Mail From The AdSense Team? Don’t Panic!
So last week I got an email from the AdSense support team. Here’s how it started:
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 [URL removed].
It then proceeded with a fairly generic message about not encouraging invalid clicks:
Publishers are not permitted to encourage users to click on Google ads or bring excessive attention to ad units. For example, your site cannot contain phrases such as “click the ads,” “support our sponsors,” “visit these recommended links,” or other similar language that could apply to the Google ads on your site. Publishers may not use arrows or other symbols to direct attention to the ads on their sites, and publishers may not label the Google ads with text other than “sponsored links” or “advertisements.”
That last line isn’t quite correct, as Google now allows ads to be labeled with other text. But that’s beside the point.
I get emails like these from AdSense support every once in a while. Not very often, but it does happen. There are grey areas, after all, and sometimes you end up pushing the envelope.
So what do you do when you get these kinds of emails? I wrote some advice in a new post on interacting with AdSense support, but the main thing is to be polite and to respond promptly to their notices. Their initial email to me was a big vague, for example, so I politely asked them for some clarification. (Just reply to the initial email.) They got back to me fairly quickly with some specific examples of what they didn’t like. I immediately made some changes and asked them to verify the changes. They said everything was fine now and that was that.
So many people respond to those emails with angry messages, and I never understand why. Google normally doesn’t terminate or suspend a publisher without good reason and without giving them a chance to rectify the situation. Use your common sense and you’ll be fine.
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Eric Giguere is the author of several printed books and knows a thing or two about content monetization. Subscribe to his AdSense blog today and never miss any of his insightful comments. And the not-so-insightful ones, for that matter.
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Comments
2 Responses to “Mail From The AdSense Team? Don’t Panic!”
Eric,
There’s something screwy in your page title (probably caused by the apostrophe). You may want to check it out.
I’ve had really good luck in dealing with AdSense Support folks. When I had a question about mucking around with borders and backgrounds behind ads, I contacted them…they took a look at what I was talking about…and gave me a big thumbs-up. Of course, I did it in advance, for what that’s worth.
Also, I contacted them last week about cutting off access to my AdSense code appearing on other sites. I was doing this, in part, because I’d heard (regarding Smart Pricing) that you don’t want your ads appearing on sites that pull less than 3% APR. But I also just wanted to know that I had control. I asked about a tool to track where my hits and impressions were coming from (I have sold and given away a number of sites, and I had reason to believe that some of my old code survived). They turned me on to the Allowed Sites section…where I was able to turn off the spigot on all but the handful of sites where I am now using AdSense because they have a solid CTR. And, as a nice bonus…once you’ve done that, they send you a weekly report telling you where other impressions of your code are being found. Very nice.
But, with the exception of not yet providing a nice simple text link for the AdSense referral program (and, I’m sorry…but there’s just no excuse for that), they’ve always been very helpful in responding to me.
c-
Good comments, Chuck. I’ve mentioned before how it never hurts to email the AdSense support team if you have a question about something you’re doing or want to do, and I, too, have found the experience positive overall.
Interesting tidbits about the “allowed sites” option, which I really haven’t played with much. Thanks for the info!
Eric