Those of us who have been making money using Google AdSense for some time, are now starting to get this annoying message saying that we can no longer use their services. Therefore, we are all left wondering — “What have I done wrong this time?”
AdSense lets us earn money from our website by placing ads relevant to the content. However, they are very strict when it comes to violating their policies.
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What should I do first?
The first step is to understand the reason behind disabling ad serving to the site. Google AdSense will normally send a notification to us informing us of the cause. This may be due to a page-level violation, a site-level violation or an account-level issue.
However, as long as it has nothing to do with our account, we should be able to fix it quite easily. So here’s how to fix this issue.
You ought to receive a notification on the violation in your AdSense account, as well as via email. This way, you can find out about the suspension as soon as it happens. They usually send a specific page where they found the transgression. You might also get a screenshot with an example of what they consider such.
Now that you have that information, you can search the page to find the content which has led to the disruption and disable it.
How to get my service running again?
Followed the steps in your notification? You can now request a review. AdSense will check what actions you took and whether the issue has been resolved. The review is performed manually by Google AdSense. You can expect about a week before you get a reply. In order to minimize the chance of getting rejected, make sure you took all the steps required in the notification email.
Most common violations are:
- Page-level violations
Make sure you’ve followed the instructions you received by AdSense before submitting a review request. Also, clear the content violating AdSense’s policy prior to requesting a review.
Besides, it is a good idea to check the whole site. After all, you don’t want Google to find any other prohibited content when they do the check.
- Site-level violations
Provide a detailed list of what actions you took to deal with the violation. Include the steps you plan to take to avoid similar occurrences in the future. It is essential to understand what AdSense bans in their policy.
List of topics which shouldn’t be on your site:
- Adult content
This includes porn sites. Basically, no naked photos, no sexual acts or erotic materials.
- Adult themes in family content
Google’s description here is again based on porn content. The focus is on the content that hides in a family friendly site. What’s more, you wouldn’t want to trick your readers. Reading content which differs from what you initially promised to them is misleading. This may result in AdSense blocking your ad serving and also in a dissatisfied audience. After all, you want to sell your website, be it a service or a product. If people find it deceiving, they will not come back to you at all.
- Dangerous or derogatory content
Google has prepared quite a detailed list of inappropriate actions. These may be related to violence toward oneself or other people; threatening people or expressing hatred. Discrimination on the basis of race, ethnic origin, sex, religion, disability, nationality, sexual orientation is also unacceptable.
- Recreational drugs and drug-related content
Now, this is quite clear. Drugs are prohibited in most countries. It is natural that Google AdSense will not pay for promoting illegal substances.
- Alcohol-related content
It is a similar story with alcohol. Alcohol is not prohibited in most countries. However, there are certain restrictions for age which vary from country to country.
- Tobacco-related content
Just like alcohol, tobacco is not usually sold to minors, and there are restrictions in most countries. What’s more, in some parts of the world, there are additional taxes people pay for either producing or using such products.
- Healthcare-related content
There are many local regulations in countries not allowing the promotion of healthcare products and medicine. Therefore, Google has decided to completely ban such content.
- Hacking and cracking content
Such content is too dangerous and may impact people’s personal lives and corporate worlds in an extremely negative way. Therefore, Google does not want to support such sites financially.
- Pages that offer compensation programs
The way you earn money from AdSense is based on the number of clicks you get to your ads. Obviously, they are not going to pay if you deliberately compensate other people to click on your ads.
- Shocking content
Users out there are so diverse, and sometimes it can be difficult to determine what one may find shocking. However, if you avoid posting gruesome or disgusting photos such as crime scenes, blood, human or animal waste, etc., you should be on the safe side.
- Weapon-related content
This is an even more dangerous topic facing numerous regulations all over the world. It is quite understandable that Google will not want to get involved in anything that could potentially be related to acts of terror.
A few parting words
Hopefully, reading this article helped you to learn how to prevent Google AdSense from disabling your ad serving. To recap, we always have to be mindful of our content and what is allowed. That way, we’ll increase the chances of never getting our service disabled.
However, for those of us who aren’t as lucky and who have received a notification from Google AdSense — there’s no need to panic. The steps we have outlined above will successfully deal with the situation. Just follow them closely and your service should resume shortly.
After all, using a service means we need to follow the provider’s rules. After all, this is not our own product. Therefore, we can’t decide what is acceptable and what isn’t. If we want to get paid for our clicks, we have to remove all content violating Google’s terms of service. It’s as simple as that.
