The 18 Biggest Mistakes Made By Google Adsense Publishers
If you’re new to using Google Adsense on your website, you might have rushed in without really reading the terms and conditions. In your enthusiasm you might have not even realised there are rules to follow - and tips that can make you more money.
If you’re an established Google Adsense publisher, you might have simply installed the ads on your blog or website and left them to it, intending to pop back and check the rules, but never getting round to it.
Here’s a simple list of the 20 biggest mistakes made by Google Adsense publishers, it’s worth a quick read to make sure you’re not breaking the rules, or missing a trick!
- Never, ever, ever click on your own Google Adsense ads; also, never ask your website visitors or friends to click them for you - Google CAN tell - and they will ban your site. Once you’re banned that’s it, a lifetime ban - and a waste because Google Adsense will probably turn out to be the easiest way you can ever find to earn money from your blog or website. Make no mistake, you cannot be more clever than Google, no matter what complicated ways you could invent to click your ads, you WILL be found out. If you want to find out which ads appear on your pages, use the Google Preview tool.
- Never change the code that Adsense gives to you. Simply copy and paste it - they provide you with the ability to change colours/fonts etc, when you’re building the ads, so stick to that and then copy/paste only.
- Never place more than three ad units and one ad links panel, or two Adsense search boxes on any single web page. If you do this by accident, then adverts will not display, but you’ll be flagged up in the Google HQ and they’ll be watching to see if you did it deliberately.
- Google Adsense is a contextual ad system, you are not allowed to run other competitive contextual text ads or search services on the same site as your Google Ads. The largest competitor is Yahoo! ads. You should also never attempt to create link structures that look like your Google Adsense ads. There are plenty of other systems and links you can use, just double-check what you mix on the page with Google Adsense ads.
- Google don’t allow you to disclose information about your account such as the CTR, CPM or how much you’re earning - although they have slackened off on this restriction in recent years, it’s best to just not share the information. They will now allow you to let people know the total money, but that’s all.
- Only use the headings of Sponsored Links or Advertisements with your Adsense ads. They do not allow other (misleading) labels to be used. You might see other sites using different words, that doesn’t make it right, it just means they’ve not been caught yet. Other people will report you if they see what you’re doing and then you’ll be banned.
- Do not set up your Google ads so they launch a new page when they’re clicked on. Adsense ads should open on the same page. If your target tag opens in a new window, then change it now because Google do not want new pages opening from clicked ads.
- You only need one Google Adsense account. Use one account no matter how many websites you are running ads on. Use the channels feature to monitor your individual sites.
- Only place Google Adsense ads on your content pages. The advertisers are paying for their ads to display on content pages and it is your content that helps Google decide which ads to display. Put simply, this means you shouldn’t run Google Adsense ads on pages such as error pages, login pages or site registration pages, nor on thank you or welcome pages, parked pages - and especially not pop ups! For parked pages, Google actually has a solution just for those, so check it out
- Do not attempt to hide any parts of the Google Adsense block, for example, don’t make the link the same colour as the background. You should blend your ads to match your site, but that is a different thing to actually hiding the links or other parts. Also don’t hide google ads behind pictures, tables or other elements on your page, to “con” people into clicking on them.
- Never ever put your Google ads links into an email. Never.
- Adsense do not allow ads to be placed on certain types of content pages, so make sure you don’t use your code where there are things of an adult nature, MP3s, videos, newsgroups, or image results. Never ever put Google Adsense ads onto pages or sites that are illegal or racist or contain hate messages.
- Don’t try to alter the results after ad clicks or searches. Make sure you’re not altering the site which the user goes to after clicking the ads.
- Don’t put any Google Adsense ads onto pages that contain excessive advertising, or that use any keyword stuffing techniques.
- Make sure that Google support the language that your site is written in. If your web pages contain a language that is not supported, then do not use the Adsense ads on those pages.
- Do not specify Google ads as your alternate ads - it won’t work. Instead, if you want to use an alternate url then check out our pages on alternate urls: Alternate URLs
- Do not place images directly beside your Google ads in an attempt to trick your site visitors to click on the ads. In the past, many people have written to say this is a great tip/trick, but don’t do it - that was something that was banned a number of years ago and you will be banned by Google if you do it.
- Keep on top of Google Adsense’s changes. They don’t often change what is and isn’t allowed, but you do need to check every few weeks just to see if they have changed the rules. If you haven’t tried tried any tricks/tips then you’ll probably find that year in, year out, your site will still always meet their conditions … the changes are just to stop fraudsters in their tracks. If you’re sure you’re squeaky clean then just check every three months, if you’re a little black hat, then you need to check weekly!
Using Google Adsense to make money with your website or blog is THE easiest way there is, but make sure you learn the rules and stick to them! If you spot that anybody is breaking the rules, don’t just report them (unless you know they are doing it on 2000 sites), why not drop them a line first and give them a chance to clean up their site - after all, we’re all trying to do the same thing here and genuine mistakes can happen!
Good luck!
