Google Adsense is the synonym for contextual ads & make money online. Whenever I talk about Google Adsense, I almost say it every time that Google Adsense is one of the reasons I got into blogging. I was told by one of my friends (who helped me set up my Blogspot account) that I can make real money using Google Adsense.

Considering the popularity of the platform, it becomes almost a ritual to cover the guide to get your Google Adsense account approved.

Another reason why I’m creating this guide is that the Google Adsense account approval process that was pretty straight forward has changed slightly to make it faster & easier.

Previously, you’d signup for Adsense, apply & wait for the approval, things have changed now. The updated process removes a lot of spam & ineligible application right at step one. The process has become a little complex & time consuming but it’s worth the wait.

This guide cover exactly that. Let’s jump into that.

Application process to get Google Adsense account approved

If you’ve ever applied for Google Adsense before, you can figure out the difference. But if you’ve never applied before, here’s the Google Adsense account approval process:

1. Ensure your blog is eligible & compatible for host Google Adsense ads (more on this below)
2. Signup & apply for the Google Adsense program
3. Login & place the Adsense code on your blog
4. Setup you account the right way for the best result
5. Wait for the verification & approval (it takes up to 48 hours)

Check out this guide to learn what you should know before & after successful approval.

Meanwhile, you wait, you can create the ad units & paste it on your blog. The ads won’t appear right after you paste the code, it will be blank ads that will act just as a place holder. Once approved, you will start seeing the ads.

As I said, the process is simpler. Its preparation before applying that makes the difference.

Side note: Check out this playlist from Google on site approval process.

Eligibility requirements for application & successful Adsense approval

Google Adsense is a free program & Google has paid the publishers over $10 billion since its launch.

Since Google Adsense is a serious business to make money for all the three parties involved (you, Google & the advertisers), Google is very strict of who comes through the approval process.

Hence there are some eligibility criteria you should be aware of before applying.

Here are the eligibility criteria for Google Adsense:

1. Unique & interesting content: By unique, Google expects original & non-plagiarized content. Of course, the topic can’t be unique (especially if you’re into an informational niche) but the content shouldn’t be copied from other sources. It should be interesting because that’s what will retain the users on your blog and hence increase the chances of more revenue.
2. Your blog should comply with Google Adsense policies: Remember I told you Google is very strict with the policies? This point is the reality check for that. Google has laid out the program policies that you should never try to overstep if you don’t want to get your account banned. Furthermore, here are some terms & conditions for the Google Adsense program. Make sure you keep yourself up to date if you’re serious about Google Adsense.
3. You should be at least 18 years old: Self-explanatory but important. If your age is less than 18 years, consider spending time on learning & failing a lot.
4. If you’re Blogspot or YouTube user, you just have to link to the approved Adsense account. If it’s YouTube, you’d have to wait until your channel is eligible to monetize. On Blogspot, you just have to link the account. I’d recommend having one account to log into both Google Adsense & Blogspot. Here’s a guide on setting up Google Adsense for Blogspot blog.

Things you should know before & after approval

As much as I was excited to signup for Adsense, I took my time before I even applied for it. I didn’t think of monetizing my blog for at least a year.

The first blog (tech blog) that I applied Adsense for, had around 30k visitors a month. It was easier back then. By the end of the year, I had that number clocking up every month, but it didn’t begin that way.

So, that was my approach. Take sometime, ensure I put out good content & have consistent traffic on those pages.

This doesn’t mean you too should wait for a year or so. I just needed to be sure. If you’re sure of your content, apply for adsense.

Here’s the trick, consider the confidence your audience has in your content. If they seem to be enjoying it, you can go ahead & apply to get Google Adsense account approved.

If your end-user loves it, odds are, Google would love it too. Unless your blog doesn’t defy the policies of the program, you’d be through. I’ve put out this guide to help your understand exactly that. Make sure you don’t miss it.

Lastly, getting your Google Adsense account approved isn’t the ultimate thing you should have in your mind. If that’s the goal, you’d end up not focusing on good quality content, which will ultimately kill the whole purpose of applying in the first place.

With that said, let me walk you through some of the best practices for maintain your Google Adsense account.

Best practices for successful approval (& not getting your account banned)

Google has been very specific about the user experience with this program. Therefore, there’s no room for mediocre content, even if you have, don’t expect reliable earning for your blog.

While improving the content quality is a process that gets refined with time, here are some best practices you should be aware of:

#1 A/B test the ad units

Though there are Adsense auto ads, you can still have some control over the ads that are shown on your blog. I still haven’t applied auto ads on my blog, for several reasons.

One of those being, it places way too many ads on longer blogs, and you can’t specify the maximum number of ads you want on a page. I hate that.

So, I have ad units for every block I place ads on & I test various units in various places. There’s a provision to perform an A/B test within the Adsense dashboard. Go to Optimization ➤ Experiments and create experiments as you like.

However, you can simply test which ad units (in terms of sizes & ad types) without A/B testing. Simply place it in one block & see it’s performance.

#2 Optimize your ads for best placements on your blog

If you’re just starting out, this is going to be a fun ride. You’re not gonna find the perfect place right out of the box. As the standard industry practice, you’d begin with placing the ads in the sidebar, above & below the post.

I prefer three ads per page & hence I haven’t explored the odds of placing more than 3 ads per page. You can do that. Try placing a couple of ads in between the post, try native ads that blends with the look & feel of the post. This makes it more enticing & hence more clickable.

Do some digging & researching similar websites as your. See where they place monetizable elements on their blog. Chances are, they’ve done their homework & hence it’s going to directly help you inherit the idea as it is.

Though, optimizing is not a one time task, you have to keep optimizing so better make it habit to spend some time studying the performance of your ad units & optimize it accordingly.

#3 Have responsive ads for your blog

Its a no brainer that mobile search has surpassed desktop search long time ago. It’s a mainstream to search on mobile nowadays.

You don’t want to screw the ads for mobile visitors. Using responsive blog designs & ads is the first thing you need to make decent money, especially if you have significant traffic coming from mobile users.

Note: A responsive ads auto sizes itself based on the screen size.

Last thing you need is having a responsive blog design but ads are broken because they’re too big for the screen size.

Even if you don’t have traffic from mobile users, it’s always better to use responsive ads so that whatever little traffic you have from mobile phones, you’d not disappoint the end-users with broken ads.

You can link Google Analytics & Google Adsense to see how the ads are performing on mobile & how users are clicking on the ads shown to them.

#4 Keep creating better content

The biggest application of Google Adsense is implementing then on micro niche sites. That limits the content creation process, as micro-niche sites have less content opportunities than the macro-niche sites.

Keep digging to find the problems your audience face in day-to-day life & create a solution in form of blogs. While you’re creating content that you already know, explore various other verticals that you can create content on. Explore other channels you can gain the attention of your audience. The idea is to bring the traffic to your blog, channels are just a medium.

Lastly, don’t forget to check out the webmaster’s guidelines & Google Adsense policies to comply with the content policy.

#5 Create multiple channels to promote your blog

I’ve gone wrong big time. I have failed to make use of social media to promote my blog. I’d comment & engage in groups, but that doesn’t move the needle. At least, not anymore.

Social media is a place to build a network of people who’d be interested in what you have to tell, through your blogs. You build a community of similar minded people & that’s where you build a loyal audience who can be advocate of your brand.

Another channel is email marketing, which is probably the most underrated marketing channel. I remember, email marketing softwares were darn cheap & now when I check out the prices, it costs a bomb. Because everyone has understood the power of email marketing.

The money is in the list, they say. & it’s damn true.

I treat the email lists as the end of a customer’s journey. That’s where you have them with stay. with you forever.

You may lose access to the social media accounts/followers (site might get hacked or shut down, people may unfollow you), your blog might get compromised, but who’s gonna take away the list of the loyal audience who chose to grant you an entry to their email inbox.

Email is the closest you can get to your audience so do not miss the chance of bringing people back to your blog by sending out newsletters or relevant email campaigns.

Now, there’s a small segment of people who’d say, “I know these best practices, why am I still getting rejected?”

Well, let’s check that too…

Probable reasons why Google Adsense doesn’t get approved

You’d relate to this if you’ve applied for Adsense for long enough & yet got rejected. Here I’ve listed probable reasons why your application was rejected.

I’m aware of the fact that Google never specifies the exact reason why they’ve rejected your application. They tangle you in various reasons, but that’s okay. Take that as room for improvement.

However, as per my experience of addressing many beginners on various forums like Quora, and here are some reasons why your Google Adsense application gets rejected:

#1 Violation of TOC & policies

I can’t emphasize enough more how strict Google is for the policies of the program. Money that Google makes out of Ads is the biggest chunk of the company’s fortune. So there’s no room for mercy against the defaulters.

If you don’t want to get rejected (even if you have an approved account), strictly comply with the program policies. If you’re hosting the ads on Google products like YouTube and/or blogger, you’re bound to comply with policies & TOC of both the platforms explicitly.

#2 Hosting malware, pirated/ phishing content

This is elementary. You can’t expect Google to approve your application if you apply for a blog that’s involved in malware or pirated content.

Also, another common aspect I’ve seen that most people apply with a different blog (that’s most likely to get approved) then put the ads on blog with prohibited content.

Yes, you can do that. Get your Google Adsense account approved & then paste the code on any blog, all you have to do is paste the code & you’re done.

Don’t kid yourself that Google won’t find that out. I’m sure you’re not one of those guys, but if you have something back of your mind, you’re mistaken. Here are some specific Google publisher policies on prohibited content & practices.

#3 Spam content & practices

As much you hate spam content, Google hates it several times than that, because spam content costs them real money. Spamming is taken as a very serious offense & violation of the policy. You can get your account irreversibly terminated immediately after Google finds it. You don’t have room for even arguing against it.

Spamming includes sending illegal traffic to your adsense approved blog, clicking on your own ads paying people to click on the ads & more.

It’s just matter of time that Google finds this out. Avoid doing this.

#4 Your blog is too new

There’s no minimum requirement that Google has laid out for Google Adsense account getting approved. However, if you apply for AdSense the day you start your blog, that’s not gonna go through.

There’s no record of this but there are so many examples that the blog should be at least 6 months old before you apply for Adsense. I haven’t tested it, but it’s always better to put out decent content before you apply. It’s not about time, it’s the quality of content that matters. You can’t produce quality content in a short time unless you already had it before starting the blog.

#5 Applying for blog of a saturated niche

I do have experience of facing rejection for my Adsense application. But that was for saturated niche (blogging & SEO). I applied for less saturated niche (photography) and then use the approved account to put ads on this blog.

There’s this theory that if you apply with Gmail ID A for blog A, then it’s better to use Gmail ID B & apply for blog B, if you use the same Gmail ID A to apply for blog B, odds are, your application would get rejected almost immediately.

Just like I used Gmail ID B to apply for my blog on photography than using Gmail ID A is used to apply for this blog. This time, I was prepared with all the right things. That’s how I got it approved in one go for Gmail ID B.

I remember (I can’t find that now) a thread in the Google Adsense community talking about SEO being a saturated niche and any blog applying for a blog of that niche will get rejected irrespective of anything. Which is unfair & fair for various factors.

The bottom line is, you have to find balance between picking up a niche that’s not saturated

#6 Poor hosting & up time

Google wants to give the best user experience to its end-user, since Google makes a huge chunk of money from ads, we can’t expect to get Google Adsense account approved by hosting the blog on poor web hosting. What good would it do to you & Google if the blog isn’t available to end-users?

I’d recommend Siteground, Bluehost, or Hostgator to host your blogs. Don’t fall prey to the cheap web hosting platform. This is an investment you’d love in the future, not right away.

Here’s a guide you can refer to, to decide which platform is best for your ambitions.

Recommended: What is blogging? Ultimate guide for beginners.

#7 No privacy & disclaimer policies

Google recommends having a Privacy & disclaimer policy where you state how you use the end user’s presence on your blog to serve ads.

Think of it as if you’re telling Google that you’re legitimate.

#8 You encourage/confuse users to click ads

This might be a genuine mistake that most people might commit. You might confuse the end user into making them click on ads instead of download button or placing ads near downloadable elements purposefully.

You’re not supposed to do that.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts on applying to get Google Adsense account approved (TL;DR)

Google Adsense can be intimidating if you don’t get on the right foot right from the beginning. Especially if you’ve tried & failed to get Google Adsense account approved in the past.

To begin with, here are some guides that can help you break the ice.

• Create & setup Google Adsense for your blog from scratch
• Here’s what you should know before & after applying Google Adsense

If you’re looking for something specific related to Google Adsense, let me know in the comments section below. Also, feel free to share this post with your friends & family on social media to help them understand the concepts of Google Adsense.