When I tried to login to my AdSense account yesterday, I got the dreaded notice that it is no longer active. Then I remembered that it was June 1st and Google was going to disable accounts on June 1st. Funny thing is that I didn't get the email in May that said my account was going to be disabled so I thought I was okay. You're thinking MFA, right? No, these were legit sites. My network of sites (in various verticals - health, finance, home improvement, etc.) has real content on them, not just a whole page of ads and not just slapping up a free reprint article and putting adsense ads on the page. Sure, I was playing the arbitrage game and making good margins at it. Besides AdSense, I also made money through affiliate products. I know AdWords, YSM and AdCenter well and how to drive lots of traffic to my sites. Last year, I made mid 5 figures with AdSense. I was doing this on nights and weekends. If I were full-time, I would have done a lot better since I would have been able to spend more time into getting traffic and working on SEO to complement the PPC traffic. But I know the risk of depending on AdSense and with Google changing the rules of the game all the time, it was only a matter of time. A major chunk of my revenue is now gone and I have to refocus and grow other income streams. It's a good thing that I have some diversification in my income sources. And for my network of sites, I also have different email lists that I have been building. I'm open to ideas if anyone wants to help this AdSense junkie recover and find other ways to grow his income again. Thanks for listening to my rant.
That's scary when legitimate content sites are getting the dreaded email. You couldn't have been banned for some other breach of TOS, rather than the "June 1st" thing?
The weird thing is that I did not get ANY email from Google saying that my account is being disabled. I just tried to log in and I got the notice. Since it was June 1st yesterday, I assume I got the boot for doing driving traffic with AdWords to my sites where I have AdSense showing.
Did you check your junk box? I would assume they would have sent something, but that it's just gone missing somewhere. You could always email them and ask if there is just some other problem with the account, as you didn't get an email... maybe you're not banned at all.
I think that if your primary means of driving traffic to your site is using AdWords or some other PPC and it has Adsense on the page that the user lands on, then you're in danger. The 'quality' of your site is determined by Google and if it doesn't meet their standards, they can ban you. The main lesson is that you shouldn't depend solely on AdSense for your income. You'll always be in danger of getting the tap turned off at some point.
Since you're saying your sites are legit, could it be the Ad Words thing? Maybe they are canning people using the Ad Words to Ad Sense technique. I don't use Ad Words for this, so no clue. Just throwing it out there.
Nah..I've been sending traffic to an Adsense emblazened site via adwords, and I have not been banned.
I also imagine that certain types of content tripped buzzers, too...among them, any of the credit card, mortgage, lawyer, mesothelioma type sites. Maybe not in and of itself, but when combined with arbitrage etc it could add up to enough for cancellation.
Yup, if you're in the arbitrage game, unless you're a huge "brand name" publisher, I think you're going to get the boot sooner or later. If you're sending AdWords traffic to your site, you can try to land on a page without AdSense and place AdSense elsewhere on your site. But I think there are better ways to monetize than using AdSense. AdSense is just the easiest at this point. It was a good ride while it lasted. I hope they'll pay me the 7k+ they owe me for last month.
Google will be slapped in the face with lawsuits from Yahoo and Microsoft soon. I don't think it's legal to ask publishers to stop using YSM, AdCentral and other PPC marketings for the reason of arbitrage. If the site is MFA, it should be okay, but I don't like the idea of having traffic from YSM or AdCenter might get you banned from adsense. That's ridiculous, isn't it? I think Google is lying about banning by Adwords <--> Adsense arbitrage. Obviously they want to attack Yahoo and Microsoft.
I dont agree with you. I think its perfectly legal. And I think that the web gets more ugly when clicking ads just leads to new ads.
They're not asking publishers to stop using other PPC to drive traffic to their site. They just say that they want the best user experience. Of course, what is "best" is in the eyes of Google. So in the end, you're at their mercy. I'm just wondering how much revenue Google will lose from AdWords for this quarter since banning arbitrageurs also mean that they will stop advertising with AdWords. I guess we'll have to wait to see the next quarterly financial report. Perhaps it's time to short GOOG?