Today I am here to decode the Google AdSense approval process and make it easier for you to get approved. Many bloggers and website owners ask me how to get approved for AdSense. And who knows it better than someone who got disapproved at first.
Bloggers, publishers and website owners who run their websites want to monetize their blogs. And why not! It is what Google AdSense help publishers to do-earn money from their online content. AdSense is the best choice when it comes to earning money by showing ads on your website without damaging the user experience. AdSense does a wonderful job of matching the ads created and paid by the advertisers who want to promote their products to the website content. And as a publisher or blogger, you display your ads on your website and earn money. But before you can do so you need to get approved by Google AdSense- a task that seems quite daunting!
I started my website (https://theeasywisdom.com) in March 2020 and applied for Google AdSense in Aug 2020, only to be disapproved. I was clueless, frustrated and confused about what is gone wrong? I searched the entire internet for resources on the Google AdSense approval process, read numerous blogs but never got a comprehensive post on how to get approved for AdSense. But I never gave up and did my research. Eventually, I figured out how to get approved for Google AdSense.
I applied for Google AdSense in Feb 2021 again and got approved in 2 days. Hurray! I was so thrilled with the mail from Google AdSense saying “Congratulations! Your website is ready to show the Ads.” So I have put together 12 tips that worked for me and will also help you get the approval quickly.
Getting approved on Google AdSense can be pretty tricky, especially, if you have never been approved. You tried before only to be disapproved and there is no appeal that you can make. But here is the good news, if you are struggling with how to get approved for AdSense, this list is for you guys only! Have you been disapproved before? Or are you planning to apply for Google AdSense now? Hold on, read this blog and make your mark!
Before reading the tips please ensure the following:
- Register on Google AdSense by creating an account by going to AdSense official website
- Use an active Gmail account that is not linked to an AdSense account.
- Make sure you are at least 18 years of age before you apply.
- Enter your details like Name, Address and Website domain or URL.
- Make sure you have a website that is up and running. And it meets all of Google’s terms of service.
- After scanning your site AdSense will ask you to place the AdSense code on your website.
- Place the AdSense codes on your website by going to the theme editor, or using the header and footer plugin, or Google site kit plugin on every page of your website. Or you can ask your developer to do the same for you.
- Once the code is successfully placed your website is connected to AdSense and is ready for review before it can show ads. Ads will show as blank on your website until it gets approved.
- The time it takes to get approved varies from case to case. It can be as quick as 24-48 hours. But it can take up to two weeks for approval.
- Once you get approved, you will be notified via an email regarding the same, and ads will start appearing on your website.
12 Tips on how to get approved for AdSense
Here is the list that I compiled and that worked for me. And will definitely work for you as well. Once you get approved, you can show relevant and engaging ads to your website visitors and earn money!
1. Content is the king
This is the most important factor when it comes to getting approved by AdSense. It is one of the most important criteria, officially given by Google AdSense (Eligibility requirements for AdSense). You need to make sure that your content is high quality, relevant, and engaging to the website visitors and audience.
They say content is the king, and Google makes sure that you abide by this rule. Here are a few points to be noted:
- Make sure your content is original, of high quality and non-plagiarized. If your content is copied and pasted from the internet or your content is spammy, you will never be approved for AdSense.
- Make sure your content is of high quality, relevant to its readers, optimized for the keyword with high search intent, not misleading, and therefore engaging.
- Make sure your content is optimized and 100% unique, and more than 600 words per post.
- Make sure to abide by the Google Publisher Policies to understand what Google considers to be good content.
- Google wants good content to be ranked and shown on its search engine results pages. So if your content is not high quality, you will be denied.
Google wants to make sure that you can monetize your website once it enrols you in its program. However, if your content is not engaging, relevant and meaningful, you won’t be able to attract traffic, engage with your audience, or retain them, and hence you will not be able to monetize. The chances are that you will quit! And if Google anticipates such a scenario, they will never approve you.
2. Make sure your website has 30 posts or contents
The second most important criterion is to update your website regularly with high-quality content and to have a sufficient number of posts on every page or category. Some digital marketers believe that having 10-15 high-quality posts is good to go. However, I strongly believe that if you have more than 30 posts, your chances of getting approved will go up substantially. This is not an official declaration, but I believe that maintaining such a number makes your case stronger.
It is important to have high quality and sufficient content on every page and category of your website. Therefore, you should add relevant content to all your pages, categories and sections. Make sure you do not have any live page without any content on it.
Doing so help Google determine that you are a serious blogger and that your website has enough articles to be monetized. In general, you should have 30,000 words on average on your website. So if you have 1000-1500 words per article, it is a promising number. And it will help increase the chances of your website approval as it shows the voice of your website and helps Google algorithms understand the quality of the website content.
3. Have about-us and contact pages
Many bloggers miss out on creating about us and contact us pages. It is a good practice to have both pages on your website as it lends legitimacy to your website. When you have an About us page and a Contact page with relevant information and apply for AdSense, your chances of approval goes up. Why? This is because, when scanning your site while reviewing it, they want to make sure it is legitimate and want to know who is running the show. Also, it makes the user experience pleasant as your website visitors can know you better and can reach out to you if they want to.
4. Make sure to have a privacy policy page
My strong recommendation goes for creating a privacy policy page that tells the user what information your website is collecting and what you do with that information. Most people are often confused with what to include on the privacy policy page. If you search on Google, there are a ton of privacy policy generators available that you can use. These generators will scan your website and give you a customized write up for your privacy policy page.
Apart from having a privacy policy page, it is also advisable to include terms of use page on your website. It tells the website visitors the terms and conditions they must agree to and abide by in order to use your website.
Additionally, I will also suggest you have a cookie policy page and take explicit consent from your website visitors for the specific purpose you are collecting and using their personal data.
5. Have a well-designed website and navigation structure
It is always a good practice to make your website or blog have a well-designed structure with a nice looking header, footer, sidebar, pages, content pages, about us page, menu, etc. Design it from a user experience point of view. If your users like the website design and layout, Google AdSense will also find it meaningful. It is the first impression for your blog or website and digital asset. Make sure to use a good theme and template available on WordPress, or ThemeForest etc.
6. Make sure your website content is not on the prohibited list
This point is one of the most overlooked aspects but an important aspect. You need to make sure that your content is not on the prohibited list. If your content is restricted then Google AdSense will never approve your website. These are various topics that come in the restricted list like adult content, content that promotes violence, child trafficking and abuse, plagiarized or copyrighted content, drug and alcoholism-related content, content relating to weapons and terrorism, online gambling, etc. to name a few. The latest addition to this list is the promotion and sale of unapproved supplements and pharmaceuticals. Here is the full list – Google Publisher Restriction.
7. Do not use copyrighted images
Are you using copyrighted images on your website? Stop doing it. Do not copy images directly from Google and use them on your website. Also, do not use images from others’ work without taking permission from them. This is because Google Adsense does not approve websites and blogs that use copyrighted content.
These rules are devised to protect the rights of the photographers who work hard to produce and sell those images. And Google wants to make sure that the photographers are properly compensated for their work. Instead, find a legitimate way to use images. There are two ways. One way is to use royalty-free images from various websites like pixabay.com or unsplash.com, free of cost. The second way is to buy the images from istock.com or sutterstock.com, or any other paid platform. They give you access to a huge pool of libraries.
8. Have a website that is at least 3-6 months old
There is no official ruling on it, but the website age matters, especially, in a few countries like India or China. It might not be true for some countries, but website age matters and increase the chances of getting approved.
In India and China, a lot of websites are daily created and abandoned. A lot of fraudulent activities take place on these websites. Hence Google AdSense wants your website to be 3 months old in a few countries and at least 6 months old in countries like India to check fraudulent activities and make sure your website is legitimate. In fact, Google has made it official now.
9. Know that website traffic is not a condition for getting approval
There is no official ruling on this. Google has not explicitly said anything over the minimum no. of traffic requirement for getting approval on AdSense. In fact, google moderators do not check for website visitors, but your content quality and other factors mentioned above. But when you have decent traffic, your chances of website approval goes up because Google AdSense can easily determine that your content is engaging and meaningful to your website visitors. However, to generate revenues, you must have a decent number of visitors. But website visitor count is not a criterion for approval to date.
10. Always apply using your root domain
It is important that you apply on the Google AdSense platform using your root domain like https://theeasywisdom.com and not a subdomain like https://consulting.theeasywisdom.com.
11. Have your website optimized for search engines
It is again a good idea to optimize your website for search engines. You should make it search engine friendly by including meta tags like the meta title and meta description. AdSense staff cannot manually scan all the websites pending review, so they must be using crawler bots to do the job. And one way you can make it understandable to the crawler bots is by optimizing it for them as per good SEO practices.
Also, make sure your website is not blocked by google. You can type “site:theeasywisdom.com” or “site:yourdomainname.com” on google and check if it is blocked or not. If you can find it in the search results, congrats it is not banned by google. But if you cannot find it there, you are blocked and won’t be approved by AdSense. In most cases, sites are not banned. But there is no harm in checking for this.
12. Deactivate or remove other ads on your website when applying
Google says that it is acceptable to use other ad networks in confluence with other ad networks like Infolinks, media.net, etc. But when you apply for AdSense, I will strongly advise you to remove all other ads before you apply. This is because when someone from AdSense reviews your website and a lot of ads pop up, they may think it is spammy. They might also think that your website already has a lot of ads, so where is the scope for AdSense. So when you apply, remove those ads, and then apply. Once you get approved, you can again activate them and use them with Google AdSense ads.
So if you follow all of the above points, invest in building your blog with high-quality content, most likely, you will be approved for Google AdSense in the first go itself. If you liked this article and found it meaningful, do share this with those who might find this resource useful.
Also, If you have more questions related to the AdSense approval process or have anything new to share, please mention the same in the comments section below. I would love to answer your queries and hear your feedback.
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