Are You Ready for AdSense
So, I often see members who are puzzled as to why they have not been accepted for the Google AdSense program. Let's take a look at everything you should have in place before you apply, and why you might be turned down.
Posts and Content
First of all, your posts should have unique content that's relevant to your visitors and provides a great user experience. You need around 20 to 30 posts, and everything should be original, nothing copied and pasted.
Consider the arrangement of your text and images, does your layout look inviting? Is your navigation clear, can visitors easily find what they are looking for? Do your drop-down menus work and do they all have content within them?
Do you have comments on your posts? Have you moderated them to ensure they have no inappropriate content?
No posts that have more advertising than written content. In other words, if you are already using affiliate links, do you have enough content to support them? Not just pages and pages of links with no content.
Eligibility
You need to comply with Google's program policies. No abusive content, no links to content that doesn't exist (deliberate or broken links), no adult content (nudity, sex, Viagra, illegal or recreational drugs, weapons, guns, explosives), no shocking content (blood, gore, bad language), nothing relating to the sale of alcohol or tobacco.
And you need to be over the age of 18.
Affiliate Disclosure
Very important! If you already have affiliate links, then this should be in place already. However, surprisingly, when you apply for Google AdSense, they expect to see the disclosure even if you haven't yet got any ads or affiliate links.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/affiliate-disclosur...
Summary
So, to summarise - wait until you have 20 to 30 posts, make sure all content is original, nothing copied and pasted, no adult content and make sure your Affiliate Disclosure is clear and visible.
What Happens When You Apply?
You will be asked to insert a piece of code into your website. This does not mean you have been accepted. AdSense uses this code to allow it to inspect your website to see if it meets all the above criteria. This can take anything from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. You will then receive an email - either "congratulations" or "you need to fix some things".
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/training/applying-for-adsens...
Good luck with your Google AdSense application!
Recent Comments
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Thank you Diane this was very helpful. I was going to apply for Google Adsense on one of my websites that has 17 posts that is all original content and I have an affiliate disclose but after reading this I'm going to wait until I have at least 20 posts. Thank you again Diane for this great article. All the best to your success.
Thanks for the info. I have over 70 posts with comments and affiliate disclosure statements on every one. I have applied twice and have been denied. It doesn't give me specific reasons just very broad ones. I think I have satisfied all the requirements and still am puzzled why I'm not accepted.
I do have some quotes from people but they are all referenced. Do you think that's why?
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Nina
Hi - is this your gardening site? At first glance, there are no obvious problems, but as you say, if you have quotes, etc, then Google may see them as duplicate.
For example in the post below, you have quoted the definition of OMRI, and this will no doubt be on a lot of other sites. And Google just reads the content, it doesn't understand quotation marks.
The best way to get around this is to create an image in Canva, and add the quoted content to it. That way, Google won't read it.
https://bestgardeningforbeginners.com/review-earths-ally-insect-control-truly-bee-safe-and-effective/
Another thing that perhaps Google may be picky about, is having different email addresses. In your Privacy Policy, you have a domain-specific email address, but at the end of your posts, you have a Gmail address.
I wonder if some of your internal links may not be to Google's liking. Possibly seen as not relevant or even deceptive? For example, in the post below, you have lots of flower images, but they are linked to posts that have nothing to do with the photo.
Think about from a reader's point of view - if, for example, they clicked on an image of an ornamental cabbage, would they expect to be taken to a post on tarragon?
https://bestgardeningforbeginners.com/fall-flower-gardens-after-the-summer-cleanup/
I think I also saw a broken image link, but forgot to note which post it was in, sorry!
At the end of the day, you make very little money with Google, perhaps $10 for every 1000 visitors, so unless you are getting a huge amount of daily traffic, it may not be worth your while even trying to figure out what the problem is!
Thanks Diane for all your suggestions. I thought I was posting relevant pictures, I'll have to go back and check. As far as creating an image in Canva, I'm not sure how that works. I use Canva for pinterest posts, but am not sure how it would work with this. I may just skip this.
Also, I couldn't figure out how to access my domain specific email address so I changed it. If I change the email to the one I have on my posts in the privacy policy will that fix that issue?
Thanks so much again. I really appreciate the time and effort you took to help me. You're probably right about what I would make on AdSense. I'm really not making any money yet so I was just trying to figure out how I could get over that hump.
Thanks,
Nina
I see what you mean about tarragon!! I'm not sure how that happened! I'll have to fix that. Thanks.
Your domain-specific email address looks more professional, to be honest. Can you not access it through Site Manager? There is a tab marked email, and you click log in to Webmail and enter the password.
I've been using AdSense to monetize my blog for a couple of years. This was even before I joined WA. It's an okay program; but, there are a lot of hoops to jump through, a lot of rules, and the payments are pretty small. Unless you have a LOT of traffic it's tough to make a lot of money with it.
Cheers Diane, another highly informative post.
Just a quick question, when you say between 20-30 posts are needed, would you recommend applying when you have hit 20, or is the chance of being approved more likely when you have 30?
Thanks for your help and time.
The more content, the more likely the chance of approval. They need to see that you are capable of attracting traffic.
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Diane to the rescue again! Vitality send me here, and after reading what you said here Diane, I realize that I shouldn't be applying at this point. Thanks for the heads up. I will skip adding the code to my site at this time. Maybe a few weeks down the road, or a month or 2, I will apply.
Thanks again!
-Adam