There are more than a million blogs out there, some struggle to get Adsense or Ezoic approval but got rejected, while some get approved with a single review. Most bloggers drop out in the long run because of Adsense or Ezoic disapproval. Today we will be looking at how to fix Adsense and Ezoic policy violations, and how I was disapproved three times by Adsense, and one time by Ezoic. And also how to get approved with ease.
Table of Contents
What are Adsense and Ezoic
For newbies, Adsense is an advertising company that collects a certain amount of money from advertisers in other to display it on a blog or website. The blog or website on which these ads are shown is owned by a publisher. While on the other hand, Ezoic is a certified Adsense publisher, which aim is to promote or increase earnings for the publisher. Ezoic has an AI machine that is used to maximize earnings or profit.
Adsense and Ezoic common policy violations
Since Ezoic and Adsense work together, they have common or let’s say the same ad policy rules. If you violate Ezoic ads policy rules you will be redirected to the google ads policy page. How many of you went through the ads policy rule? I didn’t get to read all those policy rules the first time, but I did when I was disapproved.
In most cases, people tend to not go through rules and regulations until something goes wrong. Take for instance how many times have you gone through a new device manual? We always have this feeling it’s the same old rules with other devices we have seen. As so it’s sometimes seen as a waste of time, while in the real sense it can give you an insight into how to use the device and also, what to do and what not to do with it. The same thing goes with this policy. It is there to guild you as a publisher and also as an advertiser.
Types of Adsense or Ezoic policy violations
Basically, for me, there are two types of Adsense or Ezoic violations that can be subcategorized they include.
- Content violation
- Site issues
Content violation
In content violation, we are going to look at 5 most popular content violations in Adsense and Ezoic
- Scraped content
2. Adult and sensitive content
3. Download and stream content
4. low-value content
5. Dangerous products and services
1 Scraped content:
whats a scraped content? Most people know scraped content as just plagiarized content, but it goes beyond that. Scraped content may be plagiarized content, thin affiliate pages, or image theft.
Under scraped content, we will break things down or let’s say subcategorize them. This is to make you understand what scrapped content is.
Plagiarized content
can be described as content that is copied from another source this is highly prohibited by Adsense, this is because they want fresh and original content. Most times bloggers make use of text spinners or AI ( artificial intelligence) writers in most cases test spinners are hard to read, you know why? They may change a simple, understandable text to a more complex one, take for example the image below is this article I am writing.
The text above was rewritten by a popular text spinner. In some cases where you have a very long article, your reader becomes confused and the article won’t be engaging like you writing on your own. This is because some easy-to-understand words are being changed to more complex one, and some sentence doesn’t look too good.
The truth is that people who review Adsense and Ezoic applications are humans, as content that looks suspicious of being written or re-written by bots or any AI is against their policy.
I was once a victim of this. what I do is I use a text spinner, copy an article from a well-known tech blog, and re-write and publish. But there was a problem, none of them ranked well on google. And I wasn’t approved by Adsense until I deleted all article which was rewritten using a text spinner.
Mark my words, the worst thing you can ever do is to copy and publish an article from a competitor that is doing well than you.
You won’t do well also you can’t outrank them because they have the upper hand over you. For example, they might have a higher (DA) domain authority than you also, and other factors might be considered too.
When I started writing good and original articles It start attracting lazy bloggers to my blog. They started copying my article and also rewriting it in different languages. The worst part was that they were spamming my comment section with the said URL, it was so annoying but I was happy knowing I was doing the right thing.
When articles you research and write yourself start ranking (number one) on search engines it gives joy. In all, write your article yourself, you can read an article and rewrite that article in a way you understand. And also, don’t forget to add some break things down in a way your reader will understand. When you do this your content will be valid and also be approved.
Thin affiliate pages:
9ja Tide was guilty of this. A thin affiliate page may be seen as a page or an e-commerce section inside a blog or website which has some affiliate links leading to another website. It’s as simple as that. I remember when I was trying to get more from my affiliate marketing, I was looking for every possible way I could do so.
I met someone online and he brought out an idea he said “ hey why not create an e-commerce page or store inside 9ja Tide and sell some product for the company you are affiliating for” that sounds like a good idea right?
Have you ever wondered why Adsense don’t place an advert on most if not all e-commerce site? Why would I even want to partner with Adsense or Ezoic when I have an e-commerce store that will push in a good sum of money? What kind of ads will Adsense or Ezoic display to my visitors on each page? Guess what Adsense and Ezoic would probably be displaying the exact item which my visitor is trying to purchase from me for probably a lower rate.
This might in the long run chase away my customers. Now here is the gist about thin affiliate pages, according to AdSense they won’t approve you because you are probably copying images and also some text from the other source to your blog.
And when visitors click on it, it takes them to the source with the same information and price tag. Ask yourself why would someone want to go to your affiliate page just to go to the source to get that product. Does this make any sense? Hey, I still do affiliate, I never said you shouldn’t, but do it the right way.
Check out all the devices I reviewed on this blog. Most of the devices have been used by me, I know the pro and cons I don’t hide them I tell you the way it is. You are either to buy it or forget about it. In doing so I have sold some products here on 9ja Tide because I was able to point out reasons to buy. Also what you should expect so you don’t say you regret buying any.
I was already approved by Adsense before creating a thin affiliate page inside 9ja Tide. Again I didn’t know I was violating any rules or regulations. Until I said “hey why not 9ja Tide partnership with Ezoic to maximize earning” I applied for Ezoic I was fully confident of being approved even before the 10 working days review period. Unfortunately, Ezoic sent me the message in the image below, that I was violating one or more of their rules
From the message above Ezoic said I was not in compliance with their requirement and google content policy also common reasons include scrapped content, adult/ sensitive content, download, and streaming, and as such ads, won’t be served. I was like what’s this? Adsense is fully functioning and you are here telling me something else. I realize sometimes AdSense won’t catch up with you quickly when you violate their policy.
Also, I wanted to reapply immediately but as soon I scrolled down the last text saw shocked me. Ezoic said if I reapply and I am still guilty of the offense I would have to wait for 6 months before reapplying again, I was like WTF? I switched off my laptop, went to school, I was just thinking about it throughout.
When I got home I had to click on the link which was inserted by Ezoic in other to fix the violation. I think that’s the good part about Ezoic in most cases they refer you to the violation page on google and when you go through that section you should be able to know where you went wrong. Unlike Adsense, they just push you to the full violation page, and boom you are lost, if you are a newbie God is your strength.
Back to the topic, I watched a video on the Adsense violation page and I was enlightened. immediately I knew where the problem was, It took me 2 days to delete the affiliate page and also all things associated with it. like pictures stored in my host and all that. I posted on a Facebook group that I am in.
The post was about the message which I got from Ezoic and told them I will be approved for my next application and also, that I will write an article on how to fix Adsense and Ezoic violation problems, they thought I was joking. I Reapplied for Ezoic it didn’t take up to 7days I was approved. And I have helped other people to get approval too, by simply pointing out things they ought to fix. The bottom line is that don’t create a thin affiliate page if you want to be approved by Ezoic or Adsense.
Image theft:
who is guilty of this? Well, most of us are, how? You might have done it without you knowing you have. How is that possible? Last year I was writing an article about a smartphone I bought. I wrote all I know about the smartphone including its features, and what I like, and also detest.
Now it’s time to get an image to use, I took some pictures of the phone but I just felt like using a picture I saw online. I googled for the smartphone and navigated to images, there were tons of images of the smartphone. Luckily for me, I saw the one I loved, I clicked on it, and I found out it was from one of my competitors, well I didn’t care, I downloaded it.
I have little idea about watermarked images then. In case you don’t know what a watermarked image or protected image is, it is an image that is copyright protected. As so it is not allowed to be used by others. I took a look at the image I didn’t see any logo, text, or whatsoever I thought I was free.
I downloaded and pasted it on my blog and published it. That was my second month of blogging I was waiting till the third month before applying for Adsense my post were up to about 15 posts then.
After my third month I applied for Adsense three times I was rejected, why was I rejected? This was due to a content violation. But according to Adsense, my blog ain’t ready to serve ads as it violates one of their rules. It looks as if I was doomed because it was my only hope then, I have the wrong mindset about blogging then. I lost hope, now I was looking for other means to monetize my blog.
Until one day I was going through my pictures in my WordPress image section I discovered that that particular picture was watermarked with the website name written on it. It was very small that you could only see it properly when zoomed in. As soon as I deleted it I was approved. It is not professional to steal people’s images, so make sure your picture is not copyrighted or watermarked.
Where to get images that are not watermarked or copyrighted
You can get a non-copyrighted image from Granger and Shuttershock. Or just google non-copyright images you will be amazed to see a dozen of websites that offer non-copyright images. Although I still get some of my images from just googling what image I am looking for, do you want to know how?
Here’s how, if I am reviewing, let us say “Redmi note 8 smartphones” I will just input something like this (Redmi note 8 smartphones on Aliexpress) or whatever popular store I know then I save the image of the smartphone. But before I do that I will be sure the link to that image is from the store. Or I get the image directly from the e-commerce store. I haven’t noticed any which is copyrighted.
2 Adult and sensitive content
Adsense and Ezoic have made it clear that they are not interested in content or articles that are adult-related. If you find yourself blogging about those, sorry you won’t be approved. Ezoic and Adsense are so much concerned about what you write and how it will benefit your viewer.
Sensitive content: What are they? Sensitive content is content that promotes harm, violence, hate, also sexual content. Most people are allergic to violence, killing, and so on. I too can testify I don’t like the idea of seeing such content it makes me sad and it might change my mood for a whole week or day.
As so this kind of content is not advisable, even almost all social media frowns at it. If you still want to go ahead with content like this, hold on when you get approved by Ezoic or Adsense, you will need to deactivate all ads on that page or post.
3 Download and streaming content
Our third list is download and streaming content. I know you must be wondering why it’s part of our list. Adsense and Ezoic frown at it, not that it’s bad but in most cases, it is copied all over and over, as so making it not unique content.
Most bloggers engage in copyrighted and illegal downloads of music, videos, applications, and document which are not authorized by the owner. And as such Adsense and Ezoic are not likely to work with you. I have seen a website with download and streaming content being approved. But it is very rare and also difficult for you to be approved with your new download and streaming website or blog.
4 Low-value content
Sorry, you have low-value content, we cant serve ads. Wait for a minute whats low-value content? Most times when I see people trying to help fellow bloggers, they will be like your content is not well valued. ( I laugh) the truth is that:
- Your site is still very new
- You don’t have enough content
- Your post is likely plagiarized
- Your article is too shallow
According to Adsense Your content must be high-quality, original, and attract an audience.
When you write a good well-structured article you will be approved. When I say well-structured articles, not articles that are spun by bots, you are only rewriting back the article you copied from another source. I think I had like 30 posts when I was approved by Adsense. I have also seen people with only 10 posts get approved. so if you get this kind of violation message I have given you a spoiler.
5 Dangerous products and services
Finally but not least on this, we have the dangerous product and services. If you engage in hard drugs, Nail bombs, chemical bombs, any fireworks that explode, firecrackers, grenades Bomb-making site, guides, software, or equipment for 3D printing of parts of grenades Adsense and Ezioc won’t partnership with you. This is because they are dangerous to mankind and its environment.
Site issues
Here are some site issues that might make Adsense or Ezoic disapprove of your application.
- The Site that is under construction
- A Site that is used for alerts, navigation, or other behavior purposes
- A website with no navigation
- Site with invalid traffic
- Site with no about page, contact page, and privacy
- Websites that use other ads company that goes against Adsense terms and condition
- Right-click button disabled on a website
The site that is under construction
If you know you are still working on your site, or you are still designing it, why not finish before applying? Adsense or Ezoic won’t approve such a site as it is still in the development process and has nothing to offer.
A site that is used for alert, navigation, or other behavior purposes
If your website is just for notification purposes, you won’t be approved by Adsense. Also, if you somehow implement some codes that interfere with site navigation you won’t be accepted by Adsense.
A website with no navigation
Whats navigation? Navigation in a website can be described as those menus and buttons that make or promote accessibility. Good content must be placed on a well-structured website or blog. If you don’t have a good navigation Adsense or Ezoic won’t accept you, as they are so much concerned about viewers.
Site with invalid traffic
The source of your traffic is important, This shows how relevant your blog is. On certain occasions when you have a high bounce rate ( high bounce rate means people tend not to navigate to another article in your blog. In other sense they just land on your website and move out from your site) or very low read time ( read time means how many minutes or hours it took the visitor to move out or check out another post of yours).
Sometimes, Ezoic will count your traffic as invalid traffic if it has a high bounce rate and low read time. Or you engage in using bots to generate traffic and impressions. As such traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo should be highly embraced.
Site with no about page, contact page, and privacy
Those three pages are very vital. The about page tells more about your website. The contact page enables your visitor to reach out to you, your privacy and policy tell more about the data you collect and also how safe your visitor is likely to be. In all Adsense is concerned with those three pages, It shows how serious and none fraudulent you may be.
Websites that use other ads company that goes against Adsense terms and condition
Finally, if you want to get Adsense or Ezoic approval it is advisable to disable your previous ads network. Why? If your ads networks support pup under, pop up, adult advertisement, or violate any of their rules you won’t be approved. Apart from that, disabling ads gives a clearer view of how your website looks like as some ads are so annoying and also low quality.
Right-click button disabled on a website
plagiarism is at its peak now. Most new bloggers tend to copy people’s content without informing the original owner of the content. Plagiarism has caused a lot of havoc in terms of ranking, bad user experience, and loss of money. Most bloggers now engage in disabling the right-click button which is responsible for other options like opening a website image in a new window also copying texts from a website.
Well, what I am about to say might be surprising, but in some cases when reviewing for original content Ezoic might want to make use of the right-click option. We don’t really know how these guys do their content reviews, who knows they might have an application or a platform where they copy and paste your content in other to check for plagiarism.
Below is a message from Ezoic concerning disabling the right-click button.
List of things to avoid if you want AdSense or Ezoic approval
- Non- consensual acts
- Counterfeit goods
- Violent content
- Adult content
- Gambling
- Drugs, tobacco-related content
- Copyrighted content
- Hacking and cracking content
- Compensation programs ( click to pay )
- Irreverent speech
- Content that advocates against an individual or group of people
Things to watch out for after Ezoic and Adsense approval
- Ads placement
- Ads code modification
- Invalid clicks, impressions, or encouraging clicks for view
Ads placement
According to Adsense, ads shouldn’t be placed in places that generate invalid clicks, impressions, or misleading visitors. A website that engages in placing ads on buttons or popup plugins or code, will be sanctioned for the offense of violation.
Ads code modification
Editing of ad code to create a false impression, clicks, pop up, and creating a bad user experience or any illegal activity is highly prohibited by Adsense. According to Adsense, it is advisable to notify them before editing. For Ezoic users you can edit your Adsense code using the code format below this is used for ads placement testing for their AI machine.
Placing Adsense code on your blog or website like that can affect the maximization of earnings, the AI may not be able to manage the ads code placement. I am also using this method, if you noticed most of my AdSense ads appear at the top of my page and also just one in every article. In some cases, you won’t see any Adsense ads on the top, this is because ads are being interchanged. So I make money from the two ads company.
Consequence of Violation
- Limited ads: In this case, ads are been limited. Your potential of making more money has been reduced. Read more on this.
- Revenue deduction: In this state, your revenue is being deducted due to violations, mostly invalid clicks and impressions.
- Ads serving will be disabled: Finally, the Adsense account will be disabled. This is usually done when violations are constantly repeated, especially invalid clicks and impressions. The publisher is banned from using Adsense for life.
What you should do when you receive a policy violation warning from Adsense
- Login to the policy center.
- Check to know which of the violation you must have violated, click “Must fix” and click yes.
- Go back to your website or blog to fix the issue as soon as possible and wait for them to verify that you have done that.
In some cases, you will need to write a review stating that you have fixed all violation issues and also, that you understand Adsense policy. You might also be required to give a well-detailed description of the action you took to fix it.
Some niches which are hard to be approved by Adsense
I have sat down, analyzed, and also gone through many complaints in Quora, Nairaland, and also posts on Facebook groups. Here is the list of niches you need to think twice before venturing into.
- News
- Entertainment
- Gossips
- Personal company website
The reasons are that those niches are highly prone to violating Adsense rules, especially the “content must be original” rule. Someone chatted me up on Facebook and he was like I have applied up to three times on Adsense but I wasn’t approved, I told him to send me his URL and he did so.
Lo and behold his website is a personal company website I forgot what service he was rendering. But the truth is that it’s filled with static pages I think probably up to 10. No new information, ideas, or whatsoever is being disbursed thereby violating Adsense policy “ content must be original, low-value content”
By the way what ads will you expect Adsense or any ads company to display? Adsense display ads according to users’ interest this could be a previously searched item or website information. So it wouldn’t make any sense if you are selling let’s say an HP keyboard for $10 and google displays ads about a similar product for a lesser amount this will chase your visitors away.
Languages supported by Adsense
Placing an ad code on content that has unsupported languages in Adsense can lead to a violation. Here is a list of languages Adsense supports.
Arabic
Bengali
Bulgarian
Catalan
Chinese (simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Gujarati
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Kannada
Arabic
Bengali
Bulgarian
Catalan
Chinese (simplified)
Chinese (traditional)
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
English
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
German
Greek
Gujarati
Hebrew
Hindi
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Kannada
Korean
Latvian
Lithuanian
Malay
Malayalam
Marathi
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Serbian
Slovak
Slovenian
Spanish (European)
Spanish (Latin American)
Swedish
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Vietnamese
Some wrong beliefs about Adsense
I have been in partnership with Adsense for over one year now, and here are some wrong beliefs about Adsense.
Adsense won’t accept you if your article is below 500 words
I have seen blogs with a lesser amount of words counts in most of their posts and they were approved. In a nutshell, they don’t see this as criteria for being approved, rather focus on unique content. For example, you know very much about Chelsea football club, why not write about them in a way you understand. Blogging is not just about mere writing, expressing yourself, and telling us what you know.
Adsense won’t accept entertainment, news, and gossip blog
The truth is that Adsense accepts those niches but Adsense is having issues with original content in those niches. We all know those niches require energy, time, finance, effort, name it. Due to this newest bloggers and old bloggers engaged in copy and paste.
I wonder how a single person will post up to 40 articles a day, mind you, they don’t have people who write for them yet they do the magic. My dear magic doesn’t work anymore I wouldn’t advise a new blogger to go for those niches if they plan to get Adsense anytime soon.
Adsense won’t accept you if you have little traffic
Adsense doesn’t care much about traffic like the way Ezoic does. 9ja Tide was approved by Adsense with a range of 10 to 20 page views a day, surprised? I have seen people who even have less and were approved. On the other hand.
The Ezoic access now program is a little bit concerned about that, although they wrote on their review notification that to avoid cases of violation publishers must have at least 1000 visits a month. For now, I get a little bit below 1000 visits a month and I was approved. 1000 unique visitors a month is quite different from 1000 page views a month please take note.
How to register for Ezoic or Adsense
Are you new to blogging? or do you want to really? here’s a good start to monetization, you can register for Ezoic here, or if you prefer AdSense register here.
Conclusion
The easiest way to get Adsense or Ezoic approval is when you have a well-written number of posts written by you, why so? It will be easier for you to fix violations because you will be able to go through all your articles, and also fetch out the culprit with ease. It will be very hard to fix when you have thousands of articles, you will find it difficult to go through all your articles to find out where you went wrong, especially when people write for you.
When rules and regulations are much it’s kind of hard to maintain as so, bloggers and publishers need to be very conscious of what they post, where they get their articles from, and also who writes for them.
Finally, I would love to hear from you, tell us how you fixed google and Ezoic violations and also how many articles you have before being approved. I want to learn more too, we can deliberate on what to remove from my list of violations and also things to add to it.
