Links Pages When Using AdSense

[WolfLover]

Hello everyone! I came here to ask a question.
I received a dreaded email from AdSense stating first that I had mature content on my main site and to remove it. It was not really mature, just lingerie, not anyone being naked, etc. So, I immediately removed it and requested they put my ads back on my main site.

I then received a reply last night that my AdSense account is not closed but that I can not have ads on my main site (MOST of the money I make) because my site was in violation with the links pages I had.

Just so you know all these pages have been on my site since way before I ever added AdSense and now years later I am in trouble for it.

One of the pages they pointed out was a link directory page, where people could request that I add their link to my site. The other page they noted was one of my links pages.

I've had these same links pages on my site since before I ever added AdSense many years ago. So, since I am devastated by this, I immediately went and removed ALL links pages and the link directory page.

My question is WHY would AdSense not want me to have links pages?

I realize things have changed, but I need to know how on earth to go about getting links. Most webmasters will only do reciprocal links.

Are reciprocal links NOT allowed? I have some links that I did not reciprocate and did not ask for, but those are hard to get.

I have an ecommerce site and I've added information pages to it, but it IS a store after all. I sell products.

I don't want to anger Google further, so I am asking how does a retail store get quality links without reciprocating.

Any help and insight would be great. AdSense was a lot of my income and now I've just lost most of it without realizing I was doing anything "wrong".

Just so you know. I did not have hundreds of links on a page. I had like less than 50 on the larger links pages and had divided them into different pages for different categories. I did not realize that was wrong.

Thanks!

PS. I also posted this on the Links Forum. I think my question applies to both situations.

[Quadrille]

Links these days are all about quality. If you reciprocate without checking the destination carefully, then you can seriously damage your site, and - as you did - break the TOS of people you partner with.

Adsense's TOS haven't changed in that respect (so far as I know), and 'getting away with it' for a while is no guarantee you will forever. In view of the risk to your income, I strongly recommend you:

(a) Read Adsense TOS very carefully.
(b) Be careful wo you link to.

Reciprocal links to related, quality sites is fine; but a site that's fine today may not be next week. You need to review them carefully.

It's not just Adsense you have been risking, but your SE listings. Good Luck!

[no need to post the same question twice!]

[ken_b]

Were the AdSense adblocks on these link pages blended in with the links themselves so the the two could be confused?

[WolfLover]

No, the ads were not blended and did not look anything like the AdSense ads.

I was not trying to "get away with" anything, I just did not realize that links pages were against TOS.

[netmeg]

Were any of the links to sites that might even by the smallest stretch of the imagination be considered adult or mature sites?

To answer (sort of) your question, I have thus far never heard of AdSense having a problem with links pages. But possibly they don't consider links pages as being pages with actual content.

[WolfLover]

Thank you to those of you who responded.

I have wonderful news and that is that Google reinstated my site to serve ads.

I am so thankful, and truly, I did not intentionally go against the TOS.

Some of the TOS is not perfectly clear like when it states "adult or mature content". Like I said, it was just lingerie. No one was naked, no adult toys, no profanity, nothing that I thought of as "adult" or "mature". That is open to one's own interpretation.

As far as the links that I had, there were no adult links and I had these links pages on my site long before I ever added AdSense so I really had no idea that they were not allowed.

I am now scared to death to add any links as I don't want to do anything that will mess me up again.

I do realize that SEO has changed and Googles rules have changed over the last few years, so I guess I am not quite up on the lates SEO. I've been so busy with customers and such I just had not had time to do a lot of updating to my site.

Again, thank you all and hope that all of our American webmasters have a WONDERFUL Fourth of July celebration and remember how blessed we all are to have the freedoms so many others don't.

[jetteroheller]

Links can be a great problem.

As mentioned, I had a Google outage between October 25th and March 10th.

In February, I implemented in my CMS a link statistic, to see all outgoing links.

The results of the new tool had been shocking. Many links to bad neighborhood.

The sites linked had been not the same as I linked.
Domain not renewed, purchased by an other, but bad content on it, but I had been still linking to it.

After 5 years, maybe 80% of the linked pages are changed.

[piatkow]

Links do need a regular manual review. While missing pages can be detected programatically the domain may be parked, purchased by somebody else, the owner may reuse the domain name for a new venture or the site may simply be dormant.

Its a real pain to review links, I know that some on my site haven't been checked for several years. As a minimum, whenever I add or change a link I try to check at least two others.