How NOT To Get Banned By Adsense - Part 2

I thought I’d go a little more into detail about the common mistakes publishers (especially newbies) make that can cause Adsense to ban them. Failure to read AND understand the Adsense Program Policies is probably the biggest cause of these mistakes. Many new publishers dismiss the program policies as pure rhetoric - a boring legal requirement that they must agree to, in order to join the Adsense Program. I know that I am equally guilty of blindly agreeing to the terms and conditions in my eagerness to get to jump right into whatever software or service I am applying to join. However, if you’re serious about making money with Google Adsense, then I cannot stress how important it is to read and understand EVERY part of their policy.

Three years ago, I read in a forum post about this student who discovered how easy it was to make money with Adsense. He then went on to describe how he had figured out which ones were the high paying ads. He mentioned that it had become a routine for him to stop by his University Library during lunch and click on a couple of these high paying ads, and repeat the same thing once or twice every day. I have no doubt that he would have since been banned.

Self-clicking usually happens when the publisher is new (and ignorant) or desperate to somehow achieve self-imposed targets. The temptation to click on your own ads also increase when your revenue takes a dive. I believe EVERY Adsense publisher has thought about clicking on his own ads at one time or another. It’s only natural. After all, you think “With hundreds of millions of clicks every day, how can Google know…”, right? I personally don’t know how Google tracks my activity, but I do know that they’re infinitely smarter than I give them credit for so I’m not going to take chances on losing what could potentially be twenty years of revenue for the sake of making a few extra dollars.

Another mistake Adsense Publishers make is encouraging others to click on their ads. Many publishers have found out the hard way that it doesn’t pay to ENCOURAGE your visitors to click on the ads. This can happen in numerous ways :

• Asking people to support your site by “visiting” the advertisers’ website.
  This is probably one of the most basic mistakes made by newbies. Don’t think that since there are billions of websites, Google will miss your site and what you’re doing. Some are more advanced and use an image instead of actual text. Again, you must remember that Google not only relies on its own technology, but on tip-offs by other Adsense Publishers.
• Direct requests or Adsense Ads in emails.
  This goes on more frequently than we think. It’s a short sighted approach to making money with Adsense. I spoke to one Adsense Publisher (who has since stopped displaying Adsense on his site - due to a ban I presume) who figured that if he sent out mass spam emails numbering in the millions, at a given CTR and EPC, he would make $xx,xxx in three months. I don’t know if his gamble paid off, but I did my own math and figured if he had kept his Adsense account in good standing and made a conservative $x,xxx every year, he would probably amass much, much more than that in ten years.
• Telling your friends and family about your website and how you make money with Adsense.New Adsense publishers often make the mistake of telling ALL their friends and family about this wonderful money making opportunity they’ve discovered in Adsense. They go into detail about how they make money with every click of an Adsense ad. What happens next is a spike in “love clicks” made by these people in the belief that they are “helping” to increase the publisher’s earnings.
• Placing images or animation that deliberately direct visitor attention to the ads.
  This was a grey area for a long time - placing images next to Adsense blocks that “sort of” drew visitors attention to the ads. In fact, this technique was encouraged by many Adsense gurus as a way of increasing CTR. Adsense has since made it clear that this is in violation of their Program Policies.

I’ve noticed that Adsense is a very addictive thing. You tend to want to tweak your website and modify your ad placement to maximize your earnings. Lack of self control and forgetting Adsense’s Program Policies can quickly turn your website into a platform to display Adsense ads instead of content. Remember WHY people visit your website in the first place - your content.

One more common mistake I’d like to talk about is the practice of placing Adsense ads in such a way that they deceive visitors into thinking that they are part of your navigation.

A common approach to this is adding a “More Related Information” section at the end of your content. After displaying related information numbering 1 to 3, and Adsense block is placed followed by more related information. The font, style and size is then modified to make the Adsense block “blend” so that it looks like part of the “More Related Information”.

Another way to deceive visitors into clicking Adsense ads is to disguise the ad block (usually an Adlinks unit) so that it looks like part of the website’s navigation. Because this is so easy to do (even for novice webmasters), many publishers don’t realize that they’ve contravened the Program Policies. Receiving the dreaded “Invalid Clicks” or “Account Suspended” email from Adsense quickly wakes them up, although by then it may be too late.

We’ll close by looking at one final reason for being banned by Adsense - invalid clicks caused by others. 99% of people who post on forums asking for help after being banned by Adsense plead innocence. It’s not my place to judge, but very often, I sense these people could do with a little more humility and maybe a lesson in manners. An important point to remember when you participate in online forums is that if you rub people the wrong way, they might just take it out on you where it hurts the most - your Adsense earnings. Many forums allow you to display your URL - and many people do so to get exposure - but they forget that this also tells the whole world your URL. If you are violating the Adsense Program Policies in any way, you can be sure that someone, somewhere, is going to report you to Google. And if they’re more than annoyed with you, they’re likely to click on your ads, knowing full well that if they do it often enough it can get you suspended or banned.

This last reason is why I always try to conduct myself properly online. Sure, you may think you can hide behind the pseudo-anonimity of the Internet by using nicknames, but if someone wants to track you down, they’ll do it. It’s a good thing for bloggers to remember this point too. I find it disturbing that many bloggers seem to think that it’s “cool” to shoot straight from the hip. They use gruff language and 4 letter words (even if they are abbreviated). Being careless with your manners online can lead you to some serious click attacks. Keep this in mind.

How Not To Get Banned By Adsense - Part 1

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