Common Mistakes that Get your Adsense Account Banned and How to Prevent It

This post is dedicated to our PHP Melody fans but these guidelines apply to any other sites you might have.

So, everything was going smooth you were on top of the world, checking your AdSense balance every morning when the unthinkable happened. Your access was restricted or you received a straight account ban. This happens nowadays more than you would imagine simply because Google favors advertisers (who pay) rather than publishers (who get paid).

Take the time to implement the following rules because the most annoying thing about getting banned from AdSense is that you rarely get a human from their staff to review your case.

Here’s what you absolutely need to avoid doing:

1. Never ever(!) click on your own ads
   If you accidentally click your own ads, report this ASAP via the “invalid click contact form”
   Don’t even think about making arrangements with other people to click on your ads – it’s just not worth it
2. Don’t edit the code generated by AdSense
3. Don’t place AdSense in pop-ups, emails, downloadable software or IFRAMEs
4. Don’t place AdSense on “thank you” pages, registration pages or pages with no (or little) content.
   
5. Remove AdSense from any pages which contain the following:
   • adult material (pics, videos, text)
   • any racial intolerance
   • extreme violence
   • illegal material
   • content related to: selling tobacco, selling beer, drugs, weapons, gambling, casino or hacking
6. Review your site to ensure it has no malware, unwanted redirects or the use of page cloacking
7. No keyword stuffing or “hidden text” to get higher paying advertisments
8. Don’t place AdSense too close to videos, images or any content that might trigger accidental clicks

Here’s what you should do to ensure your PHP Melody site is up-to-code:

1. Make sure you don’t break any of the 8 major rules from above
2. Add lengthy and unique description to your videos
   Review your top 20, 40 or 100 videos (based on views) and add descriptions to each of them.
   If you rely heavily on AdSense for your income, invest in adding unique text content to each video
3. Add articles which are unique and not recycled form the web
   Content is still king and if you write interesting and unique articles, Google will applaud your efforts and reward them accordingly.
   If you decide to scrape articles from the web, you activate a time-bomb which Google will detonate at some point and penalize you for it.
4. Review and filter descriptions and tags for imported videos
   We recommend reviewing the description and tags of videos imported automatically from Youtube’s API. Profane or unwanted tags might creek into your site and cause problems.
5. Encourage comments on your pages
   Figure out ways to make people comment on videos.
   Be sure to use the “black list” feature to ban any profanity from messing with your AdSense ads.
   Here are a few suggestions:
   • have your friends post comments on the their favorite videos
   • post new comments yourself to create an appetite for commenting
   • enable guest comments which allows unregistered visitors to comment
6. The best CTR is above the fold and where the visitor’s attention is directed to
   Use this nifty tool to see if your ads are above the fold.
   Think about what actions your visitors take after consuming the content from your page.
   You’ll find that the most optimal ad position isn’t always what you expect on certain pages.
   Don’t just slap a 728×90 banner in the header and expect miracles.
   Keep the AdSense units under 3 per page.
7. Experiment with different color schemes
   Some find great success in using similar colors, which blends in the ads with your page/content.
   Try at least a few combinations because the CTR difference can add up in time.
8. If your site is attacked or compromised in any way, remove AdSense ASAP!

AdSense is a fantastic program for a wide range of websites. If you rely on AdSense for income, please don’t take this lightly and invest time to ensure you won’t have any nasty surprises. Once that’s covered, keep in mind that even the smallest increase in CTR can add up over time. It’s up to you if you’ll get that increase or lose it to somebody else.

Good “luck”!

Useful Links:

• Official AdSense program policies/rules
• Best practices for ad placement
• Report invalid/accidental clicks on your ads
• If banned, appeal to Google one last time

FaceBook Comments