Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I told my friend about the wonders of Adsense as he is quite a talented web bloke, with little knowledge of much of the commercial side of it. He has created a really nice interactive site regarding some really popular blue widgets.
I thought he would be instantly accepted as my site, which I think is lower in quality (quite a lot of it though), was welcomed into the Adsense family without any trouble at all.
He has asked me why this was, I done an indepth check of his site, and the only blemish I could find was a 'coming soon' sign... But this was more an informative type thing for the user to show them what will be in the next update. The site is 100% finished.
My mate doesn't really mind as he can't really cry over what he hasn't had, but I really want him to get in, as I have a feeling he doesn't believe how great this programme is!
Anyone have any ideas why he might have been rejected, and if he should try again?
W.
[webmasterworld.com...]
Informative sites about really popular things are often 'made for Adsense' or other affiliate sales. Not saying that's the case in this situation - I obviously haven't seen the site.
Sachin
wonderboy; Has your friend asked Google why he was rejected?
Here are some other guesses:
1) The site has very little traffic. AdSense may be more reluctant to accept very low-revenue sites than it was in the beginning when publisher recruitment was a higher priority.
2) The site is in an overcrowded category. Advertiser bids are determined by the law of supply and demand, and if there are already too many "blue widgets" publishers for the number of advertisers, Google may not want to add more.
The site is in an overcrowded category.
Good point, this could very well be a case of the reviewer going to the site and saying "Oh no! not another blue widget site"
Similar to the problems that some entertainment sites have getting into other ad networks.
It is definately not made specifically for adsense, the level of interaction between the site and the user is 'intense' - if someone actually takes time to look round the site it becomes clear the site is not just repeated information. (I hate those sites!)
Maybe it has something to do with the fact these are American reviewers? The Blue Widget is not extremely popular in America, but is highly regarded elsewhere... If an American with prejudices against the blue widget reviews the site, then he may just fob it off, despite promises of an in depth review...
I will advise him to update the site with the 'coming soon' content and wait until he has more members for the site... If he was to re-apply should he change any of the application details, would Google just reject him on the basis he was rejected before?
W.
The funny thing is, I have another site (also with all original content) which is much larger, gets a lot more traffic. Not Big Time, but pretty good by my low standards. I'm guessing between 12 GB or more of bandwidth a month. I wasn't sure whether or not I'd put ads up on this site, but as it turns out, it earns probably 90% or more of the money, out of all my sites.
So anyway, I guess my point is, I don't think that you have to have a super big site that gets a lot of traffic in order to be accepted. I have assumed that I got accepted because it was a site full of original content, which was lovingly created. (Corny, okay? But that's how I feel.)
m
Why do you use bandwidth as a metric for site traffic?
I would have to check my logs to see how many visits I get, and I'm just too lazy for that right now. I'm guessing that I get more or less ten thousand hits daily (give or take) on the "big" site, and way under a thousand on the smaller site.
and wait until he has more members for the site..
Does most of the activity at the site take place while a user is signed in, i.e. with a logon and password, with pages customised for that user?
That might be the problem (or the impression the reviewer got), as Adsense can't crawl password-protected pages to display relevant ads.
I asked them to look again and stressed that it WAS navigable and I got accepted almost instantly. I think as someone suggested, if the Google employee was in a hurry they may have seen the "coming soon" as a red flag for a site still under construction.
When you say "interactive" are we talking Flash here? Are there good links throughout the site (that crawlers could follow)?
My brother-in-law is a church deacon and set up an informational site -- originally geared for his CCD and Sunday School students. One day he was lamenting the hosting fees so we got into a long discussion about AdSense and other affiliate programs that would jive with the content on his site (Amazon, selective CJ.com, etc.) and help him more than offset his costs.
He was rejected by AdSense for "inappropriate content." He was a bit miffed at first. The site was naturally theological in scope but not bible-thumping preachy. A few weeks passed. His site received a favorable review from a larger site. A few others linked to his pages on the lives of a few saints.
His PageRank went from nil to 3. While 3 isn't a mind-blowing rank he went ahead and re-applied and was accepted.
I imagine that AdSense is getting a bit more picky about the publisher accounts they are accepting. The AdWords rebate all but implies that demand is outstripping supply on that front. So perhaps Google is being more selective in serving underserved areas while passing on some of the publishers that they would have approved in the past.
Who knows? But if your friend believes that the content is original -- and worthy -- applying again after the site is a bit more established should help.
Does most of the activity at the site take place while a user is signed in, i.e. with a logon and password, with pages customised for that user?
There are customized areas for individual members, these are reachable by spider, they are not actually behind any barriers.
Would a Google reviewer actually look twice at a site that needed you to sign up to get to some area?
Thanks all for your ideas and suggestions, I will pass them onto my mate and hopefully he will try again with all this in mind!
W.
Either remove the links to the coming soon sections and just submit it under what content is there, or wait until the site no longer needs any coming soon notices (such as finished).
