Google AdSense is a clever advertising network that lets its members implement ad-codes directly on their websites to make money. The amount of money you can earn from the service depends on your sites niche and your visitors’ geographical location. Google’s AdSense program is really one of the greatest ways to make money online for people owning a website or blog, both for starters and experts. However, getting approved into the AdSense network can be a pain in the a** for some people and there are many who have become a bit confused of what it takes to get approved by AdSense. This post is created to help you understand exactly what Google wants from your website in order to approve it in to the AdSense network. This post will also be kept updated as Google might change their requirements as time goes by.
Now and then.
Google has not always been as picky as they are right now when accepting websites to join the Google AdSense network. In fact, when I joined some years ago (around 2008-2009) I didn’t even have a working website. The only thing I had was a free domain name hosted on a 2 hours old weebly.com blog. It was truly a great time for beginners to start their online income fast. However, today Google expects your website to fulfill some simple things in order to get approved to the AdSense network. These things involve website structure, domain name, content, colors, ads and similar things. Now let’s get started with what you have to do to get approved. It’s not as difficult as it may seem at first, just keep on reading.
1. Website structure.
If you ever want to make money online using the AdSense program then you better have a nice website template that is structured correctly. You should have a menu at the top or at the side of your website. You should also have the content easily accessible and the website should not require more than a few clicks for the visitor to get where he wants. This site is structured correctly; everything is easily accessible from anywhere on the website using the menu, side-links, footer-links or the search function. Having a good structure will give you a great advantage when applying for a Google AdSense account. Another thing to think about is the color of your website, do not mix colors like red background with blue text and so on, it will for sure make the site look really bad in the eyes of an AdSense staff.
2. Website Content and plagiarism.
Before applying for Google AdSense you should have at least 10-15 posts on your website, preferably with more than 500 words in each post. This makes your website look reliable and not just set up as a link-farm or “over-night” project. Google truly thinks that content is king, so give them all you got with original content. Avoid plagiarism at all costs, if you are found copying content from other sites and pasting it on your own just to get more content you will NOT get approved by AdSense. Plagiarism is one of the most stupid things anyone can do when having a website. It will not only make you look unserious, but it will also give you a huge search engine penalty and low amount of visitors. So if you got an auto-blog then just forget it, AdSense is not for you.
Racial, Violent, Pornographic websites will face rejection almost instantly by Adsense. Be sure not to post anything containing this even if you do get approved by AdSense because they will most likely shut down your account before you even reach your first payment. If you have any questions, then check the AdSense terms of service page. Your website must comply with it.
3. Avoid broken links.
Oh how Google hates broken links. Do not apply with a website full of links leading to 404 error pages or other non existing websites. If you own a big website you can fins services online to search your site for broken links. Also if you use WordPress on your website there is plug-ins to help you find and fix/delete broken links.
4. Website already rejected once.
Sometimes when you buy a domain name it might already have been used by someone else. This can cause problems if the website has been previously rejected by AdSense. However, there is no need to worry about this! Just send a nice and cordial email to the AdSense explaining that the domain has a new owner and that you would like it to be re-evaluated.
5. The age of your website.
A wise man once said “old is gold”, and it is in fact true. A site with a few years on its neck will be considered reliable and not just set up over a night. Though, you do not need a website that is several years old, but a month or three will for sure make you more likely to pass the approval process.
6. A page about the website.
Simply having a page about the website named “about” or “about us” etc will make it so much easier for anyone to instantly know what your website is all about. If you also include a contact form and maybe some information such as your name, email or address the site will gain more trust and become easier to identify. While this may not affect your website enormously when applying I like to think that it makes a somewhat difference.
Common sense.
Google does allow showing non-contextual ads at the same time as the AdSense ads on a website. However having a website that is already stuffed with contextual ads before applying to AdSense might not be the smartest choice. Keep it clean and if you got ads on the website, then you might want to avoid ads that can get mixed up with the looks of the AdSense ads.
You should also keep on posting while you’re in the approval process for AdSense. It will look kind of weird if your site was just set up and 12 articles were added to it, then it quickly became inactive directly after submitted to AdSense. Also try to keep the servers up and running, how else are they going to approve your website if they can’t see it?
Last common sense tip: Having a website named something like: make-money-with-selling-toothbrushes.subdomain.example will not make your domain look reliable. It will look like a website that can’t even affort a $8 domain name and is only targeted to a very small niche that will barely be updated often. Try to get a real TLD (Top Level Domain) name before applying.
Myths about enrolling the AdSense network.
1. Your website does not need any traffic when joining the AdSense network. This is to let new website owners join the program without problems. If they were looking at the traffic a site received then it would be really hard to join.
2. PageRank does not matter either. In fact, PageRank is almost dead when it comes to SEO and rating a website. As of writing this very text the PageRank is being updated, but nowadays it’s only happening once or twice a year. However, Google does not expect new sites to get a PageRank that fast so it’s not taken in to consideration when applying.
I hope this helped some of you who are currently trying to apply for AdSense or thinking of it. This article should not serve as the absolute way of getting approved but merely as a guide to help you get on the right track. If you got any comments then I would be glad to see them! =)
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