AdSense Payment Finalizing and YouTube Earnings

Boy, do I hate payment finalizations and payment issue times in the AdSense forum.  Before I get started ... I do want to apologize for stepping outside of my usual decorum when writing for publishers. This post is "as I feel" ... which means a little frustrated (cause, you know, I am human too, just like every other publisher).

 Every month it's the same thing, and every month it isn't just new publishers that freak out if their earnings aren't finalized one minute after midnight on the day  the finalizations begin (the first of the month for websites/blogs, and the 11th of the month for YouTube).

One minute after midnight ... really people? Have a little patience. Please!

I get it - new publishers who just started might not understand how this works, but a lot of people in the forum who squawk about it happening late are not new publishers. Just because last month or the month before you got finalized earnings on a certain day doesn't mean it's going to happen EVERY month on the same day. Finalizing earnings happens during a time period - "from" and "to" means anytime in between those days.

Approved but can't access the "MyAds" Tab in AdSense?

We've seen a lot of issues in the AdSense help forum lately with respect to the current approval process. (I say current, because it seems to be constantly changing over this last year.)  While it can be a little confusing, if you received this email (see below), then you should read the email very carefully. Nowhere in it does it say your account has been approved yet to show ads on your blog or website. It basically says you've passed the first stage of the approval process.

Your application has been successfully reviewed. Now you need to create your first ad unit and place the ad code on "yourwebsite.url" to fully activate your account.

Note that before your account is fully activated only blank ads will appear on your pages. Once your account is fully activated you'll receive a confirmation email and begin to see live ads. Please don't click on your live ads even to test them - doing so isn't permitted by the AdSense program policies.

Sign in to Google AdSense to create your first ad unit and get fully approved.

AdSense Per Page Ad Limits

Recent changes to the AdSense ad placement and ad limits policy have the web (and publishers) all abuzz with excitement. Some people appear to be excited for the wrong reasons though. Since the changes, I've come to realize that many publishers don't really understand what AdSense calls "the spirit of AdSense" and seem to read what they want to read into the policies ... and a lot of them are wrong. In a few web articles I've read statements like "AdSense has abolished the 3 ads per page limit", while in fact most experienced publishers have realized that what AdSense has actually done is tightened up the policy, to the point where many pages won't even qualify for 3 ads on a page. And yes, you read that right - some pages will not even have enough text to show 2 ads. A couple of days after publishers discovered the policy changes, I began seeing pages with 8, 10, 16 ads on a page, with more AdSense ads in hovering boxes and popups.  That makes it quite obvious that publishers don't understand the policy. They appear to be reading with $$ signs in their eyes, instead of with understanding in their brains.

The policy now relies on the amount of content on each page that shows AdSense ads. Just because a page exists doesn't mean it's suitable for a big pile of ads ... or any ads for that matter. What the policy actually says is that you now require enough textual content on every page where you place AdSense ads, so a page with just an image means a page with no textual content ... and perhaps that page won't show any AdSense ads on it. Certain types of pages also will not be able to show ads - such as pages that don't follow webmaster quality guidelines (meaning you must actually READ and UNDERSTAND those guidelines), or pages with mostly copied content.

What The Policy Says

Securing an AdSense Account

During the last couple of months we've seen a lot of confused people in the AdSense forum; people that can't login to their AdSense account, or their email address has been removed as a login, or they no longer appear to be an admin on their own account.  Some know their accounts have already been compromised or hacked by someone else, or an invited email address has removed them from their own accounts.

Most of this can be avoided by securing your account. C'mon people, we've talked about this before (more than once in fact), but it's still happening way too often. If you aren't vigilant, you can be locked out of your own AdSense account.

The truth is, this could happen to almost anyone, but using common sense and being aware of what the consequences are of the choices you make can help mitigate these issues.

Inviting Users to Your AdSense Account

URGENT AdSense Help!

How to get your question answered in the AdSense Help forum is NOT to post things like this:

• URGENT!!!!!!
• Answer me fast!
• I need help NOW.
• AdSense URGENTLY needed.
• etc.

Most of the TCs in the AdSense forum have been answering questions there for five years or more ... we've pretty much seen everything, and almost nothing is considered URGENT when it comes to AdSense.  They're just ads ... how is advertising urgent to anyone? It's not. Yes, for sure, people trying to earn a little with it consider it important, but it still isn't urgent. Urgent would  be if you're bleeding to death, or if you've been in an accident, or your house is on fire, in which case you call the appropriate emergency service. Ads aren't urgent.

While a hacked account is something we consider sort of urgent or needing immediate help, we actually can't help you with that, nor can AdSense staff even help you. You have to recover your account on your own. That's the sad truth. Because of privacy laws, AdSense usually can't step in. They can't tell if you're the account owner, or if you're a hacker trying to get into the account. The actual account owner needs to recover their Google Account and mail account. So while this could be something I too would consider urgent, as much as I'd like to help, I probably can't.

AdSense Account Cancelled!

UPDATE: According to staff, yes, this is real. Please see this thread in the forum.


Just a quick note to let you know that we seem to be flooded in the forums with publishers that have
received a notice saying their AdSense account was cancelled and they'll receive their payment in the next payment cycle.

Is this for real? At the moment, we aren't sure what's happening. There are differences in some of the notifications and some of the situations.

• Some publishers are still able to login to their AdSense accounts and have no problems within the account.
• Some publishers are unable to login to their accounts at all.
• Some people are not AdSense publishers and have never had an AdSense account, nor signed up for one.

Because this a holiday week in the US, it may take a little while before we have a response from staff. There is an ongoing thread in the forum for publishers to post in if they have received one of these notices (please don't start a new thread - use the open one instead). If you post in the thread please include the following information:

The Mystery of AdSense Smart Pricing

Lots of AdSense publishers have probably heard the term "smart pricing", but how many know exactly what it is, or how it's applied to AdSense earnings?  I suppose not very many - me included.  While AdSense provides some information and insight into smart pricing on the publisher side of things, they certainly don't spell out the exact details of how it works, nor are they ever likely to.

Is it applied to entire publisher's account? To all their websites? To all their traffic?

When you look at AdSense's basic explanation to publishers and then look at how they explain smart pricing to the advertiser, there is a very slight difference in those explanations, but that difference can help you form your own opinions on how it might work.

AdSense Publisher

"Google’s smart pricing feature is designed to raise advertiser confidence in the AdSense network, which in turn can lead to higher bids on ads that appear on publisher sites. This then benefits the entire advertising ecosystem of publishers, advertisers, and users in the long run."

YouTube Payments with AdSense

For many new YouTube partners monetizing their channels with AdSense, the payment system can be a little confusing. Even if you've been earning with a website or blog, you may be confused by how the payments work from YouTube because to many's surprise, the way you track estimated earnings is markedly different than when using a website or blog. And the timing for finalized (or verified as payable) earnings is different too, making the process a little more difficult to understand.

Included in the confusion is the fact that YouTube will allow you to monetize your videos, even before you have an approved Adsense account (and before you apply!).  At least they used to and I'm not sure if it's still the same. For some unlucky publishers, this fact only becomes clear when they appear in the AdSense help forum wondering how to get their money from YouTube.

What isn't clear is that you need to link to an approved AdSense account in order to collect payments, but even worse ... AdSense will NOT pay you for any of the monetization that occurred before you linked your channel to an approved AdSense account. Once you do link your channel, AdSense only picks up the earnings from that point forward, and those would be the earnings that eventually get transferred to AdSense.

NOTE: At one time, the help center on YouTube used to offer this bonus information, but it no longer does, so I'll be honest and say that as of now, I don't know if they still do offer the bonus or not.

Help - I Can't Login to Adsense!

There seems to be a lot more issues lately with people who aren't able to login to their AdSense accounts, and for some the issue is confusing, and difficult to troubleshoot.

There can be a number of reasons why an individual "suddenly" might not be able to access their old, often-used AdSense account.

1. a change in the email address
2. forgot user (email) name or password
3. using and having an adblocker or security plugin/extension turned on
4. antivirus privacy/security browser helpers
5. account disabled (in which case you'd see a notice)
6. account hacked
7. using the wrong Google Account to login with (*see note below)

Quite possibly there are other reasons, but these are the ones we've run across pretty frequently. The first thing to check is your browser and computer settings.

Lower Revenues Plague Publishers

A lot of publishers have noticed some major changes in their Adsense earnings since the beginning of 2016. Some of you might be surprised to know that "dropping revenues" aren't new. Anyone that has been with AdSense for more than a couple of years will already know that revenues continue drop on a CPC basis.

Back when AdSense first became a popular product (AdSense's beginnings go back to 2003) it was easier to earn enough every month to not only make a living doing it, but to toss up a website in a day or two and build your site portfolio. Earnings topping thousands of dollars every month per website were not that tough to acquire if you had a computer and internet access. The number of websites were much smaller than the number today, but so were the number of people using the internet much lower.

Over the years, marketing changes have made it a lot harder. As publishers, we like to think that AdSense "has our back", but the fact is that a lot of changes made in AdSense's products are usually precipitated by advertiser satisfaction, rather than by publisher's demands. And because advertisers can now place ads for much less expense, and there are many more publishers and monetizable platforms, the earnings are driven downwards on a CPC basis.

In everyday terms, it's representative of the supply and demand theory. When you have a lot of something (in this case publishers), and less demand for that something (not as many advertisers), the cost (in this case CPC) should go down. But supply and demand is not quite as simple as that. Even if you have a lot of publishers/websites, if you also have a lot of advertisers, the cost should remain relatively stable.

How to Open a US AdSense Account?

This is a question that has the world's easiest answer. You DON'T (ie: CANNOT) open an Adsense account in the United States unless you LIVE in the United States.

Giving information in your AdSense application that IS NOT TRUE is considered fraud. Fraud can get you into more problems than you ever wanted to face. Tax problems, government problems ... even legal problems. US tax regulations are fairly complex, which means the chances of a non-US individual actually understanding them, or understanding the ramifications of lying on an application are fairly small.

When you sign up for Adsense, you must provide true and correct information, and by submitting the application and accepting the terms of use, you are certifying the information you provided is true. If you give a false name (ie: someone else's name), or a false address you are now committing fraud. So right away, from the moment you sign up and agree to the terms, you are setting yourself up for legal sanction.

US Terms of Service for Adsense

12. Representations; Warranties; Disclaimers

You represent and warrant that (i) you have full power and authority to enter into the Agreement; (ii) you are the owner of, or are legally authorized to act on behalf of the owner of, each Property; (iii) you are the technical and editorial decision maker in relation to each Property on which the Services are implemented and that you have control over the way in which the Services are implemented on each Property; (iv) Google has never previously terminated or otherwise disabled an AdSense account created by you due to your breach of the Agreement or due to invalid activity; (v) entering into or performing under the Agreement will not violate any agreement you have with a third party or any third-party rights; and (vi) all of the information provided by you to Google is correct and current.

I fail to see how providing a fake US address to Adsense is "correct". Obviously, it isn't.

Ad Blockers: Let's Talk!

There are many different adblockers available in the market for a variety of different browsers. But the one most people seem to complain about, is one that seems to be the most well-known. Adblock Plus is a much-used adblocker. Publishers hate it (well, some do - I do not) because so many people use it. According to ABP, 75% of their users don't mind some types of ads, while 25% of their users want to just block everything. Keep in mind that for those users who just want to block every type of ad and refuse to see any advertising at all, nothing you do will make them change their mind.

But AdBlock Plus isn't the villain here. At least, I don't see it that way. In some cases, the problem is the publisher themselves. They have too many ads on a page from too many different ad providers. Or, the ads they use are intrusive, cutting into a person's ability to read content without being interrupted by advertising. Intrusive and annoying ads will create a poor user experience, and may actually lose you visitors, especially if you are begging them to turn it off.

AdBlock Plus has a feature called "Acceptable Ads", and the criteria for acceptable ads isn't hard to understand, even for users who are less web-savvy. You can turn on, or turn off the Acceptable Ads feature. Some will just leave it off and see no ads, either because they just simply hate ads period, or because they aren't sure how to use it, or how to change it.

How Would You Change AdSense?

Here's a question for all of you - or any of you - that have had frustrations with Adsense. Sometimes things don't work as intended, do they? This can be particularly true of companies that use automation for much of their processes. I'm sure at some point in their AdSense career every publisher has probably said something like "If I ran Adsense, I'd __________!". So, let's fill in the blank.

What would you do if you ran the AdSense Program; what would you change, fix, or drop? How would you make those changes work? After all, it's easy to say "this should be better", but it's not always easy to come up with a viable way to make those changes work.

Here's my lists:

Publisher Pluses

1. Good publishers would be rewarded. Maybe with quarterly bonuses, or a premium-style ad format. By good publisher, I don't mean "high earning publishers". I mean publishers whose sites contain no violations, who practice good ad placements, who don't promote their sites using non-approved methods, etc. etc.

2. Payment thresholds would be lowered a little (maybe $75) and the process for validating a publisher's address would be changed to uploaded documents when crossing the threshold, instead of waiting for a PIN by regular mail. Since very few countries have check payments any longer, verifying a person's country address by documents makes more sense, and creates less waiting time, meaning publishers may be able to collect their first earnings a little quicker.

(a) country changes could be requested through the account, rather than publishers having to close their current accounts, however, in order for a country change to be approved, publishers would have to provide (i) documentation for the address they signed up with and (ii) documentation for their new address. They'd have to prove they lived at the first country address, as well as that they've moved to a new country.

Your Best AdSense Moment in 2015

What was your best moment with AdSense during 2015? Was it a month with really great earnings? Was it a month where you got a lot of comments on your articles or videos? Or was it something even simpler, like finally getting approved after several tries? Was it learning something that you didn't know, or producing some content that you're particularly proud of? Was it solving a problem that frustrated you, or was it helping someone else fix a problem?

If I had to pick just one moment, I think it would be the conference I attended, meeting "Top Contributors" from all over the world, and meeting up again with our AdSense in English help forum family.  For me, that probably outweighs almost any amount of earnings I'd get. (See here for information on becoming a Top Contributor for Google Product forums.)

As 2015 is only half a month away from being over, I want to wish my friends and readers a successful 2016. Every day is a new day, giving us a chance to do better, and to be better. Not just with Adsense, but in our personal lives. As 2016 comes closer, maybe we should all think about how we can make ourselves better in the upcoming year ... be kinder; be more caring; share with others; support those who need help; be less judgemental; accept others for who they are, and where they are ... I think there are any number of small, everyday changes we can make in our lives that might make a difference in the lives of those around us.

High Paying Keywords Waste Time

WHAT? Yes, it's true. Not only does spending time playing around with keyword values waste time, it's unlikely to result in higher paying CPCs. And there isn't any one single reason that it's true, but multiple reasons.

Hundreds of blogs write lists of these mythical keywords ... they're pretty useless, unless of course you're looking for humour. Even as far back as 2006, there were smart publishers out there who understood what was and what wasn't true about these mythical beasts.

Raise your hand if you've done it ... gone looking at lists of high paying keywords?

Yep, just what I thought. An awful lot of you have, especially the ones new to the world of advertising revenue. That isn't surprising actually. There are a plethora of unauthoritative blogs out there eschewing the greatness of using high paying keywords but the truth is ... that's a fallacy (ie: untruth, fib, lie).

Oh sure, maybe way back near the beginning of the online advertising word, these keywords were useful but in the early days, advertisers didn't have as much information, data, and knowledge available to them as they do today. Now, advertisers are a lot less willing to waste their money advertising where it doesn't count (or, put another way, a lot smarter about how they spend their advertising dollars).

Where to Find Google Product Help

One of the things that frequently occurs in the AdSense Help Forum are posts from people looking for help for other products that Google Supplies. I expect a lot of this might be due to the fact that the AdSense forum is first on the list of help forums on the Google Support Forums listing page. I imagine lots of other help forums run into this problem too because the AdSense forum gets lots of posts moved into it from other forums.

I'm not sure why this is such an issue - the the support forums listing has direct links to most of the help forums for Google products, but there are several related forums that currently don't have their own help forum (AdMob doesn't have an active help forum; Google Accounts doesn't have a help forum), and I guess when people just want to complain about anything related to Google they'll post on the first forum they find ... fairly often it's AdSense.

So, to that end ... here's a list of forums and what help they offer.  A lot of these products also offer the ability to use Adsense with the product itself, so it's understandable if someone posts in AdSense instead of the product help forum. It's hard to know which place you need to post for help.

In some cases, like YouTube or Blogger, if it's a technical issue that relates to the actual function of the product (like a channel, or video, or blog or blog post), you'd need to ask for help at that product forum, rather than Adsense. If it's an issue that is specifically Adsense (ie: your payments, earnings, or AdSense account, or creating ad codes, etc.) then you'd ask at the AdSense forum.

AdSense 30 Day Suspensions - How to Fix

A recent change in how AdSense deals with invalid clicks has publishers wondering how to deal with it, and naturally, all of them want to "fix" it, and everyone wants to appeal it.

The 30-day suspension period isn't fixable.  This is a decision AdSense has made in order to give the publisher time to try and correct the violations that caused the suspension.

"We may temporarily suspend if our policies are repeatedly or egregiously violated. This will provide you with a final opportunity to review all of your sites and take the necessary corrective actions so that your account is not disabled.

Please note that we’ll continue monitoring your account for compliance. If additional violations are accrued then we may need to disable your entire account. If this occurs then we may withhold earnings for a period of 60 days prior to the date that we disable your account.

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?