AdSense was Approved - But No Ads are Showing!

We've been seen a lot of this lately. People get a notice that their account is "fully approved to display ads" ... but then, after waiting for several days ... well, none of the ads are showing up.

There could be several reasons for this, including the fact that sometimes mistakes happen. We've also seen a number of instances (more than a few) where people received an approval email, and hours or days later received a disapproval. The mistake was the approval email, which is corrected by the disapproval email. This is not a rare occurrence, but it isn't all that common either. It's just that it does happen, so if it happens to you ... find out why your site was disapproved, and make whatever changes are necessary before trying again.

Other reasons for ads not showing include not being fully approved, or being approved with a host account which will only show ads on host URLs, or a host account that will only show ads on host URLs (like YouTube).

Why Doesn't My Blog Qualify for Adsense?

Yep, you got it. That's another often asked question that echoes through the Adsense forum lately. Some are posted in AdSense, and some are moved to the AdSense forum from the Blogger forum. But all of them nearly always have the same answer, BUT, there are several situations that apply here.

Situation #1 - Applying for a new AdSense Account

When you create a new blog on Blogger and want to apply for AdSense with it, you will probably find the "Earnings Tab" is not active, and you can't submit an application.

This is because the blog is either too new, or has too little content to be able to qualify for AdSense, so the ability to apply is on hold (by the Earnings Tab being temporarily disabled) until such time as the maturity of the blog (it's age) and the amount of contents on the blog deem it as being fit to apply with.

When the earnings tab is enabled, you'll be able to apply with your blog. This, however, does not mean your blog is approved yet, it just means that you can apply with it. Whether or not the blog is approved will not be decided until it goes through a 2-step approval process.

AdSense, Where's my Payment?

Over the last month or two I think I've seen more payment related questions in the AdSense help forum than ever before. There seems to be a small flood of them, this month alone. Some of the questions have related to the new line entry on the payments page, where Adsense now shows the amount of earnings that have been deducted due to invalid activity (usually accidental clicks, or from "bad" traffic and/or bots - often not the direct fault of the publisher).

Prior to this change when deductions were made, it wasn't noted how much of that deduction was due to invalid clicks. For more on this update to the Payments page, see the recent article on the Inside AdSense Blog.

But the vast majority seem to be "why wasn't my payment issued?" ... these questions have come from publishers world-wide, and many are from publishers that have been collecting payments regularly without any problems.

Most of the publishers have either reached, or exceeded the payment threshold and have long ago entered all the required details to verify their accounts and payment methods. So where is the payment? Why hasn't it been released (issued) this month?

AdSense and Nigerian Publishers

In the last couple of years Adsense has seen an increasing number of Nigerian publishers jockeying for approvals for their websites and blogs, and fairly often what we see in the AdSense Help Forum are, sadly, rejections.

The same as any publisher with a rejected website, they wonder why. Most are simply baffled, and not aware of the policies, but some cry foul because of race. AdSense doesn't reject websites based on race or nationality. Most of the time, rejections are based on content suitability, and many of the contents on Nigerian blogs aren't suitable for AdSense.

So it's not a race issue, and it's not even really a country issue, since publishers from Nigeria can be approved for AdSense provided they produce the right type of content. What it probably boils down to is a culture issue. Every country (in fact, even within a country every province) and it's people develop in different ways. Britain is often known for it's restraint (or what some people call their stuffiness); Canada is often referred to as the "polite" or "politically correct" country (frankly, I live here and beg to differ, but hey, that's how people see us), and Nigeria is no different. They have their own unique culture - colourful, boisterous and full of life.

Choosing the AdSense Payment Method

Over the past several years there have been ongoing changes to the payment system for AdSense.  More countries have been moved from payment by cheque or Western Union to EFT (electronic funds transfer) or Wire Transfer, and some countries now have SEPA payments. The actual steps to set up your payment method and to see what is available to your country, see the AdSense help center articles "Setting up your Form of Payment" and "Payment FAQs".

Why can't I choose my payment method?

At one time, as soon as your estimated earnings crossed the Payment threshold (usually around $10) the option to choose and confirm your payment method became available in your AdSense account. That, however, has changed now.

If you aren't able to choose your payment method, check your "Payment" page in your account. Are there verified earnings showing that reach or exceed the threshold ($10) on that page? If not, you won't yet be able to choose a payment method. Instead of working off the estimated earnings, AdSense payment method now only becomes active shortly after the verified earnings are posted to your payments page, and have reached the verification threshold.

For those earning only from a YouTube channel, this would mean waiting until around the 15th of a month for your YouTube earnings to be transferred from your channel onto the Payment page in your Adsense account.

For publishers earning from websites or blogs, the finalization takes place between the 1st and 7th of a month.