that gives a somewhat vague answer as to why your account was disabled. That’s as far as they’ll go for the reason Keith mentions…

  • Guys,

    I was wondering if you will be sharing or selling your websites for sale script?

  • It’s one of my worst nightmares to wake up one morning and find my adsense account banned. Yes, there are alternatives like adbrite and infolinks, but they are not nearly as good as Adsense.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Yeah, unfortunately. The best you can do is monetize with one of the alternative options and see where that leaves you…

  • Keith Mander says:

    A couple of notes:

    When site’s are blocked, it usually then prevents any publisher code from working. Individual pages can be blocked, as can subdomains, directories and entire domains.

    If you get an immediate ban, then it’s quite likely they’ve spotted something really bad.

    Typically you’ll get a warning first and time to respond.

    If you get rejected from an appeal, that’s pretty much the end of it.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Great adds, Keith. I didn’t know individual pages could be blocked, but I did know they could block subdomains.

      When Joe spoke with the AdSense Rep, they told him that only in drastic situations would they not warn you before disabling your account. I have heard of those that were warned and the best advice we’ve seen states you need to respond and make the changes immediately. It’s worth shutting down ads on that site until you have a chance to make the necessary changes.

  • Alex says:

    Great post fellas. The flip filter link is kiiller. Definitely going to go the product creation route in the future.

    • JustinWCooke says:

      Thanks, Alex!

      I’ve actually linked to that FlipFilter article before…I thought it was good/useful enough to link to again, lol. In fact, much of what Justin puts out with his content is pretty insightful. I really wish he would post more often…

      The product creation route is pretty cool. Our problem is it doesn’t (yet) allow us to leverage our outsourcing personnel…we’d have to do it directly and we try to guard our time pretty closely, heh.

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