New Google AdSense Terms and Conditions Lead to Widespread Account Bans

If you have a Google AdSense account, this past week you were prompted to agree to new terms and conditions regarding AdSense usage. While most people's eyes become glazed over while reading legal information, not conforming to these new changes can lead to an immediate account ban with no warning or explanation, and it's happening in droves.

Over the past couple of days, many website owners have been devastated by the ominous and vague E-mails sent out announcing account terminations due to sites being "at risk" to advertisers. While there are always bad eggs trying to scam the system, most website owners are what Google would refer to as the little people - those with small websites or even blogs that don't generate as much traffic or ad clicks as, say, Amazon.

Google's E-mails are vague because they don't want scammers to take advantage of any potential weak links or loopholes in their terms or payment formula. Unfortunately that strategy is leaving more and more legitimate account holders in the dark when it comes to banned members who want to do right by the company.

Google has always warned its AdSense users about invalid clicks, sites containing mature content, having too many ads on one page, altering the code used in the ad, or otherwise disguising their ads to look like something they're not, but a couple new rules may have gone under the webmaster radar.

Privacy policies are now required on all websites using AdSense ads. Privacy policies let your website's visitors know what personal tracking information, if any, will be used to collect traffic data, or for E-mail lists. Luckily, for those webmasters who don't happen to have a law degree framed next to their MCSE certificate, privacy policy generators are available. One can be found at http://www.the-dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml.

According to the new terms and conditions, Google will also start banning accounts whose websites don't generate enough clicks, and therefore revenue for their customers. The specific limit wasn't mentioned:

"...Google reserves the right to terminate without notice any account that has not generated a sufficient number of valid clicks on Ads or Referral Buttons or valid impressions of Ads (in each case as measured by Google) for a period of two (2) months or more."

It's understood that Google is simply looking out for their advertisers' best interests. According to Markus Frind, CEO of plentyoffish.com, "The CTR on text ads declined about 60% in the last two months with the Google changes. Image ads on the other hand stayed the same." Despite the hard times for the advertisers, the little people with good intentions and small websites can't help but feel slighted by the Internet giant that is Google.

For years website owners have flocked to AdSense because of Google's reputation as an honest and well-respected company - another reason to feel especially upset by Google's bans. Many other ad companies are avoided by webmasters because they feel as if traditional pop-up ads are affronting and a bit shady considering the threat of spyware within many of these ads. With Google, quality was always a non-issue - it was expected.

If your website has been banned, read through the new conditions (https://www.google.com/AdSense/localized-terms) and make sure your website conforms to the new rules. If you find some violations, change them and contact Google for reinstatement. Reinstatement is not unheard of. If you haven't been banned, now is the time to re-read the new terms and scour your website for potential violations. Google seems to be banning accounts en masse, so the quicker you bring your website to-to-par the better.