New Requirements for Adding a Site to AdSense

Have all you publishers out there been following the Inside AdSense blog? No? Then you should be. That's where you find news for all the new changes that have been happening in AdSense.

In the last few months, there have been questions in the help forum about AdSense asking for non-host publishers to submit their additional websites for approval. Back when I first saw these questions, there was no available help information, and nothing in my own account to indicate that AdSense "suddenly" wanted to verify any new site we added. Non-host publishers used to be able to add their new sites to their account, verify them, and place ads on them without getting secondary approval for the site.


That meant it was up to the publisher to ensure their sites didn't violate any policies. Unfortunately, that also meant that publishers who weren't up-to-date on the policies, or who didn't understand the policies often put ads on sites that were not suitable.


Just recently, AdSense released a news flash indicating that from hence forth, new sites added to publisher accounts would first be reivewed and approved (or rejected) before they could be used for AdSense (see the Inside AdSense blog post, and check out the video for more information).

From my point of view, that was a good move and was, actually, something that some of us have been asking them to do for years now. Over the years, too many publishers have had disabled accounts because they stuck ads on sites that had severe policy violations.

At least now, there should be less of that, and perhaps those publishers who don't read the rules regularly will start to do so before submitting their new sites.

How the process works seems to be pretty similar to how an upgrade works. When you want to add a new site, you should see an option to submit the new site. The requirements for a new site are the same as they are for signing up for AdSense, or for submitting a host account upgrade. From what we can tell, the same policies apply, and the same time frames apply. Since AdSense indicates they want sites that have been active for 6 months, with sufficient content, that's probably going to apply as well.

At the moment, my own account doesn't appear to have been
updated, but it will eventually. When AdSense makes changes to how things work in your AdSense account, they don't often roll it out all at once, so if you don't see this change in your AdSense account, you probably will before too long.

This "feature" may not make some publishers very happy (particularly those who create MFA sites, and those who create sites to sell to others), but it's going to make the advertisers happy (you know, they're the guys who pay for the ads), and I would think that it's going to make long-time publishers with better quality sites happy too.

At least with this change, only sites whose contents fit AdSense guidelines will be showing ads. And may even prevent some publishers from "buying" unqualified websites.

This update, in the end, is good for publishers (both new and long-term) AND good for advertisers!

posted by J.Gracey Stinson