I recently looked intoa buying a site that I thought had a lot of potential - not to mention is already out of the sandbox and would be a good addition to one of my other sites, and I was looking to buy - when I found out that the site/owner had been banned from Google for fraudulent clicks or something of that nature. Does this mean that even if I was to buy this site, I still couldn't run adsense ads on it?
google ban publishers, not site. if there's something seriously wrong with the site, fix it up, and then let google know that you're now the new owner and that you've fixed whatever violations the previous owner left behind. once you do that your new site will be clean.
Most sites associated with a suspended publisher have a block put on them which prevents ads from showing (that is when you see the you are not authorized to view.... error instead of AdSense if the script is still up). I do know many who have tried to get websites reinstated for AdSense without any luck, even as legit new owners. If all sites were allowed back in after the publisher was suspended for invalid clicks, it would be easy for suspended publishers to get a new account under a relatives name or new company name, and then contact Google as the "new owner" and ask for the site to be reinstated. There are many AdSense sites out there that have been suspended for fraud clicks... and even if I put my AdSense code on it, they still wouldn't work.
Aww, way to ruin my day Jenstar... kidding... I thought that might be the case - it seemed logical that Google might do that - but that said I have been a user of their Adsense program for over a year now, if I was to place my ads on it I'm sure I could contact them and explain the situation, and they might give some moving room considering I have been a fairly long standing members, and I'm definitely not just some fresh new adsense user that could posibly be a "relative" - anyway I have emailed them I will let you all know the response.
If you haven't bought the site already, may be you can email google & tell them the website name & that you intend to buy it and being a member with them for over a year if they'd allow you to place adsense on it. It would be intersting to see what they say.
My own experience is that if a publisher is banned, the site will not show up ny ads from any Adsense account. You have to ask Adsense to unban that domain and sometimes they refuse. Therefore you must contact Google before you buy the site.
Well the site is still listed in Google, so I assume that the site hasn't been banned or deindexed by them... Anyway here is my email and their response: LOL so what do people interpret that to mean - Dam Google - always so mysterious.
they're always very vague. you have two choices: 1) ask for a clearer explanation, of which you likely will get a "we're sorry we weren't clear the first time. here's the answer you're looking for." 2) go with the interpretation that the site is ok as long as it complies.
If you are not sure if its banned or not, try adsense preview tool from here. Use it on that site and if you don't see any ads at all its banned from adsense. If it is banned it won't be unbanned (%99.9). So don't buy it..
You can also email the Adsense team before you buy. Tell them you are considering buying the site and ask if it would be acceptable to places ads on the site. If you have a good history with adsense, they may open the site up for you to place ads on.
Too late I bought it! I paid $70 for it. I already receives 40 uniques a day for a reasonable paying adsense topic, and its SEO in my opinion is terrible but it already has good rankings for its major keywords (nothing top 10 but a few second pagers) and the industry itself is one that is steadily growing and is already hugely popular - I read the things google suggested and I didn't see anything major wrong with buying it and placing ads on the site. We'll just have to wait and see.
Now that you have the site, put the ad code on it - if you see ads, consider it good, and if you see "You are not authorized..." error within the iframe (in IE only) you will have to convince Google to release the block on it for putting ads on.
Is that A$70 or US$70? LOL... In my opinion, at that price it's worth it. Even if you can't display adsense on it, you can go with alternate ads.
It's $US 70 but still its not that expensive - or at least I think it was a reasonable price for an already established site.