Digital marketing is a big industry. Led by Google whose adsense program is the biggest and most popular affiliate marketing network.

You will not be surprised that virtually every news and marketing website want to have Google Adsense running. The attractiveness to Google adsense had been heightened by the success of some websites including Lynda Ikeji who makes over 18million Naira monthly from Google adsense. Indeed, success stories like those of Lynda Ikeji has significantly boosted the growth of digital marketing

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How these websites make and manage their successes had been of great interest to affiliate markers and bloggers who want to make some cool box allowing Google advertisement on their sites. Some are tempted to think that cutting corners and ignoring established rules is a way out and the sure way to succeed. But these end up getting into trouble with Google. In this post, we examine how to achieve adsense success while adhering strictly to the rules of Google..

There is no doubt that the thousands of good webmasters have had successes with their adsense campaigns because they have found a good way to make money with adsense. By following their lead, you can equally achieve success or, at least, begin to find a rise in your adsense revenue.

As a rule, it is more beneficial to focus on some practices that will lead to your failure of result in a ban from Google while you focus on building traffic for your website. This post will show you what you should avoid and help you understand these things that can destroy your revenue source and defeat the adsense program.

Further reading:

How to secure your website from attacks using the .htaccess file

Getting Started

The excitement of getting your adsense program approved make many very desperate to focus on how to make money with their adsense program and forgetting about the rules. But before you start placing ads and making money with adsense, is advisable and a good practice to begin with an understanding the consequences of the actions that you take. Some website owners will lament over dwindling revenue and sometimes will complain about poor and non-substantial revenue. Many times, the problem is because the program is not being followed according to the best rules and practices as set out by Google.

Don’t Make Assumptions

Ever website is unique in some way. At least the traffic level cannot be the same. So, do not make the assumption that just because something worked in another program you have tried that it will work equally well in your adsense program. It may work quite well but it may also not work. So, you need to try the options you have and see which one works for you.

Some of your tests will show that the concept may be or may not be adaptable for Adsense. You will always need to know the difference and the changes required or decide on a completely different strategy. Another assumption to avoid is that you will make a certain amount of money if you follow the program. Even if you follow every good practices, it doesn’t guarantee that you will be successful.

Do Not Try to be Too Smart

Do not be too desperate to make money when you start your adsense program. Just stick to the hard rules and do not try to push the limits that are defined by the Google Adsense program. When the revenues start coming in, you may be tempted to try something thinking that no one will notice and you will by so doing make a lot of money.

Google is very smart and you will most certainly not outsmart them. Failing to adhere to the rules means that you will be risking a ban from the Adsense program. if you step over the line. Google is willing to work with you and to respond to honest queries about whether a particular practice or item is acceptable under Adsense guidelines.

Basic Adsense Policies You Must Keep To

1. You Must Have a Privacy Policy

This is a fundamental requirement to participate in the adsense program of Google. You must have a privacy policy in place if you’re going to run Google Adsense. This is not negotiated,; you must have it. Period.

2. Invalid Clicks

Most people will want to click even by themselves to make more more. Invalid clicks account for a number of bans and removal. There are a number of ways to trigger an invalid click:

Automated Software – People who create or use software to click on links.

Bots – Similar to Automated Software, these scripts can auto-click or pass through values that can get you in trouble.

You – One of the top offenders are the site owners themselves as they “test” their own advertisements and click on them.

Friends, Online Groups – Another quick way to get banned is asking your friends (or family or a social network or online group) to “test” it out for you with explicit directions to click on the advertisements.

Any Other Artificial Click – Sometimes you can get banned because someone or some business might be targeting your website by accident or intentionally. Sometimes, these things happens maliciously and Google is  always willing to help with cases of malicious clicks.

Also read: Best Practices for Managing 404 Error Pages

3. Misleading or Encouraging Your Readers, Visitors to Click Advertisements

Another common way that bloggers get banned is to either mislead their visitors and readers to click on the advertisements or even explicitly asking them to either by saying something as direct as “Please click my banner advertisements on my sidebar!” or perhaps something a little more tactful

You do not need to do that because Google will catch you.

This essentially violates Adsense policies as the end user may not know that those clicks are on actual advertisements. The only allowed text above any Adsense ad is “Ads” or “Advertisement.”

Also, you can mislead your users by way of your blog’s design by putting content super-close to your advertisements or in such a way that forces them to click on them to move forward in their user experience. Putting advertisements next to images is also prohibited as this can “fool” a user in thinking it’s an image while it’s actually an advertisement.

4. Revealing Adsense Data

The Terms and Conditions state explicitly:

    You agree not to disclose Google Confidential Information without Google’s prior written consent.

    “Google Confidential Information” includes without limitation:

    (a) all Google software, technology, programming, specifications, materials, guidelines and documentation relating to the Program;

    (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Property performance in the Program provided to You by Google; and

    (c) any other information designated in writing by Google as “Confidential” or an equivalent designation.

    However, You may accurately disclose the amount of Google’s gross payments to You pursuant to the Program.

5. Purchasing Traffic, 3rd Parties

The last area that typically gets people banned is when they purchase traffic from other sources.

Adsense says that the following may not be done and all warrant a ban by Google:

    Use third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf and click-exchange programs.
    Be promoted through unsolicited mass emails or unwanted advertisements on third-party websites.
    Display Google ads, search boxes or search results as a result of the actions of software applications such as toolbars.
    Be loaded by any software that can trigger pop-ups, redirect users to unwanted websites, modify browser settings or otherwise interfere with site navigation. It is your responsibility to ensure that no ad network or affiliate uses such methods to direct traffic to pages that contain your AdSense code.
    Receive traffic from online advertising unless the site complies with the spirit of Google’s Landing Page Quality Guidelines. For instance, users should easily be able to find what your ad promises.

Understand Adsense TOS and Stop violating Adsense Policies:

Invalid Clicks:

This is where the maximum Adsense account gets into the danger zone. Most of publisher who starts with Adsense, they usually ask their friend to click on Ads or click on their Ads from different I.P. If Adsense team detect such activity, they put your account in disable mode to ensure and safeguard their Advertisers.

Also, many new publishers ask their readers to click on ads, which is also discouraged by Adsense as stated in their program policies.

Using Adsense on unsupported language blog:

At the time of writing, Google doesn’t support all the languages to qualify for Adsense program. If you have approved AdSense account, and you are using it to show it on the blog whose language don’t qualify Adsense TOS, then make changes asap. Especially, if you are using any method to make your blog multi-lingual and serving Ads on it, this will be considered as a violation.

Sending ads on Email:

Many publishers started the trend of sending AdSense adverts within the email, and sometimes it goes viral. Google find it against the program policies.

Advertisement label:

Many publishers started using a trick like click here,   Click to see hot babe, and this also helped to encourage the click. Encourage click? Oh, time to look at point 4. Or you use pop-up script to show Adsense in pop-up and readers have to click on it to read the content, Ahh big no!

Competitive contextual advertisement:

Make sure you don’t use any other contextual advertisement program. Let Google ad sense by your only and favorite advertisement program. Though for monetization you can use many other ad networks and here are some which I have used, and they comply with Adsense TOS. Infolinks, BuySellads, Technorati Media, Viglink.

Altering the Adsense code:

So you are a programmer? Huh! Doesn’t matter. Changing your Adsense code in any ways is not permitted by Google.

Shading with Image: Placing Google Adsense Image ad unit with the adjacent image can be a great and smart move, but guess what? Do it and Google AdSense might ban you. Google TOS doesn’t allow the use of shading your AdSense image ads with the adjacent image.

    Read few more from official Google page
    Meanwhile do you know a Guy named Aaron Sued Google AdSense for banning his account,

Hosting Copyright content:

If you are running Adsense on a site that distribute copyright content like Movies, songs or any other files, you are most likely to get an instant ban. Adsense doesn’t allow putting Adsense on the site that distribute copyright stuff.

Linking to site who distribute Illegal and copyright content:

This is something which I got to know about in 2012 and one of the reasons why most of the sites are getting Adsense ban. If you are linking to sites like (Streaming movie), illegal or pirated software, Keygen sites, your AdSense serving might be disabled for that particular site. Here is the other type of content, which is not allowed for Adsense sites:

    Porn, Adult material
    Violent content
    Racial content
    Hacking/Cracking
    Gambling/Casino
    Pages selling Drugs, Alcohol (Beer or hard alcohol)
    Pages selling Weapons and ammunition
    Distribution of course work. Eg: Student Essays

Above are just an example, and there could be more. So, you should avoid putting any such content on your blog or at least avoid serving Adsense on those pages.

Paid Traffic:

If you are buying traffic for your Adsense enabled sites, it’s not permitted according to AdSense TOS. Also, consider reading Adsense landing page Quality guidelines, which will give you ample amount of idea, what Google expect from your pages.

Promoting your post on Social media or buying traffic from quality sites like Facebook, Stumbleupon, Reddit is not the violation.

Making ads look like part of content:

You are free to make your ads blend with the content by changing the color or size, but don’t make it look exactly like content. In below image you can see what kind of mimicking is not acceptable:

AdSense implementation: wrong practices

Quick things to know:

    Don’t make your AdSense ads sticky. Making it sticky is against AdSense implementation policy.
    Using AdSense ads on a Site, which curate videos from Youtube or other video hosting site, can put your account in radar. To Avoid this, ensure you also have original content on your blog. A good idea is to add 200-300 words content in your words describing the video.
    Don’t place AdSense ads on 404 error page, Exit pages, log-in pages and thank you pages.

Implementing Google Adsense with Popular Content Management Systems

Top 6 Best AdSense WordPress Plugins

Adding Adsense codes to your website has been an easy way to generate extra funds and increase traffic to your website. This is an easy task with plugins and in this article, we will look at the best WordPress plugins serving this purpose.

Plugins on WordPress can do a variety of different functions and we’ve taken the time to look up the ones that can be helpful in putting ads on your website. By using these plugins, you will be able to modify colors and size display of the advertisements, decide where to place ads on your site, and many more uses.

By taking advantage of the customizable options that are offered to you, having advertisements can improve the overall look and feel of your website and can create for more visitors. With the ten listed plugins, adding advertisements to your site becomes a little bit easier as you will save time and have more control of the ads being displayed on your site.

Eli’s WordCents AdSense Widget with Analytics

This widget requires version 2.8 or higher. This widget goes on your sidebar so that it displays ads and also allows for customizable analytics.

Google AdSense Plugin

Just like the title states, this plugin allows for you to apply Google AdSense to your website. With this plugin, you are able to customize the look of an advertisement including the color, number of ads, and more. Version 2.9 or higher is needed.

Quick AdSense

This plugin offers a fast way to insert AdSense or any Ads codes anywhere into a blog post. There are so many great features that come with this plugin. A couple of these features are the option to display a maximum of 10 ads on a page and a simple configuration interface. Version 2.5 or higher is needed.

WP Simple AdSense Insertion

This plugin is for you to easily insert Google AdSense to all your posts, sidebars, and pages. This plugin is really great if you aren’t the most tech savvy person, are new to WordPress, and like straightforwardness. A version of 3.0 or higher is needed of WP.

Easy AdSense

This is a great plugin in order to help you to create revenue from your blog! There are so many different features that this plugin offers that give you lots of control and a set of options, while at the same time keeping things very simple. Some of the features of this plugin include putting link units or AdSense Blocks in headers and footers, adding sidebar widgets, and much more. This plugin requires version 2.6 or higher.

AdSense Widget

You can use this widget to select the ad size that is displayed on your site, customize colors, hide ads for users and admins, and also see which ads are getting the clicks to see their performance. This requires version 2.8 or higher.

Hopefully these plugins will make it easier for you to take advantage of the use of ads on your website and monetize some of your traffic.

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