Wednesday, October 6, 2010

AdSense's Unacceptable Content Rejection - What is it?

It seems like this is the question everyone's asking right now. There are more and more of these rejection questions showing up in the AdSense Help forums, and most people seem uncertain about what this rejection means. For the most part,  Adsense isn't all that clear about what to do in order to correct this, and won't spell out precisely what the issue is.

In some cases, the unacceptable content is easy to spot when you compare the person's website against the AdSense Program Policies, but it isn't always as simple as that - particularly when English is not the publisher's native language.

Some of the reasons for unacceptable site content that we've been able to come up with in the forums are as follows:

  1. - content that doesn't meet adsense policy (read the policies here: https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=48182)
  2. - content that doesn't meet the webmaster guidelines (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769) Although the Webmaster Guidelines are listed as "guidelines", AdSense publishers are required to follow these guidelines, making them as important as the Adsense Program Policies. When you are applying to become a publisher, or when you are a publisher, the Webmaster Guidelines are no longer guidelines - they are a requirement, so you'll need to consider these as rules you must follow.
  3. - content that isn't original (articles and content you didn't write). Since the inception of "Caffeine", AdSense has been systematically disabling blogs and websites with copied content, auto-written contents, contents of little to no value (re-purposed content from other websites), written content that doesn't make sense or reads as gibberish, and has been rejecting blogs and websites of this nature in the last few months. If you apply with a blog or website with contents such as this, be prepared to receive a rejection notice. What you need is original content that you've created yourself.
  4. - no content, or very little content. AdSense requires each blog or website to contain sufficient content. If you have a blog with one or two posts, that's not going to be good enough for AdSense to approve. If your website has only one page, then you'll probably get rejected, unless it's a very big place with a LOT of original content.  If you apply with a site that has "no content", then your "content" is non-existent, which makes it unacceptable content.
  5. - blank pages in your website. AdSense doesn't want to see your proposed website, or a website under development. They want your website to be complete, and easy to navigate. It shouldn't have a redirect for the domain URL (unless you've used a 301 redirect), it shouldn't have a frame on the URL that calls the website from another URL (it needs to be a direct URL), it shouldn't have links that don't work or are broken, and it shouldn't have links that lead to blank pages with no content, or with only "ipsum lorem" text. That's the latin text you often see on template pages when you purchase a template or get a free site template. That text is nothing but gibberish - it's meant as a place holder, and you need to replace that with your own text.
  6. - copyright infringements (images or other contents you don't have permission to use). Adsense expects it's publishers to "go the extra mile" and create their own unique contents, including images. If you can't create your own images to use with your text (websites and blogs need text, not JUST images or videos), then they expect you to get permission from the image owner BEFORE you use the images, and you'll need to give credit to the image owner. Images specifically marked as being in the public domain don't require permission for use, but you do still need to have a site with mostly original contents, so using a site full of public domain images and nothing else is likely to get a rejection.
  7. - a website that isn't six months old and doesn't have six months worth of original content. Adsense requires sites from many countries to be six months old before getting approval, and although we don't have a list of specific countries to point to, it appears that there are many more countries AdSense has added this requirement for.
While there may still be other reasons for unacceptable content, these are the most common ones we've come across. It's up to each publisher to ensure their content follows the guidelines and policies set out by AdSense and Webmaster Guidelines so if you receive this rejection, you'll need to spend some time going through your website or blog and digging through your content to find the areas you'll need to amend, remove, or add to.

If you have taken the time to study your site and the policies and still can't figure out what's wrong, then you can ask in the AdSense Help Forum to see if someone else can see the issues at hand, but it's really the publisher's responsibility to at least try to figure out the problems first. Help is always available, but learning how to decipher your site's problems will help you keep your account in good standing in the future.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for the information! It's really handy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Useful posts. I especially liked the one on privacy policies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. well maybe there is one that not in your list :
    Unacceptable site content: Your website contains content that we do not
    allow at this time. Please review our policies
    (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_GB) for a complete list
    of site content not allowed on web pages.

    possible cause :
    1. bad grammar or spell (correct all then reaply)
    2. in another language (if you still use your own language remove that first use only pure english)

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice post about adsense gracy........ very informative post

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi J. Gracey Stinson
    I register in adsense in Dec 13
    and get this message (Verify your email address to complete your Google AdSense application)

    after that i get response in Dec 16 Google AdSense Account Status
    (We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.
    Issues:
    - Under construction) !!!

    I am resubmit form i think in Dec 18 and now (Account Not Active
    An AdSense account does not exist for this login, as your application is currently in review. Within a week of your application date, we'll review

    your application and follow-up with you via email. Once you are approved to join AdSense, you'll be able to log in to your account and get started.)

    My website start in 13-1-2007, and i get Under construction ?!!!!

    The domain I registered is www.ftesh.com
    Can you help please.


    note: sorry but i can't post in Google Help forum

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well, I think we'll need to see your website to find out why it's getting the under construction notice.

    ReplyDelete
  7. very well written article. Thanks for such a good effort, to clear our confusions about unacceptable content. Can you please tell me, minimum how many articles should be in a blog, before applying for adsense... I am just asking for informational purpose.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There really isn't a set number of posts or articles, so it's pretty much guesswork.

      If you consider that AdSense is usually looking for a site or blog that is already several months old, and they expect publishers to post regularly, then you can take that and make an estimated guess.

      So two months (or 8 weeks) of regular posting, say three times a week comes out to roughly 24 to 30 posts. But the issue isn't just how many posts you have. How much textual content you have in each post is also important. One post with two or three sentences just isn't enough, so if you had 30 posts like that, you still wouldn't have enough content.

      And of course, in some countries, the site is expected to be six months old, so they'd be expecting something like 60 to 70 posts. If each post is of a considerable length, you might still be approved if you only had 40 posts, as long as your site was six months old.

      So in the end, it isn't always a matter of counting how many posts you have, it's more about how much good quality, original content you have.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for explaining it so briefly, i now understand it completely.

      Delete
  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You can't offer free downloads of games that are paid products. No hacked, cracked or patched game downloads are allowed.

      And if you offer a LINK to download a demo or trial game, you have to say they are demos or trials, you can't lead people to believe they are a "free" game, when they aren't.

      Delete

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