Adsense is the other half of the Google affiliate network. There is Google AdWords for people who want to post adverts, and Google Adsense for people who want to run those adverts on their website in return for some sort of payment (usually via clicks).
Affiliate advertising is a solid way of monetizing your website, and the Google affiliate network is very popular because advertisers want to appear on the Google search engine results page. So, the last thing you want to happen is for your website to be banned from the Adsense program.
Here are few tips to help prevent your Adsense account from being banned from Google.
Do not publish duplicate/stolen content on your website
This is a big no-no when it comes to affiliate advertising. You should even consider running routine checks on your content to be sure that other people have not stolen it. This is because Google is not very discriminating when it comes to penalizing websites for duplicate content. There is a high chance that they will punish your website even if the other website did the stealing. The only times they persecute just one is if the other website happens to be crammed with stolen content.
Google are very fussy when it comes to you doing any sort of black-hat SEO, but they are especially fussy when it comes to duplicate content. This is probably because if you steal content then you are potentially stealing affiliate-click money that the other website could be enjoying.Â
Make sure your downtime is not too high
Google are not monsters when it comes to this, but if they notice that your website is down on frequent occasions then you may suddenly become ineligible for having Adsense on your website. Keep your site maintenance offline as much as you can, so that any changes may simply be uploaded without taking the site offline for too long. Also, check that your hosting service is not going down too often. A 2% downtime is just about the reasonable limit for any hosting service. If your website is down for more than 2% of the year because of your hosting service then change your host.
Read the Google Adsense guidelines
Do not read them from an article because the article may be wrong, or it may be missing vital information. Plus if you read the Google Adsense guidelines then you can be sure that you are reading the most up to date information.
Do not click your own affiliate advertising links
Doing it a few times is permissible but frowned upon. Google understands that you may accidentally click one upon occasion, but they are very aware of the fact that people do it in order to bump up their pay per click money. Also, if you get friends and family to routinely click your adverts then Google is going to become suspicious and may cancel your account for good measure. Worse still, do not pay for a service that clicks your adverts, or pay for a bot to do it for you, as Google are aware that these things exist.
Be wary of other people trying to get you banned. If you suddenly notice that one or more of your adverts are being clicked very often then take your adverts offline and seek advice from Google and tell them your concerns. But, telling Google may make the administrator cancel your account for good measure, so take the ads off of your site and wait a while before putting them back on. Hopefully the malcontent that was causing the problem will think he/she has won and move onto the next victim.
Do not change your Adsense adverts or code
People do this for a number of reasons. Some people do not like the look of their adverts and so will change them by making them bigger or adding things in order to make them more clickable. Google does not like this and it is a breach of your agreement with them. Some people change the code or redirect the clicks by putting a redirect link onto Facebook for people to click. This is also a breach of the agreement you made when you signed up for Google Adsense and will result in your account being cancelled.
If you do break the agreement with Google then they are not legally obliged to pay you the money that is in your Adsense account. And, even though there have been no public cases of it yet, they are within their rights to sue people who have been getting away with Adsense tampering for a while.Â
Author Bio: This post is written by Kate Funk. She is a professional blogger and writer at Tutorsclass. She specializes in topics of interest to techno geeks and networking enthusiasts.