I host a large education forum - homework help... I started it three years ago, and I've been making an honest buck since day one. To give you an idea of how favoured this website is, the second someone creates a new thread, it is on Google search instantly. There is a section/category of my website where people can post links to E-books hosted elsewhere (other websites on other databases). As a result, I received a warning from Google three days ago with an example of a page they weren't happy with. I ended up removing that thread and I also removed every thread that was in the E-books board... (now no one can access it, but me). I know this is bad for SEO, but I don't want to lose out on this wonderful Adsense opportunity that I have going for me. My question is, am I allowed to keep this category and all its threads, but not display Google ads on there? Will Google disapprove of this? In other words, everywhere else there will be ads, except for threads found in this particular thread. Please let me know what I should do... In addition, will I get an email from Google saying that my website is OK, or is their lack of response suggesting that I did the right thing? Stylesss
It's more of a legal question - but if you're encouraging people to share pirated PDFS/files that's against Adsense's TOS. If the forum category is dedicated to sharing copyrighted material, then yes you have to close that section of your site down to comply with Adsense's terms.
"Happy" does not describe the problem of the Adsense here. You should tell exactly what they have said to You. However just let you know if Adsense has sent you a private warning, take care of it or Your domain may have banned permanently by Adsense!
I decided to remove all Google Adsense ads in the pages that could be considered "copyright" and replaced them with another ad network. This will significantly decrease my earnings, but at least it won't get me in trouble with my boss.
Be aware that this may be against Adsense terms, as they don't allow you to have multiple ad providers on a site as the adverts from the other provider may be mistaken for Adsense ads. Liam
You're partially correct... I think what you're thinking is if Adsense is placed alongside other ads on the same page. In this scenario, if the ads look visually similar, you would be penalized - correct. I've actually removed *all* adsense from threads found in these categories. To think that they actually would, would be ridiculous.
Your problem is I'm pretty certain that actually that it's the site as a whole that they look at and not just the pages you run adsense on. Sounds like you've a big problem, because I think if you don't remove the offending content from the site then you will most probably lose your adsense account. Put it another way, if you had a site with just six pages, five pages ran childrens cartoons and the sixth page ran porn, do you think not running adsense on the porn pages would be acceptable enough to avoid a ban? Of course it would not, you'd still get a ban. You problem is much like someone would say about the police "They are on to you" Actually just found this. This is the section on copyrighted material on the adsense website:- " Copyrighted material What's the policy? Google ads may not be displayed on websites with content protected by copyright law unless they have the necessary legal rights to display or direct traffic to that content. Some examples of copyrighted content might include MP3 and video files, television shows, software, comics, and literary works." NOTE: It states ads may not be displayed on websites that infringe, it's refering specifically to the whole website - not just pages. So removing the adsense just from the offending pages isn't likely to solve the problem, it's the website content as a whole that they consider and thus have issues with. If all is well they most likely won't send you another email, if all is not well then you will here from them sooner rather than later, typically they give you around 3 days to sort things out. It might help if you posted a copy of the email they sent.
I think we're playing the semantic game. Here's what they stated in the email: "or remove ads from the violating pages." This gives me a bit of reassurance that I'm doing the right thing. Besides, I deleted all the threads with ebooks links, etc.
+1 Well, good news, Google never messaged me back after the changes. Is this expected, or do people normally receive a confirmation.
Alas they will never ever email you to pat you on the back and say well done or that the problems gone away, so unfortunately the fact they've not written back doesn't mean the problem has gone away. You could well find the next email bans you.
I sure hope not. They were kind enough to send me two warnings and not ban my site. By the way, I have two other sites + Youtube account under the same name.