AdSense: How Do I Protect Myself?

We often see publishers in the AdSense Help Forum asking us to help them because their accounts were disabled. For many, the policy violations on their sites preclude us from being of much assistance. You must follow the AdSense Program Policies and the Webmaster Guidelines. If you don't, there's a good chance your account will be disabled.

Other publishers have had accounts disabled for reasons such as "invalid activity" and many ask us how this can be when they haven't clicked their own ads.

You don't have to click one (or more) ads on your website to have invalid or suspicious activity. OTHER people can cause this, and while it isn't your fault they've done so, it is your responsibility as a publisher to do everything you can to protect both the advertiser (who is the one paying the bills) and your account.

So...I can see the wheels spinning already. The big question is "well how do we do that?".

Adsense itself provides very little in the way of options that offer any sort of "protection". They offer no blocking mechanism to stop people from visiting your site or clicking your ads (notice I have no ads on this blog? Can you figure out why?)

But because they don't hand you a method to do that doesn't mean there aren't ways to look out for problem areas in your account and on your websites.

The first step: do not place adsense ads on your website and then forget about monitoring them. We've seen many publishers who placed ads on their site(s) and then didn't bother checking their sites after that. Once in a while they'd check their AdSense accounts to see if they earned any money, but never really kept track of what was actually happening on their websites.

The second step: track, track and track. What that means is that you should find a third-party (ie: not one provided by adsense) statistical tracking code and install it on your website(s). Third party trackers often provide useful information that AdSense and Analytics doesn't - for instance, the IP address of all visitors and what those visitors looked at (what pages) while on your site, and what they clicked on . And this is information you need to help protect your account.

Warning: there is a word of warning that goes along with using third-party stats. These third-party scripts CANNOT, CANNOT, CANNOT (I'll repeat that just in case you didn't get it, CANNOT) tell the difference between a valid click for adsense and an invalid click. In a lot of cases, third-party stats register clicks that don't actually occur. I won't get into the hows and whys because that's a technical issue that would take way too long for me to explain, so you'll have to trust me a little on this. DO NOT expect these stats to show you the correct ad clicks for AdSense. What AdSense records as a click and what third-party trackers record as a click WILL NOT likely match. If that is going to freak you out some, then don't use third-party trackers. Unfortunately, this is likely going to be the only way to protect yourself. If you can ignore the differences in click records (just don't look at them in a third-party counter) then get one onto your site.

The third step: visit your third party stats and your adsense stats DAILY, or at the very least every other day. If you only look at them once a month it would be too late to head off any problems, or to institute control over any website that has become the target of some malicious "click-bomber".

HOW THE STATISTICS CAN HELP YOU

In the help forums we have a long-time publisher (known only as Publisher1) who has suffered through a very long bout of malicious behaviour from one visitor. His problem was spread out over many weeks and involved many, many fraudulent and invalid clicks, among other things.

Publisher1 still has his AdSense account though. And he was able to oust the click-bomber by taking a pro-active stance and by taking charge of the situation. How did he do that? I'll let him tell you the story, because he very kindly posted two articles to the AdSense Help forum that explain HOW to protect yourself against stuff like this. You may not be able to stop it from happening, but the steps you take when it does are what will help you keep your Adsense account.

FACING AND BEATING A CLICK-BOMBER'S ATTACK

The Crash Course Emergency Strategy for Click-bombing Attacks

Please, please, please go and read the information provided at those two links, and then bookmark them. You'll be doing yourself a big favour. Some day, you may need this information to keep your AdSense account alive.

Oh - one more thing. Remember to thank Publisher1 for sharing his experience to help others.

AdSense Name Changes - What's In A Name?

What's your name? No, I mean your real name...the name on your identity papers, birth certificate or passport?

Well, when you apply for a personal or individual AdSense account, this is the name you must use. That's what AdSense would consider your payee name. When entering your payee name for AdSense on your account application, it's vastly important that you get it right. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Apparently it isn't as easy as that. I can't even begin to tell you how many people come to the forum trying to find out how to change their payee name after they've been approved.

AdSense doesn't allow complete name changes. Only in a very few areas they allow you to edit your payee name if you've made a spelling mistake on the application, and they allow changes if you've married and had a name change. Other than that, you simply can't change your payee name in your account.

Changing the payee name from your name to your brother or sister's name would be considered an account transfer, which AdSense doesn't allow.

It appears that now most areas (with the exception of a few) don't have the ability to even edit their payee name to correct a spelling error.

In an AdSense account the payee name will have a link next to it to allow you to make corrections. If this link is not active, doesn't appear, or is grayed out, then you have no way to edit your payee name yourself.

The AdSense Help Center has a form that explains how to change a payee name, and includes a list of countries where payee names cannot be changed at all. From what we've seen lately in the forums, there now appears to be more countries that can't make these changes, but AdSense doesn't seem to have added them onto the listing yet. What that means is without a way to correct your name, you would still have to follow the instructions given, even if your country is not spelled out on the list.

Changing the payee name for countries or accounts who can't access the edit link is time consuming and often frustrating. Which is why it is so important to get your payee name right on your application - get it right the first time and you won't need to go through these steps.

To change your payee name if there's no active edit link you must first cancel your current AdSense account. Yes, cancel it. To do that, you must use the cancellation request form - do not simply delete your account. That will cause you all kinds of problems. Follow the steps on the cancellation form. If you have already accrued earnings in your current account and those earnings are over $10.00 US then AdSense will forward those earnings to you - they are usually issued 90 days after you cancel your account.

Account cancellations are permanent. Once you cancel the current account you cannot get it back and will need to open a new account.

Once you have received notification from AdSense that your current account is closed, you need to apply for a new AdSense account, making sure your payee name and address details are correct.

I'm sure some of you are wondering how so many people get their names wrong in the first place. Some are simply due to typing errors; some are due to the characters of different languages; some people apply with their user ID instead of their real names; and many are from invalid account acquirement. Some people have others apply for them, some people try to buy AdSense accounts because they can't get their own - the people actually applying for the account are not the people who will own the account, and very often the payee name is not entered correctly. Some are simply trying to "snow the system" by using someone else's name to get an account, thinking they can change the name later.

These latter reasons and people are the ones you have to thank for AdSense not allowing name changes - too much fraudulent activity in the past and even in the present time is now increasing the list of countries that can't make changes to their accounts - or at least it appears that way.

Although the question has been asked (what countries have been added to the list) AdSense has not issued a new list, nor given any indication that other countries were added, so we're left to guess.

So no matter where you live, getting your payee name right when you apply is crucial if you don't want to have to go through an account cancellation and reapplication later on.

AdSense - It's Not An Entitlement

Did the title get your attention? Good. It was supposed to.
AdSense is a free program operated by Google, but that doesn't mean everyone automatically gets to use it. Because it's free doesn't entitle you to have it.
Even free programs tend to come with some "strings" attached.
This one has guidelines and rules, and requirements for quality. If you don't meet those, you won't be approved.
And yes, they do have to approve you.
And no, they don't even have to tell you why they haven't approved you.
AdSense and Google are like any other business, or any other customer you may approach. They can choose to hire you or choose not to. They don't have to provide you with a reason.
Let's say you cut lawns for a living. When you knock on a person's door and offer to cut their lawn, they can say yes or no. If they say no, do you ask them why they said no? Unless you are really aggressive, you probably won't. You'll just move on to the next possible customer.
Why is AdSense any different then? It really isn't.
AdSense does send emails with a variety of reasons why you may not qualify, and it's up to the applicant to figure out why.
If an applicant takes the time to read the whopping amount of information available in the Help Center, they'd probably be able to figure out why.
To get an AdSense account you must meet the quality guidelines, you must have a viable website or blog with lots of content, in some countries you must have six months worth of content, you must not have had a previously disabled AdSense account, you must not have large amounts of copied content, you must not have copyright infringements, you must not have adult, gambling, drug or firearms content or links...and the list goes on.
Preparing for an AdSense account is work. Free doesn't necessarily mean "easy".
Every success comes from working hard. People seldom prosper by doing nothing.
If you want an account and haven't been able to get approved, there is help. The Help Center contains all the information you need. The Help Forum has a myriad of volunteers willing to help.
Just don't go into AdSense with an attitude of entitlement. Nobody is entitled to it. Everyone can apply for it.
Whether you succeed or not is up to you.

Read the official adsense blog for ideas on what really works - Inside AdSense

originally published by me at Qondio

The AdSense Test - Part 2

Answers to the Test Questions
1. If you don't know what a URL is or where to find your URL, then you aren't ready for AdSense.
A "url" is the address that appears in your browser's bar when you visit a website. The url will start with "http://".
2 & 3. If you don't know what html is or how to access it, then you aren't ready for AdSense.
"Html" is a coding format that you'll find on most websites and you may see it designated as xhtml1. To see this code (or the code any website is made up of) you can use your browser's tool bar. Click on "View" and then look for "source" or "page source". When the dialogue box opens you'll see a bunch of stuff that may not make much sense to you, but makes sense to the robots who crawl and index these sites.
In order to be able to add AdSense codes to a website, you have to be able to edit this html code. You can't do that using a browser (unless you are a web developer and have the proper tools). Most people would use the same tool they used to build their website in order to access their code.
You don't need to know a lot of html or have a lot of coding experience, but you need to have enough to follow the instructions given to insert these adsense ad codes into your website correctly.
Blogs usually have a different method for adding the code, but you still need to understand some basic html.
4. If you don't understand how to copy and paste from one page to another, you'll have trouble inserting the code into your website.
5. If you don't have your own website or blog, you won't be able to access the html or apply the AdSense ad code to a page.
You can't place codes on anyone else's website without permission. All those sites you see that say you can earn money putting links on sites for AdSense are just plain wrong. It doesn't work that way.
Sites like Facebook, MySpace, Orkut and other similar communities cannot be used as your website.
6 -10. AdSense is designed for websites that are completed, or blogs that have a lot of content and are regularly updated.
If your website isn't launched, then you don't apply for AdSense.
If your blog doesn't have 6 months worth of original content, then don't apply.
What you can do is spend time creating content. AdSense requires publishers to have created their own content. The Webmaster Guidelines say we must have "considerable original content". Original content means content that you create, not content that you copy.
Many countries must have a website or blog that is 6 months old and has 6 months worth of content. An empty blog that is 6 months old does not qualify.
Websites and blogs without at least some visitors will do very poorly with AdSense and may take months before you have enough visitors to see any earnings at all. Placing ads on a website nobody sees is not good for the advertisers who pay for the ads, so it's not good for AdSense.
Putting ads on your website does not bring you visitors. You must have the visitors first.
11. Sites displaying AdSense must not contain, nor link to sites that have illegal content, such as pirated movies and music, hacked or cracked software (open source software is fine), copyright material such as photos and artwork. If your blog contains any of this, or links to sites that contain any of this, then it isn't suitable for AdSense.
12. While there is no reason you can't use embedded videos from YouTube on your blog or website, a blog or website that contains nothing but videos will not get you an AdSense account.
This is not considered "original" content, unless you created these videos yourself. Videos must not contain copyright infringements, like music or movies, or cammed/copied TV programs.
13-15. Since all publishers are required to follow the rules of the program and it's policies, and must agree to the terms of service, it is imperative that you understand what you've read, and yes you must, in fact, READ them. If you don't, it would not take very long for you to lose your account and whatever earnings you accrued.
These policies are your "warnings" - they explain what is expected from publishers, and what happens if you don't follow them.
16. There are thousands of sites and blogs on the internet that purport to have the "secret" to AdSense, and for just $1.97 (similar amounts in different places) they'll send you a free trial of their program. What they don't tell you is that after they send you that "free" trial, you will be charged every month to the tune of about $79 or more.
What they also don't tell you is that nearly all the information they'll provide is information you can find for free - at the AdSense Help Center, or by reading the hundreds of "real" bloggers out there who give you the information you need for nothing.

What You Can Do if You Didn't Pass The Test

Go to the AdSense Help Center and start reading. They have a section called "Newbie Central" that gives you some idea of what the program is about.
Read the AdSense Program Policies, the Webmaster Guidelines and the Terms of Service.
Ask questions in the help forum (after you've read the material).
Sign up for a free blog on Blogger.com and start working on your first blog. Or learn how to build a website using free online tools - just search for "how to build a free website".
Pretty soon, you'll be ready for AdSense.

The AdSense Test

Are You Ready for AdSense?

Contrary to many articles you may find scattered across the internet, Adsense is NOT for everyone. At least, not until you understand a few things and are prepared to follow the program and it's rules.

Are you ready for AdSense? Take the test and find out.

 
1. Do you know what a URL is?
2. Do you know what html is?
3. Do you know how to access html code?
4. Do you know how to copy and paste?
5. Do you have your own website or blog?
6. Is your website complete and launched?
7. Do you already have a stream of visitors to your website or blog?
8. Is your blog full of rich original content?
9. Did you write all your own articles?
10. Did you copy articles from other people?
11. Do you have free movies, music, or software links?
12. Is your site full of other people's videos?
13. Did you read the AdSense Program Policies and understand them?
14. Did you read the Webmaster Guidelines and understand them?
15. Did you read the Terms of Service and understand them?
16. Did you pay anyone for an AdSense "program"?

I'm sure some of you are probably thinking this is a joke, but it really isn't.
These are the sort of things we find ourselves answering in the AdSense Help Forums every day. Many people ask what a URL is and where they find it, or how to get one. Many more never bother to read the rules. Hundreds are taken in by websites selling a "product" related to Adsense. The fact is, you don't need to pay anyone at all to use AdSense.
Stay tuned for the Answers and explanations in The AdSense Test - Part 2


note: originally published on Qondio