I have been working with niche sites with Firepow a lot over the last month, and many of my niche sites are monetized with AdSense. So, I have had AdSense on the brain lately. As it happens, a valued customer of Niche AdSense Themes contacted me this weekend. He may choose to reveal himself in the comments, but in case he doesn't, let's just call him George. George had just gotten a generic email from Google, and wanted some help figuring out what he had done wrong. Here is an excerpt:
Hello,
While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently
displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our
policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies
on pages such as mycustomerswebsite.com.Publishers may not place Google ads on pages that violate
Google’s webmaster quality guidelines
(http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35
769#quality). While we've included the following excerpts from
these guidelines, we recommend that you take the time to review
them in their entirety.
The problem is, this email went on to discuss the webmaster guidelines generically, but never indicated what George had done wrong. His site was not on a forbidden topic, and was not “black hat site.” It was mostly legitimately republished content — but that content was republished with permission.
Now, getting ads pulled from your site is not the same as getting banned from AdSense. George's other sites are OK at the moment. Oddly, the site was de-indexed by Google at the same time. This is a more severe action, and suggests that the search engine people are talking directly to the AdSense people.
Anyway, the bottom line is, we are not sure what happened exactly.
Usually, AdSense advice is blunt — “don't click on your own ads”. In my research this weekend, I was reminded of five more subtle things that you need to keep in mind when building sites for AdSense. Here they are, in no particular order.
Make It About Google's Customer
Ultimately, Google search cares about getting the user a great search result so that the next time the user needs a search engine, they will choose Google. It is all about Google's market share. If they put spam at the top of their search results, people will eventually look for a better search engine.
So, if you do something to trick Google to rank your content so that you can make a buck — that is OK. Have fun. Lots of “black hat” guys make a lot more money on the internet than I do. Business is business. As long as what you do is legal, you can make your own decisions. Google is not the law. But, don't ever forget that they do own the search engine and they answer to Google share holders. So don't be upset if they yank your listings. It is their search engine, after all.
Same goes for AdSense. Always remember that the customer for AdSense is the advertiser — not you, and not the person who clicks on the ad. If your content does not generate clicks, or if clicks coming from your site do not increase revenue for the advertiser (Google's customer), you should expect Google to address that. They do that by paying per click, smart pricing, and banning some sites from AdSense.
Create Some Unique Content
As I mentioned above, Google Search is about the searching user. If your content is 100% duplicated content from elsewhere on the web, why would Google want to show it? If they can figure out where it is, they will prefer to show the original content (all things being equal). However, it is not clear to me that AdSense should care about duplicate content. There is some hard-to-understand language in the Webmaster Guidelines about duplicate content, but I personally believe that passage refers to mirror sites and not PLR and other “duplicate content.”
As I mentioned above, George had a lot of duplicate content. While it is possible that this got his site banned from AdSense, I really don't think that was the reason. Still, good unique content is a valuable defense against getting your site banned.
Be Careful About Competing Ads
While it is not clear what ads are OK, be careful about putting ads on your site that “look like” Google Ads. Google is sensitive about protecting their brand, and will ban your site.
George did have competing ads on that site, and those ads had a footer encouraging people to refresh to get”fresh ads.” We are not sure if this matters to Google or not, but I think it might. This is my best guess as to why George's site got banned.
Be Careful About Ad Placement
The AdSense ads on George's site are highly optimized to maximize click-through. One concern we had is that Google gets upset if you try to “trick” the user and make them think that they are clicking on something other than an ad.
Because of this, one thing that people debate a lot is how close ads can be to page titles. For example, let's say you have a page with the title “Used Cars For Sale” and right below that title you have an AdSense block that makes it seem that the AdSense ads are actually cars for sale on your site.
You can interpret Google's guidelines in such a way as to conclude this violates their TOS. While I am sure you can violate their TOS this way, I don't think this is an issue with George's site. However, it is something to keep in mind.
Make Sure You Have A Privacy Policy (and Disclaimers)
As of about last April, Google started requiring a privacy policy. Make sure you have one on every page that serves AdSense Ads. I also recommend a disclaimer, although this is not required by Google. Fortunately, this was not an issue for George — he did a bang-up job here.
The Bottom Line
Here is the real bottom line — Google can pull your site for any reason or no reason at all. So, my strong recommendation is that you do not put all of your eggs in one basket here. Diversify with other affiliate offers and your own products. You'll be glad you did.
Regards,
Mark
P.S. — I know the title said three tips — I got carried away and inclided five or six. Sorry about that.
I have never got adsense ads removed from a site nor banned since I started making money with AdSense 3 years ago. One reason is if I show ads from google competitors I don’t do it at the same time.
It’s always intresting to read about this subject. Hope I remind it when I need to have this info 😮
Interesting. Did he got the email on the adress given on the page or on the email of the Adsense account ?
I got a similar experience: one of my blogs got de-indexed, although I never got emails from Google, nor the Adsense earnings from that site were deleted. That site is still de-indexed but I’m still earning some cents from traffic that arrives directly from social networks.
I guess I got deindexed because I was heavily using search results to generate page content and this actually is against the Adsense TOS.
Recently I deleted all this pages and asked Google for re-submissions, but up to date nothing happened. I guess I’ll pull the content off that blog and put it on a new one and let the old domain expire.
ciao
alex
Alex;
Great question — I am not sure and I forgot to ask.
Sorry to hear about your other site. That is a real bummer.
Regards,
Mark
Thanks Patrik — I agree that they seem really sensitive about competing Ads. Glad to hear about your great track record with them.
Have a great day.
Mark, I was about to ask if you could point me to an example of privacy and disclosure policies – when I looked at the bottom of your page and noticed your policies there. And the link to http://www.disclosurepolicy.org was most helpful – thank you.
Glad that was helpful.
For the record, I am not an attorney (I don’t even play an attorney on TV). If you want advice about disclosures and privacy policies, you should consult your attorney. Nothing in this post or on this website should be considered legal advice.
Phew.
LOL.
Can you give us an example of a disclaimer that Google would find acceptable?
Hello Mark,
And thanks for posting about this. It’s important to be alert to previously-unidentified risks.
Folks, I am the “George” that Mark is writing about.
Big Blogger, the Google email was sent to my Adsense account email address.
Re: the other block. I’ve now added the optional link inside the adbox which shows it comes from a non-Google source. Check it out at Harmedia.com and I look forward to seeing what you folks think. Will this be acceptable to Google? — or should I remove it entirely?
Thanks in advance,
Gary
PS:
By the way, Mark has been great in terms of help with this issue.
Great topic and excellent reminders mark.
I think the key issue in all of this is the unique and useful content. Google does not want their ads displaying on sites that are strictly “made for adsense” and little value other than that.
Like you said, Google wants their advertisers to be displayed places that are above board.
My question to you is (rhetorical): leaving adsense out of the picture, would you have personally advertised your own business on George’s site? Or would you not want your customers or collegues to see you there for fear they may think badly of you?
Follow my line of thinking?
@Al; Well, rhetorically, I really don’t care so much as long as I am converting visitors that I am paying good money for.
Actually, though, I understand what you mean. For example I would be very careful where I allowed MasonWorld.com banners to be placed.
In the end though, even that is a financial consideration (brand protection).
Regards,
Mark
@Gandree — Well, I cannot speak for Google, and I am not an attorney. However, I have a discosure and Privacy policy in the footer that you might be interested to see.
@George(Gary) — Glad you came out of the closet (so to speak). Are you planning on asking Google to review your site?
Thanks,
Mark
Mark, yes I have made what I hope are the needed changes as per
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35843
and then submitted my site for reinclusion via the link at the Google Webmasters page.
Here’s hoping.
But I dont expect it to re-appear this week.
Gary
The text encouraging users to refresh will get you banned but I doubt it would get de-indexed. Artificial refresh is treated the same as artificial clicks and is a sure way to be banned.
I suspect some of the PLR might have been stolen from the site it originally came from. Maybe not, I could claim I held the copyright. Submit a DCMA complain and boom, it’s all over.
You should never use PLR word for word, it should always be re-written.
I get a lot out of your blog and helpful links! I needed a refresher on long tail and I got it yesterday from your $5.00 a day, I think you said in 7 days. I think it will take longer than 7 days as I write so slow because I make so many mistakes. LOL Never the less, $5.00 a day would be nice.
I need a re-writer but I have my doubts about how good they are.
You got figure that sometimes Google makes mistakes.
Allen
Nope — I raised this possibility with Google over the phone last week, and they insisted that they were infallible. LOL.
@Rusty — thanks. One thing that you might try is posting a re-writing project on scriptlance. You will get tons of bids. That will help you find someone you can work with as there is feedback you can see for most bidders.