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As it’s getting harder to get an Adsense account, so also it’s getting harder to even maintain one. Of course, lots of publishers know the basic rules guiding the Google Adsense but it’s still sad that quite a lot of publishers lose their account before they know it due to reasons they’re probably not aware of. It’s understandable that you’re not supposed to view your own ads, try to cheat the system and other things like that but what about other rules most publishers are not even aware of? The terms of service is rather too long and I didn;t even bother reading through it while I was signing up but within that long boring piece of crappy writing is the secret to maintaing your Adsense account and keeping it active. In this article, I’m not going to be referring to those points your already know like invalid clicks and such and trying to cheat Adsense with some tricks, I’ll rather be focusing on some reasons you’re probably not aware of.
1. Format Mimicking
Sounds unfamiliar? Google advises that you should try to blend your ads with content so as to increase CPC but in actual fact, they do not want your content to look exactly like ads. What does this mean? When you format content close to ad units to look exactly or rather too similar like a Google Adsense unit, you may attract a ban. You may only be lucky to get a warning requiring you to make changes to it in 72 hours if you’re a valued publisher. Jide Ogunsanya has a post on this which explains deeply what content mimicking is all about.
2. Styling Google Adsense Search Box
I once receive a warning for this and what happened was that I didn’t just style the search box, the silly styling I did accidentally removed Google’s branding from the search box. I received a warning to make changes within 72 hours which I did. Bottom line is never to “over-style” your Google search box to the point of removing Google branding.
3. Abuse of Google Products
When any article on your site explains how to bypass or abuse a certain Google product, this may get your account suspended. Youtube is owned by Google, right? When you start talking about stuffs like downloading videos from Youtube (which Google doesn’t officially allow), you’re asking Google to please suspend your account. Also, when you start writing articles on how to bypass payment at Play Store to get paid Android apps for free, you’re simply asking for trouble.
4. Aligning Ads with Images
This is one thing you should avoid. Never place your ads too close to images and be sure your content is arranged in such a way that images and ads are not placed side by side.
5. Encouraging Accidental Click
Placing ads under dropdown menu may encourage accidental click and you should avoid such. You content must be arranged in such a way that users don’t accidentally click on ads.
6. Links to Gambling and Casino Websites
I get offers from casino and gambling websites like all the time… juicy offers that are sometimes hard to resist. These sites want backlinks to for the sake of SEO and would pay huge amount of dollars to get it. If you’re an Adsense publisher, be careful with sites you link to as they may endanger your account. Google doesn’t want you to associate with these sites as long as you’re an Adsense publisher.
7. Links in Guest Articles
Weird? You receive guest articles all the time but do you take the time to review those links in their author bio to know if they’re in compliance with Google Adsense TOS? A link to malware infected site, a site dealing with ammunition, encouraging illegal activities and such in an author bio not only puts your account at risk, it may hurt your SEO and drop your ranking if care is not taken.
8. Generating Fake Impressions
Your earnings are not only based on clicks, they can also be per impression and when you inflate your impressions unknowingly, you may attract a ban. When working on your blog, you keep refreshing to see the changes, right? This increases your Google Adsense impression and when so much impression comes from a single browser, it may be risky. It’s for this reason you should try to install Adblock for Mozilla or Chrome depending on which you use. It’s probably available for Internet Explorer too?
9. Nude and Offensive Pictures
I see this a lot in news blog with Adsense right on those pages and I can’t help but wonder if those publishers knew about it or just decided to take the risk. It’s normal to report news the way it is but as an Adsense publisher, there’s a limit to what you can post on a news blog. Offensive pictures such as mutilated bodies, violence, nudity is strictly forbidden.
10. Copyright Materials
I guess everyone knows this already but there’s more to it. You’re not supposed to place Adsense on pages containing copyright materials but did you know that plagiarized content too can also be termed as a copyright material? Did you know your account may be suspended when the original content owner reports that your content violates their copyright? It’s more that just distributing cracks and serials, free ebooks and such.
It’s still not guaranteed that you get to maintain your Adsense account and avoid a suspension even with all this rules strictly adhered to, there may still be more not that obvious but I do hope this helps someone. The rules are numerous and rather strict but if you really want to keep being an Adsense publisher, then you should try to know more about them and try to stick to them, making changes to your blog as required before Google comes checking.
Good luck!