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January 26, 2005
How To NOT Get Banned From Google Adsense
An associate of mine was yesterday banned from Adsense. That put me right of my business tasks this morning and made me feel very ill at ease.
Adsense is a second major way that people make money off the internet. I say a "second". The first is of course, selling things. Adsense is a major form of cash for people who just publish information without trying to sell anything. You can easily host the ads and make money when people click on them.
So might Google want to ban me? Could Google arbitrarily ban me from Adsense tomorrow?
To try to put my mind at ease I researched the reasons why people might get banned from Adsense.
A Google search on "banned from adsense", turned up 3 very useful sites 3 additional cases where folks were banned.
All 3 people received a short email from Google Adsense explaining that their account was now terminated. The cause? The cause was always "Invalid Clicks".
Case 1. A guy built a site with his business partner and later got banned from Adsense. He found that his partner had clicked repeatedly on Adsense ads on his site which is fraudulent. He has since parted company from that partner.
Case 2. A guy found a friend of his had clicked on Google Adsense ads on his site while working on his computer. People on his campus site had also clicked on his site ads.
Case 3. A man came back from holiday and was told by Google Adsense that he was banned, and that his brother had also been banned at the same time. Google said it was because they "were related". From what I know now I strongly suspect that his brother may have clicked on his site ads (to help him) causing Google to ban them both.
As this picture becomes clearer I become less fearful of Google banning me arbitrarily.
It seems the whole point is to avoid "invalid clicks". These are basically clicks that Google thinks are associated with you. Associated with "you" can be your friends and family, your computer/IP or your computer network.
3 steps to avoid getting banned from Google Adsense program
- Never click on an Adsense ad on your own site -- (kinda obvious - Adsense 101)
- Be wary about telling people you know about your Adsense-hosted site particularly if they work on the same computer or computer network on you.
- If someone you know personally visits your site often its best to tell them to not click on your site Adsense ads. They can always find the same ad at Google.com and click from there.
Its best to avoid accidents if you can. Most peoples experience is that you can't negotiate with the Google Adsense team. If there's a problem they'll ban you outright and not answer any questions or protests.
On a brighter note, the majority of webmasters have no problem with Google Adsense.
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Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Google in any way. Mainly, I'm a webmaster trying to do my job with less stress.
Posted by onelukey at January 26, 2005 11:57 AM
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Comments
Useful information! Thankyou!
Posted by: Kashi at August 1, 2005 03:04 PM