If you are already an AdSense member, you may not know that Google recently tightened up their acceptance policies for their popular AdSense program.
Gone are the days where you can throw up a quick Blogger blog today and get accepted into the AdSense program by tomorrow.
According to their policies, you must adhere to the following guidelines…
1) Your website must sit on a top-level domain (yoursite.com not yoursite.host.com).
2) Your domain must be active for at least 6 months
3) Your AdSense application info must match your domain records
Due to the fact I am already a member, I was not aware of some of these policies until I began getting more emails from people who were getting rejected because their site didn’t adhere to one or more of the guidelines.
One blogger was quite upset, saying he believed his Blogger blog had very well written content that was unique. Another lady complained that the guidelines were just too strict and should be relaxed.
Take note that both of these blogs were created with the free Blogger service and neither had their own domain name to redirect to their blogs.
Here’s My Take…
If you want to make money online, understand that you are setting up a business. Businesses require investments and work. If you are not prepared to fork over $3-$10/month for hosting then maybe this is not for you right now.
I personally don’t think the criteria is overly strict, and it will eliminate many of the low-quality sites throughout the network. If you ask me, this is long overdue.
What people need to understand is that Google must protect their advertisers — the lifeblood of their business. And because Google started out with such a relaxed acceptance policy, things got out of hand.
Worthless blogs and websites with plagiarized content were going up left and right. Numerous people tried to cheat the system by inviting friends to click their ads or using other computers to click their own ads.
Instead of treating AdSense as a monetization model for their business, people behaved as if this was some way to get-rich quickly with Google ads.
What Publishers Should Know
If you’re an AdSense publisher, understand that being a member is a privilege, not a right. Some webmasters seem to feel they are entitled to get paid by Google because they have a website, but as I stated earlier, Google’s top priority is the AdWords advertisers.
We the publishers are helping Google advertise and Google is paying us a percentage of what they earn. If the advertisers complain about the quality of the sites or click fraud, then it’s in Google’s best interest to rectify the situation.
Now of course, the AdWords advertisers can choose NOT to display their ads on the publisher websites, but that’s not the point. Publishers need to respect and understand how the AdWords and AdSense relationship works.
I applaud Google for their policies. If you think about it, everyone wins in the end. If the overall quality of the publisher sites improve, more AdWords advertisers may opt in to display their ads on our sites, thus giving us publishers the opportunity to earn more.
In the last two months my AdSense earnings are up quite a bit. Some analysts speculate Google’s cleanup and stricter policies are causing more AdWords advertisers to opt into advertising on the publisher sites.
There’s no way I can know this for sure, but I wouldn’t doubt this has an impact.
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Note: After this post was published, I was informed that people are still able to get accepted prior to owning their domain for six months. So it appears that Google may take the quality of your content into consideration. Nevertheless, it can’t hurt to wait. You aren’t going to make much with AdSense unless you have the traffic anyway.
Dear liza,
I created a high quality site with original content . google bot keeps rejecting the site- not even getting past first stage.
Tried making many changes. unable to figure out the cause. sap-businessone DOT org
would be grateful for help.
I have tried to apply for google adsense but was denied due to copyright laws or whatnot… My senses tell me that it is because of the stock photos I use…. Lisa can you point me to the correct direction where I should get totally royalty free stock photos that I can use for my blog?
John, go to http://morguefile.com
Hello Lisa,
Bang on!!! My site “investmentbazar” was rejected 8 times by google. Finally my site “investmentbazar” was selected
Hello Lisa,
I was just wondering because I am in the process of re-locating from NJ to the N. Carolina & curious to know is certain programs like adsense banned from this state for tax reasons and how will this affect me moving my business there? I wanted to make sure that wherever I move that I’ll still be able to run my website there when I am finished building it…
Thanks Lisa & keep up the good work
P.S. I am one of your bigges fans & you have been a great rolemodel to me.
Howdy Lisa
Personally I haven’t used adsense in years mainly due to the fact that I just fell out of love with it.
My programs where selling great and the adsnse was just an distraction to the readers of mines. So people have to realize the Google adsense is not the start of an business…its the end of one.
Because you should focus on growing your aduence of readers before you start throwing adsense down their throats.
The six month guidelines seems great to me because this gives you time to network with other blogger and grow your business the right way..instead of virtually spamming the search engines with useless content.
“TrafficColeman “Signing Off”
Lisa nice article! Google is known best due to their best polices…Lisa i have a own website 8th mönth old now…Traffic also good…Please help me give me some tips…Plz plz….I rejected many times….http://www.freemusicmasti.com
Lisa nice article! Google is know best due to their best polices…Lisa i have a own website 8th mönth old now…Traffic also good…Please help me give me some tips…Plz plz….I rejected many times….http://www.freemusicmasti.com
Hi, I started my blog in december 2009 and I was accepted on Adsense right away. A few days ago, I got an email saying that my blog was dangerous for advertisers and soo I was banned. I am totally new to this and they do not tell you much as why the ban you. I would have liked to know more about the reasons so I could learn and not repeat the same errors. I also saw that once you get banned it’s for life. Is this true?
Hi Lisa,
I have been following your videos and information you post on your Web sites and blogs. Thank you for all the info. Do you have or know of a source for adsense click rates as a function of site traffic? I would imagine that the numbers vary based on Web site topic, but even a general idea might be handy for estimating revenues.
Thank you in advance.
There may be sites out there that estimate based on other’s feedback but I know that Google would never publish anything like this officially. It could lead to people building up a bunch of sites in topics they believe can make the most money and ultimately quality would suffer. Google keeps those numbers close to their vest for a reason.
Hi,
i have just launched my new website http://www.best-laptops-deals.com i have applied for google adsense program and my request is rejected with message “Unacceptable site content”.
however when i applied for amazon’s associate program i got easily approved and ready to put their ads on my site.
i have not made any changes in my content before applying to amazon.
i wonder what exactly google adsense is looking for in my content.
as mentinoned in first post point 3 “Your domain must be active for at least 6 months” i know my domain is just few days old. but then google should have replied regarding that instead of default message like “Unacceptable site content”
i have also contacted google support on their email for providing details about my site and which part of content is they think as “Unacceptable”, but have not receive any reply from them yet.
i guess i now have to wait 6 months before applying to adsense again. OR need to search other options to monetize my website.
can any one review my site content and provide me clue to find unacceptable content. as per i know i have all meta tags and keywords in place and used valid data too.
please help!
Thanks
I am in the process of seting myself up to beginning uploading videos online. Im a Zimbabwean Video and Documentary producer who has lots of footage in aviation related areas. Mu question is pretty much like that of those in China , Are Zimbabweans able to come on the ADSENSE and YOU TUBE programs and what is your best suggestion on setting up a website . I plan to privide content in aviation related areas from Africa and not Zimbabwe specifically. Our current political leaders are blacklisted and on targeted sanctions. Its a pitty that this has affected a lot of us who are really inncent and would like to do business on the internet. Ive written seveal emails to some popular brands offered on the internet meaning to get into partnership only to be either blocked at IP Address level or to openly be told that “we do not do business with companies from Zimbabwe” Zimbabwe is evidently not under UN sanctions . There are individuals , certain companies known to related with people on sanctions that are blocked . I saw in one of the regulations that you can be turned down from the ADSENSE or YOU TUBE partner programme based on which country you come from.
The ploitical climate in ZImbabwe is back to normal, we use the US dollar currency now. We have a coalition govt which is in a power sharing agreement . Please may you assist me by providing me iwth information on the status of countries in Africa, but more specifically Zimbabwe where I am resident . Can i register a .co.zw domani and still be accepted . I mean we use http://www.google.co.zw which means google registered a domain here. Do i have to register a .com domain oor not
Sorry i tend to have too many questions . I will ask this for now in the hope that you can be of some assistance.
Yeah, my bad, I never made it that far into your post. I read as far as the “trigger” point and immediately dropped down to post a reply. I’m bad for that, especially lately, with all the reading I’m doing to build the skills I need to finish my site, I tend to skim reads that don’t directly pertain to boosting my web skills (ie. CSS, XHTML, graphics design, etc.). I’m thinking information overload is slowly creeping past my front door. lol
Huh! Considering the date of this post, I’m surprised I didn’t get rejected. My site isn’t even finished yet and I got accepted into the Adsense program.
It’s been less than a week since I applied and got accepted and I’ve already got google pushing me to place adsense code in my site.
Heck my domain has only been active for like a month at the longest.
I’m feeling somewhat lucky but at the same time pressured to get my site up and running.
Damn you Google!!! lol
That’s why I added the italicized note at the end of the post. Indeed some people are still getting in so it’s not a rule that’s set in stone. So congrats on getting in early!! Apparently Google saw potential and liked what they saw. 🙂
Lisa, you know you said that
“1) Your website must sit on a top-level domain (yoursite.com not yoursite.host.com).”
Does that mean my blog (http://www.blog.christopher-roberts.co.uk/) is against the rules, the AdSense acount is for my site http://www.christopher-roberts.co.uk/ but I also have ads on my blog.
Is this ok?
Thanks Lisa!
.-= Christopher Roberts´s last blog … D3O =-.
That’s fine because you own that domain. It’s OK to use a subdomain on a domain that you own.
Thanks Lisa
.-= Christopher Roberts´s last blog … Technology Blog – 11 August 2009 =-.
Hi everybody,
If you are planning to make money with adsense then you must know certain things before applying for them,
you can follow it at http://www.dreamscametrue.in/adsense_india.htm
Or Adbrite is the best alternative for you all unless your blog gets 6month old with good & quality content.
Thanx.
Hi Lisa,
Your website is extremely helpful! I am new to the google AdSense and I have been trying to wrap my brain around this whole thing. I wanted to do this because I had to shut down my business about 3 months ago and can’t seem to find a good job. However, I was just reading Google’s requirements and my heart sank when I read you have to have a domain name for six months before they will let you apply. I need to start producing income as soon as possible. Are there any other things I can do?
Thank you,
Tiffany
Hi Lisa, just came to check out your website, anyways, Ive built my site in late Feb this year, and I submitted my site to adsense to google, in may and got accepted? I was wondering, why? It got accepted, I blog, and design stuff, etc ,etc?
I shot up 1 page
I applied
I was acepted
I was dicouraged when I read this post but it definately is not right.
Congratulations! Your Google AdSense application has been approved. You can now activateyour account and get started with AdSense in minutes. To quickly set up your account, follow the steps below. Or, for a detailedwalkthrough of everything you need to know as a new AdSense publisher,
Here is the page I aplied with
weightloss-special.com
See the adsense code running?
Do a whois and you will see the date of the domain registry
I applied on a tuesday
Thursday, 23 April 2009 12:48:24 PM accepted
Maybe because the page was made for a click bank product.
When I ran traffic travis to see how the keywords ranked the page was a+
Maybe if you show an attempt to follow their requirements you are ok.
I have not had time to work on that site as I am working on others.
Also when I did apply the theme I used was a fancy one.
I hope this helps
Well…number one hate to hear this, as I just started a FREE Blogger account, lol! But since I have been around this block before, I am not surprised.
Even with my new blog, I anticipated that I would have to add quite a bit of high quality content, links and all the rest, before applying to use the Adsense product.
I can see their point however. Just by the many newbies coming by the forum looking to make a quick buck, so it is that many others, in these hard economic times are looking to profit.
I don’t doubt that this has diluted the Adsense program and can see clearly Google’s point. Although not happy with their decision, I do understand it.
Not much we can do about it though. I will continue my FREE Blogger account, add high quality content, links and eventually move on to a paid host where I can apply for their product.
I only have ONE problem with these new Adsense rules. I have always had a paid domain for my site, however, I recently switched domain names to a new one (shorter and more relevant). Thing is, I had Adsense running on my old domain, and the website had been around for 3 + years.
So, I disabled the old Adsense account and transferred it to my new domain… Here is the catch: I can’t use Adsense again yet, because my new domain is not 6 months old!
If you ask me, they need to have “exceptions” to these rules in cases like this. It never pays to have a strict, no exception policy.
Adsense really burned me, because I was making $800 a month off of the ads, and relied on that income. This experience has turned me against Adsense.
I switched over to Adbrite, which royally sucked as far as earnings. The only way you’ll make money on Adbrite is on their CPM ads, and then you have to have 50,000 visits a day to make $5. Not the mention the fact that when you sign up for Adbrite, they make you wait 3 months to get a check!
So, I stopped doing the whole “ad network” thing and sold my own ads. I now make double in one month what i made with Adsense, I don’t regret my decision.
I just wanted to share this experience, and let people know that if you have a website with a large traffic base, then selling your own ad’s can be a good option.
I don’t know how well selling ads work on Blogs and Forums works, but on a “content website”, it seems to work great!
PS,
Does Adsense work well with affiliate marketing? My website will have some affiliate links, but other forums mentioned that performance reduces when both methods are used in the website. Is this true?