Banned by Google adsense . . . but now thankfully restored !

I’ve been a blogger for almost 4 years now and every blogger agrees with me when I say that Google adsense is the lifeblood of bloggers, especially those who are starting out. Considering this to be so, one can say that when your blog gets banned by Google, it seems that your whole blogging world has been torn apart.

Last May 10, 2011, my blogging world almost fell apart when I received this email from Google:

Hello,

During a recent review of your account we found that you are currently
displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our program
policies
(https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-1pp-en).

————————————————–
EXAMPLE PAGE: https://www.zdiaz.com/2008/01/(name of post)/

Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may
exist on other pages of this website or other sites in your network.

Immediately, I went to work. I knew Google, did not want any blogs to be associated with anything contrary to their terms of service (TOS). Although the above mentioned post does not in anyway violate any of their TOS, the keywords that appeared in the post seemed to violate their TOS. I decided not to take any chances. I deleted the post and all other post with similar keywords.

I won’t mention the post name for the fear of being banned again. It was a well written post and part of an SEO experiment started by the father of Guerilla Blogging, Marhgil Macuha. Over the years, I did not give much attention to the post, but little did I know that my SEO efforts has paid off. I ranked No. 4 in Google U.S for such a highly competitive keyword. (Although this keyword does not earn anything as it is “banned” by Google adsense)

After a week or so, I was surprised that despite deleting the post, Google disable adsense in www.zdiaz.com. My blogging world almost fell apart. Lucky for me (If there is a thing called luck) I have several blogs and other online money making sources. My adsense income was somewhat affected but not entirely. I was also thankful that my entire account was not disabled, only adsense on one of my blogs.

I appealed to google. But I did not get any response. The days, turned into weeks and it seemed like forever ! The only consolation I got was when Marhgil’s site (www.batangastoday.com) of which I am also a contributor also got banned from displaying Google adsense. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I was not singled out by Google and that they were getting really strict without discrimination. Marhgil worked hard in appealing to restore adsense to Batangas Today. After several weeks, adsense was restored to the site. I asked him how he did it. He said he just appealed and begged google to restore adsense on the site. He also gave me a URL where I can file an appeal. (https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=policy_clarification)

Meantime I tried looking for alternatives to adsense. I found some interesting ones and decided to use Bidvertiser. After sending an appeal two times. I finally got an email from one of the Google support staff

Hi Zigfred,

Thanks for your email. However, please be aware that because your site was found to be in violation of our program policies, it is no longer eligible for participation in the AdSense program.

AD MISLABELING: Publishers may not implement Google ads in a manner that disguises the ads in any way. For instance, publishers may not place ads under misleading headers or titles as this may confuse users into thinking the ads are actually site links related to that header. To avoid this issue, we ask that publishers use only “sponsored links” or “advertisements” to label ads. More information about this policy can be found in our help center at https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=115985.

Your account remains active, and you are welcome to place Google ads on other sites which comply with AdSense policies.

Sincerely,
Andy
The Google AdSense Team

I was devastated. I sent this reply and explained the situation.

Dear Sir Andy,

Thank you for your response. I completely understood adsense policy and I made sure that I have fully complied with them. I just deleted the post just to be safe since Google said to “correct” the problem. Since there was nothing specific as to what the violation was, I decided to delete the post just be on the safe side. Besides, the notice said “You have 3 days to correct.” So my understanding is that if I did something to correct it, then my blog would not be banned. I corrected the problem but after that, my site www.zdiaz.com was still banned. Below is a copy of the post before I deleted it. It did not talk about p@rn@gr@phy. In fact it is an intelligent discussion on pr@stitution and the exploitation of women and children. Perhaps the google bot thought it was something p@rn@graphic, because it contained explicit words due to the nature of the post. But in no way is it p@rn@gr@phic, nor are there any pictures posted in there. Below is the post.

After several days, The Google adsense team replied back:

Hello,

Thank you for making the requested changes to your site in order to comply with our policies. We have now re-enabled ad serving to your site.

Please note that because ad serving to your site was temporarily disabled, there may be a delay of up to 48 hours or more before ads begin appearing on your site again. We appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Adam
The Google AdSense Team

I jumped for joy ! I waited for 48 hours. But my ads was still not activated. I decided to wait some more, but after more than a week nothing happened. So I sent them another message. After several days, Viola ! my ads was activated again !

It took almost 2 months, a lots of lost hair, several sleepless nights, broken ribs, a broken heart, blood and tears laid down in a tabletop display and a near suicide attempt before a finally got my adsense back on www.zdiaz.com (None of the above is true except the time element heehehehehe) 🙂  And I swear I will not do anything again or even experiment with something to avoid being banned again by Google again !

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Hi ! my name is Zigfred Diaz. Thanks for visiting my personal blog ! Never miss a post from this blog. Subscribe to my full feeds for free. Click here to subscribe to zdiaz.com by Email

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