PJCNET

INTRODUCTION

I have been forced to remove Google Ads from this website as I’ve been formally warned by Google Adsense about what they call “invalid clicks” and if it continues I would have my account disabled which would mean I’d lose all my earnings which I’ve accumulated in almost 2 years at the time of writing from two websites including this one. As it stands they say they may still remove some of my earnings for the days that the so called “invalid clicks” occurred, although I’ve noticed my account has only gone down about 20p. I had just broken the £60 payment threshold in the UK for the very first time and a couple of weeks later I received this warning via Email. I’m one of the lucky ones as many people are simply disabled without a warning and usually they haven’t got a clue what they’ve done wrong to justify this severe disciplinary action. I am now looking for Google Adsense alternatives.

I believe that ANYONE could have their Google Adsense account disabled whether it’s their fault or not because their Terms and Conditions are in my opinion confusing, difficult to work with and over strict, plus their anti-cheat system is so overly efficient that it in my opinion often flags up unfortunate innocent account holders who will also be punished as well as real cheaters.

Google are extremely secretive over their extremely advanced anti-cheat system and won’t even tell people precise details of why they have received a warning or even why their account has been disabled. I was for instance warned that they detected “invalid clicks“, but they refuse to tell you which clicks are invalid or why. If you do receive a warning, you can only guess what the real problem is to prevent an ultimate ban. There’s masses of complaints spread across the Internet from people who have had their accounts disabled and most of them genuinely don’t know why this has happened. Once disabled, you’re banned for life from having a Google Adsense account and unless an appeal is successful, you stand to lose any unpaid earnings. In some circumstances Google could even decide to attempt to reclaim earnings already paid out as well as cancelling any unclaimed checks.

WHAT CAN I DO IF MY GOOGLE ADSENSE ACCOUNT IS DISABLED?

Yes, you can appeal , but unfortunately most people aren’t successful mostly because they don’t put up a good case to be reinstated. You only get one chance at an appeal and the decision is final, so it’s certainly worth spending some time preparing a strong appeal , especially if you stand to lose a considerable amount of money if your appeal fails.

How to make a strong appeal against having your Google Adsense account disabled:

1) To greatly increase your chances of a successful appeal you first need to study Google’s Terms and Conditions thoroughly as along with their Progam Policies and then ensure that your site totally adheres to them. Please also see “reasons to get banned from Google Adsense” further down in this article for more tips as to what might have caused your account to be disabled. If you do suspect you have broken the Google’s Terms and Conditions, it certainly helps to be honest when filling out your appeal form, but ensure you tell Google how you’ve corrected the problems / mistakes to ensure it won’t happen again in future as they need to be sure you’ve learnt your lesson. One very common mistake people make is not having a “privacy policy” on their website, please see section 2.6 of their Terms and Conditions for the UK or at the end of section 1 if you live in the USA. If you haven’t got a privacy policy, add one before appealing, please click here for an example privacy policy you can use. Please note that most public sites such as Blogger or Hubpages already have a privacy policy.

2) If after studying Google’s Terms and Conditions and Progam Policies thoroughly, you honestly still don’t understand why you’ve been disabled, then it’s worth checking your website traffic for any inconsistencies and any Adsense reports, if you discover anything suspicious, inform Google when appealing and detail any extra security measures that you have taken to prevent it from happening again if this is possible. If you believe one person has for-instance clicked your Ads inadvertently, you should block their IP address if you know it from your website(s) which can normally be implemented from your Control Panel, E.g. In Cpanel you can use “IP Deny Manager” or you can even edit or add an .htaccess file, please click here for more help. Again explain to Google what’s happened while appealing along with any measures you’ve taken to prevent further problems.

3) It goes without saying that you should write professionally and very politely when filling out your appeal form, treat it like a job application by ensuring it’s well written, without spelling mistakes and with good punctuation. Often your first impressions can make a big difference. You shouldn’t complain about your account being disabled even if you don’t think it’s your fault as this definitely won’t help and is instead likely to just get their backs up which certainly won’t go in your favour. If you want to get any anger of your chest, I suggest you write about it by commenting here instead of to Google unless you don’t care whether your account is reinstated or not. Bite the bullet and apologise explaining any mistakes you’ve made along with how you intend to rectify them in future. Even if you believe after thorough investigation that it’s not your fault, it’s still worth apologising for any inconvenience the situation has caused stating how loyal you are to the program.

For further help and advice about appealing against having your Adsense account disabled, please see SEOpedia’s article titled Google Adsense account disabled – The FAQ and Google’s Official Disabled Account FAQs.

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO APPEAL AGAINST HAVING YOUR ACCOUNT DISABLED

WHAT IF I HAVE KNOWINGLY BEEN ATTEMPTING TO CHEAT GOOGLE ADSENSE?

If you have knowingly attempted to cheat Google Adsense, then more fool you as you’ve attempted to fool one of the most complex and sophisticated anti-cheat systems on the Internet which is virtually impossible to achieve, especially in the long term. It’s almost certain that you’ll be caught and banned for life, many very clever people have tried and failed to cheat this system which is constantly improving and expanding it’s numerous detection methods, so please don’t even bother trying to cheat. If you’re not yet banned for your cheating, I can only suggest you stop cheating immediately to have a slim chance of keeping your account active, but the damage has probably already been done. It can take quite a few weeks sometimes for your cheating to be actioned against even if you have now stopped, so don’t automatically presume you are out of the woods even if you think you’ve got away with it.

If you are knowingly cheating and you are disabled, then in this situation it not worth even appealing as Google will certainly see through what you’ve done, there’s no point trying to lie as Google are far too clever. If you are genuinely guilty, then I’m sorry, but you deserve to be banned for life. It’s the very people who attempt to purposely fraudulently cheat Google Adsense that forces Google to be so strict which unfortunately causes some innocent people to be also banned.

Many people may not realise that knowingly attempting to cheat Google Adsense is attempting to commit fraud and in some situations you could also be hacking which are both in fact criminal offences in most countries which at worst could lead to criminal prosecution!

REASONS TO GET BANNED FROM GOOGLE ADSENSE:

There’s so many ways that your account can be disabled / banned from Google Adsense with so many hidden catches and sometimes things beyond the webmaster’s control that I personally cannot recommend using it as in my opinion anyone could suddenly lose what could be years of work to get to the payment threshold. Below are some popular reasons why you could get unexpectedly banned, some may be obvious to some, while others might surprise you. I know that most people don’t bother to read the Terms and Conditions in depth for any on-line system they decide to sign up to and that’s generally one of the main reasons people ultimately get banned from Google Adsense without knowing why, but please remember that ignorance is no excuse for not abiding by their rules no matter how long and tedious it would be to read them in full. Also read and understand Googles Program Policies which are a bit easier to understand.

In my opinion you can be banned for suspicious clicks which might not be your fault and could be completely out of your control. It’s fairly obvious that you shouldn’t click on your own Ads, but if someone else decides to click on your Ads repeatedly and/or inadvertently, you could be also flagged, warned or disabled. To be 100% sure of preventing this you would literally have to police the entire Internet throughout the world! Obviously this is literally impossible and the only thing you can do to protect yourself is to keep a close eye on your Google Adsense account daily, looking for sudden unexpected increases in your clicks along with unexpected changes in traffic. If you notice anything suspicious, inform Google immediately. You could even install click monitoring software help further if possible. I strongly suspect that Google associates users that have logged into any Google service on the same PC or even Internet network and they may use numerous other advanced techniques to associate and link together. If for instance a friend logs into a Google service on your PC and then goes home to click on your Google Ads, this could potentially flag your account rightly or wrongly, so I recommend trying to discourage any friends, family or other associates from clicking on your Ads. Google are also likely to track the origin of all IP addresses, if you suddenly get too many clicks in your local area, this could also cause an account flag even if there’s a perfectly valid reason for this. If too many people decide to quickly click on your Ads and then immediately leave your website without surfing it, this could again cause a flag and the webmaster may be totally innocent. These are just a few of the likely checks made on your account clicks. If you do see something unusual, then report it to Google before they flag you for investigation as this will hopefully save you from the ultimate fate of being disabled (or if you are lucky just warned). If you know the IP address of a rogue user, you can usually block their IP address from your website host control panel. Many innocent people will however still in my opinion be banned because of a rogue user or users despite it being beyond their control and it’s therefore in my opinion very unfair.

If your account activity changes suddenly, you could be flagged for investigation and this activity change could be 100% legitimate. If you expect a change you can inform Google in advance, but this isn’t always possible as often a change in activity is unexpected. Keep a close eye on your account and your website traffic, if you see any discrepancies, it’s best to inform Google if possible before any disciplinary action is taken against you.

One of the best ways to promote your website is by using Traffic Exchanges like Traffic Swarm and Peak Hour Traffic, but by using them with Google Adsense Ads, you risk getting “invalid clicks” and could be banned. The same can be said for promoting your site using Safelists and Pay to Click Ads are totally out of the question. In fact you cannot use any website that artificially creates Ad impressions or clicks except for Google Adwords or you could be banned. Some website promotion sites might even try convince you that it’s okay to use them with Google Adsense when it’s certainly not, E.g. Trek Advertising, but many people have already had their Google Adsense accounts disabled for using it, especially when buying “searches” which directly asks people to click on your Ads, so please be warned!

Google are very strict about the nature of your content on your website, in fact sometimes I feel that Google have more say over some people’s website content than the webmaster. This is all very well if the webmaster is well rewarded in exchange for such strict content rules, but often it can take literally years to reach the first payment threshold (£60 in the UK, $100 in the USA). Most people realise that Google is against adult or illegal content, but there’s many more less obvious disallowed content. Many people don’t realise that you should have an up to date privacy policy on your website, for help and an example please click here. You can also be banned if you choose to have duplicate content on your website that can be found elsewhere and including any copyrighted content is a definite no unless you want to receive the dreaded account disabled email. Don’t even link to any adult, illegal, violent or racist content as even if you’re condemning or exposing an illegal site, you could still be banned. This is one reason why Google Adsense cannot be used with this website as even exposing and linking to illegal scam sites so other people can avoid them could get me banned which would be in my opinion very wrong. If you run for instance a forum or a blog with public comments, ensure it’s very well policed as you can even be punished for other people’s dodgy comments and/or links. Your website also should be a reasonable good quality, fully working, easy to navigate and not under construction. There’s numerous other Program Policies that dictate your website content and they should be carefully adhered to at all times be sure of avoiding an ultimate ban.

You can be banned if Google suspect that you have more than one account per person or per organisation or if you’re too closely associated to a previously banned account. Google’s anti-cheat system is likely associate people who have logged in using the same PC or Internet network, so be very careful, remember Google now owns numerous websites including YouTube. It’s in my opinion not a great idea for a previously banned Google Adsense member to use your PC or Internet connection to access any other Google services even though you’re not officially doing anything wrong by allowing this. Also ensure your Ads don’t appear on other people’s websites as they might already have an Adsense account or might have been banned in the past, this could certainly cause your account to be flagged and ultimately disabled.

Google are also extremely strict over where and how you place your advertisements along with the allowed content around them. If you place Ads in pop-ups, in emails or in software, you’re likely to be banned very quickly. You can also be banned if you tamper in any way with the Ad code even if it’s purely for cosmetic reasons. You cannot place images too close to your Ads in an attempt to draw extra visitors to them. You’re not allowed to title your Ads with anything other than “Sponsored Links” or “Advertisers” and don’t underline, enlarge, bold or capitalise this text other than how it’s shown here. Google can also have a serious problem if you display competitors Ads on the same page as your Google Ads although a few Ad networks have been approved to work along side each-other. Google even don’t like their Ads appearing on registration or than you pages.

If you mention revenue earning on your website in any way that could possibly encourage people to click on your Ads, you could well end up being banned. I wouldn’t even risk mentioning your Ads at all on your website apart from in your privacy policy. Even if you for instance write, “Our Ads help up pay towards our hosting costs”, Google could see this as indirectly leading people to help you by clicking on Ads. You also aren’t allowed to publicise your earnings or even any other statistics related to your Adsense account.

Some Ad networks can disable / ban you just because your clicks aren’t converting enough, if this is the case with Google, it’s in my opinion unfair that you stand to lose your earnings so far. Although I’m unsure if Google takes this into direct account, it’s still likely to respond by flagging your account if the click to conversion ratio suddenly changes or increases above a certain level even if there’s a genuine and legitimate explanation.

I strongly suspect that there’s many other less known reasons that could get you disabled / banned that aren’t listed here as Google’s extremely advanced, complex and top secret Adsense anti-cheat is constantly being expanded and ‘improved’ upon (if you can call it being improved).

CONCLUSION

Google Adsense“>Google Adsense have so many strict Terms and Conditions along with Program Policies that most websites could in my opinion be said to be arguably breaching at least something and even if this isn’t the truly the case, actions of other people could still cause invalid clicks leading to an ultimate ban. Therefore in my opinion, if you’re using Google Adsense, you could be banned losing your unpaid earnings without notice at any time whether it’s your fault or not. Being such a large so called reputable company, I would have expected much better.

Legal Disclaimer

This article is my own personal opinion only and shouldn’t be taken as definite fact. It is without prejudice to Google, Google Adsense or any other organisation. The information is displayed “as is” and we cannot guarantee it’s accuracy or that mistakes won’t be made. PJCNET cannot be held responsible in any way what-so-ever for banned Google Adsense accounts or failed appeals because of following or not following any information or advice in this article, readers choose or don’t choose to use the information or take advice entirely at their own risk. My full legal disclaimer applies to this article, any comments and all other articles on this website.

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