How to Get Banned from Google Adsense

How to Get Banned from Google Adsense

With so many people ranting and screaming and crying that Google has disabled their adsense account, it’s really an interesting topic worthy to write about. You might be another one who just got the dreaded “invalid click” account closure email from Adsense team, and furious over it. Relax, mate. Not the end of the world, but it is definitely good to know the reason why you are banned. If you still have your account intact, read this, but as our Uncle Ferdy says: “Don’t try this at home.”

Keep in mind that these are HOW TO GET BANNED. In other words, this is a “DO NOT” list if you don’t want your adsense account to be disabled .

1. Ignore Adsense Program Policies & TOS
2. Click on your own ads, specially those you are “genuinely interested” in. Ask people to click on your ads: your friends, your family members, your relatives, your visitors, or even your dogs or your cats. Use proxies to avoid detection.
3. Participate in some form of click-ring. Click-rings are groups of people who gather with consensus to click each others’ ads. Most commonly used methods are Yahoo Groups, instant messenger, mail list, web forum, or specially written software.
4. Buy, write, or use click-bot software. Click-bot software will go around your site and click on your ads. Most of the times, these click-bots are using proxies to avoid detection.
5. Pay the Indian-clickers. These are the people whose main jobs are clicking on PPC advertisements and paid by the malicious publishers. Most of them are from developing countries like India or China.
6. “Invest” with websites that promises to deliver “adsense clicks” for your site. Whatever methods they are using, most likely it falls under one of the aboves.
7. Extra words to make your visitors to notice your ads. Write “Click here” or “Please support us” or “Visit our sponsors”. Anything other than Google-approved “sponsored links” or “advertisements”.
8. Put in as many ads as possible in every page. Put more than three units of the normal ads block, more than one unit of ads links, or more than one referral buttons for each adsense, adwords, and firefox; all in one page.
9. Use spyware to get traffics to your site. Spyware, adware, malware, or whatever it is called can force computer users to open your website everytime they start the computer. Or even better, use some kind of specially written software, toolbar, etc to display or click on your ads.
10. Use pop-ups on your website. Everytime your user open a page, pop-up another one, ideally with the smiley or the IQ Test advertisements.
11. Get as much un-targetted traffic as possible, for instance using the auto-surfing programmes to rotate the members around your site and other sites.
12. Put the adsense code in non-content pages: registration forms, term and condition, login page.
13. Have a competitor contextual ad on same page with adsense ads, for example Yahoo Publisher Network. Please note though that non-contextual ads, e.g. affiliate links or keyword-based ads are acceptable by google and won’t get you banned.
14. Get more than one adsense account. Maybe one for your dog-site, one for your cat-site, one for the v1agra pills, one for mp3 download, etc.
15. Put your adsense code in email the email, usenet, RSS, etc.
16. Tell everyone what is your CTR, your page impressions, etc. Telling people about your total earning, unfortunately, is allowed.
17. Put Google logo where you shouldn’t, and don’t put the logo where you should. In other word, ignore Google trademark.
18. Modify Adsense code as you see fit. Modify the layout, color, URL, will be well. Just anything other than copy-and-paste the code from Google.
19. And, this is important: if and when Google Adsense Team sends you email, ignore it.
20. Put adsense codes in the banned contents

* Excessive profanity
* Violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against any individual, group, or organization
* Hacking/cracking content
* Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia
* Pornography, adult, or mature content
* Gambling or casino-related content
* Excessive advertising
* Any other content that promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others
* Pop-ups, pop-unders or exit windows that interfere with site navigation, obscure Google ads, change user preferences, or are for downloads. Other types of pop-ups, pop-unders, or exit windows may be allowed, provided that they do not exceed a combined total of 5 per user session
* Excessive, repetitive, or irrelevant keywords in the content or code of web pages
* Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site’s search engine ranking, e.g., your site’s PageRank
* Incentives (monetary or point-based) to users or third-party beneficiaries for online activity including, but not limited to, clicking on ads or links, performing searches, surfing websites, reading emails, or completing surveys
* Sales or promotion of certain weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles
* Sales or promotion of beer or hard alcohol
* Sales or promotion of tobacco or tobacco-related products
* Sales or promotion of prescription drugs
* Sales or promotion of products that are replicas or imitations of designer goods

This is the dreaded email:

Subject: Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello (member name),

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s). We have therefore disabled your Google AdSense account. Please understand that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interest of the AdWords advertisers.

A publisher’s site may not have invalid clicks on any ad(s), including but not limited to clicks generated by:

- a publisher on his own web pages
- a publisher encouraging others to click on his ads
- automated clicking programs or any other deceptive software
- a publisher altering any portion of the ad code or changing the layout, behavior, targeting, or delivery of ads for any reason

Practices such as these are in violation of the Google AdSense Terms and Conditions and program polices, which can be viewed at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

OR

Subject: Google AdSense Account Disabled

Hello (member name),

Your AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously disabled for invalid click activity and we have therefore disabled your account.

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers. As outlined in our programme Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate any publisher’s participation at any time.

Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team

When you write to Google to, this is their standard reply

Hello,

Thank you for your email regarding the action taken on your account.

We understand that you wish to receive specific information regarding the invalid clicks we observed on your account. However, due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what specifics we found on your account.

As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click activity very seriously. By disabling your account according to our policy on this matter, we feel that we have taken the necessary measures to protect our advertisers and to ensure that invalid clicks will not continue to occur on your site.

Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in Google AdSense. We appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

What is constitutes invalid clicks? This is what google says:

Invalid clicks are clicks generated through prohibited methods. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to: repeated manual clicks, or the use of robots, automated clicking tools, or other deceptive software.

Please note that clicking on your own ads for any reason is prohibited, to avoid potential inflation of advertiser costs. All clicks must be generated as the result of a user clicking on the ads. We therefore require that Web pages do not include incentives of any kind for users to click on ads. This includes encouraging users to click on the ads or to visit the advertisers’ sites as well as labeling the ads with text other than “sponsored links” or “advertisements.”

Update (15 April 2006) : Someone suggested that having the word AdSense in domain name might get you banned as well. I contacted AdSense Team to clarify that. Domain name with “AdSense” will not get you banned, but the may just decide not to display ads for that specific domain. I have removed the AdSense blocks here out of good will, but still have it on my other websites.