As you will be aware I recently recieved a ban from the Adsense publisher program. So i would like to let everyone know the ways you can avoid the same fate as me.

Just a few quick notes on how a typical ban happens…

You will get an email out of the blue which will have obviously been automatically generated by Googles system as soon as your site has triggered some red flag.
From that point onwards you can forget about getting back into your account and so all the stats in there that would help you identify the problem for them are hidden from you.
You have chance to appeal and even if you submit log files and swear it cant have been you it WILL get denied, there are no further appeals after the first has failed.
All the balance that was sitting in the account at the time of the ban is also now gone, supposedly returned to the advertisers (That means the whole balance good clicks and suspect clicks alike).

So how can one avoid such a fate? Heres my top 10 tips on keeping your account alive: -

1. Dont place your ads on any site that will be visited by anyone who even thinks they know what clickfraud is
2. Never ever no matter how tempting share the url of one of your sites with anyone
3. Dont enter into revenue sharing or ad rotation deals with anyone
4. When testing ads or targetting etc do not use your own publisherID use someone elses. This isnt as nasty as it sounds simply use one at random or even better pick a site that obviously generates very high adsense income and use theirs, they wont get an auto ban from Google.
5. Make sure you only ever use one account on any one site, never mix the accounts
6. If you have more than one account make sure they are never mixed, do not even log in from the same pc to both accounts
7. Develop a system of disabling the adverts after a number of suspect clicks. Scripts like the free Adlogger system can do this for you and will help prevent the accidental user tripping a ban
8. Monitor your stats on a regular basis and swap out the ads at the slightest suggestion of horseplay
9. Make sure you can control the ad distribution from a simple central place so swapping out ads is quick and easy
10. This ones obvious but of course nobody should ever ever click on their own ads, I have seen people canned for just one click.

I know it seems like obvious advice but there are scenarios you just cant protect well against. If someone with intent tries to get you they will. You can try to prevent multiple clicks but if they simply proxy jump whilst clicking you youll get a ban no matter what you did to prevent it. Dont assume that the ‘Team’ over at Adsense will even talk to you let alone help.

Good luck people!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Adsense, Google, Personal, Recommended. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.