My adsense ads are gone!

[piggelill]

I have several sites where I have displayed adsense ads for months. But from the 15th of septemeber they are not showing anymore...

I donīt understand why...

My sites are all about kitesurfing, there are about 15 in total.

I use the plugin "adsense optimizer" on my sites.

I have not recieved any email from google regarding the removed ads.

Have someone any idea why there are removed?

[edited by: incrediBILL at 7:13 am (utc) on Sep 19, 2011]
[edit reason] removed links, no site reviews please [/edit]

[thatjen]

I looked at the source code of your first site and I see all of the Adsense code is there where the ads should be. I'm not sure what's wrong. Do all of your ads use that plugin? You might want to try putting an ad on the site in the sidebar widget (without using the plugin), or hard coding it into the site to see if it shows up that way. I see you're using the newest version of Wordpress (3.2.1) - did you just upgrade to that? Maybe it's no longer compatible with the plugin, or maybe you need to upgrade the plugin to a newer version.

[piggelill]

All my sites use that plugin and the ads have always been visible with the old WP version as well as with the new version, until now... I just deactivated the Adsense Optimizer plugin on one of my sites (kite2011.com) and put the adsense hard code in there instead, but there are still just blank space where the ads should show up.

[lucy24]

Eliminate the obvious variables before you panic. Does this happen in all browsers? (As noted elsewhere, I had to go to a different browser to understand what people were talking about in the Google SERP layout discussion.) It generally takes advertisers a while to catch up to the latest tweaks in ad-blocking code.

[piggelill]

The ads are gone in all in browsers

[piatkow]

After trying different browsers the next step is to eliminate issues on the PC or network. Have you checked on another machine (an off site one if you are in a networked office)? Does your firewall or other security software include ad blocking? (An automatic upgrade may have changed the default on a flag somewhere).

Do you see relevant ads on competitors' sites?

Re-reading this I think that I am starting so sound like an apoligist for Google but my experience is that most problems that appear to involve a third party service are actually down to local issues. Maybe you have eliminated these but you need to confirm all the steps that you have taken to resolve the issue when asking for help.

[piggelill]

Itīs not my PC. The ads are gone on all sites no matter from where you are located.
And yes, I see relevant ads on competitors sites.

[edited by: incrediBILL at 11:43 am (utc) on Sep 19, 2011]
[edit reason] removed links, no site reviews please [/edit]

[piggelill]

it's not my server either. I just uploaded a html page containing my ads to another server. No ads were seen.

[HuskyPup]

So, the ad source code is there but ads are not appearing?

Sounds like ad serving has been disabled to me.

How old is your account?

Are all the sites ostensibly the same but under different domain names?

[piggelill]

Yes, the ad code is there but ads are not appearing.
My account is about 5 months old. All the sites (there are about 15) are about the same subject, kitesurfing. But they are all completely different when it comes to layout and content.

Can ad serving be enabled again in some way?

[piggelill]

And how come I havn't been notified by google if I violate their policies in some way?

[alika]

Can you log in to your Adsense account? Or has that been disabled?

[andrewshim]

Have you checked if your ads have been appearing on unauthorized sites that violate Goog's TOS? You'd be surprised lots of publishers take this too lightly.

[mslina2002]

Well, a little troubleshootin' here:

1)

I just uploaded a html page containing my ads to another server. No ads were seen.

Did you wait a bit before you looked at the page since it takes a while before ads are shown and if you have PSA disabled, nothing will show for a while?

2)

I use the plugin "adsense optimizer" on my sites.

Sometimes other plugins interfere. Have you disabled all plugins except for the adsense optimizer and see if it shows? Did you add any new plugins recently? Also it has been mentioned by someone else that sometimes an upgrade can interfere with certain plugins.


3) A bit of a stretch, but about a month ago, Google had me separate my organizational account from my personal Google account since one was not able to show Adsense and use certain services. Have you done that?

[piggelill]

alika, I can log in to my account and there are no messages for me in the admin.

andrewshim, I had one post on one of my 15 sites that contained 3 images showing some nudity. There was a girl posing infront of a kite and she was topless. Can this really count as #*$!ography? The post is removed btw. Other than that I can't see that I violated any terms.

mslina2002, I uploaded the html page to the other server. Will check later if the ads are there, though I'm doubtful.
I tried to disable all plugins, but adsense optmizer on one site, no ads were displayed. And no, I didn't add any new plugins recently.
I havn't seperated my organizational account from my personal Google account. I have one account with all my google stuff, adsense, analytics, calender etc...

[incrediBILL]

Sometimes AdSense just stops running units automatically because of some on page violation and it may take a while before it starts up again. I recently made a mistake that caused only one extra ad unit to appear on my site, exceeding the max, and half my ads stopped running and it took almost 2 hours for it to start up again.

However, in your case I'm sure the culprit is the AdSense optimizer plug-in and I've read a few posts elsewhere of similar problems.

I'd remove it ASAP and also check to make sure it's YOUR pub-id showing on the aite as I read some people using this plug-in ended up with someone else's pub-id running which explained the problem but could raise eyebrows about your sites with Google.

Yank the plug-in, check the pub-id, then contact Google for help if it doesn't restart as there's nothing else we can help with at that point.

[HuskyPup]

There was a girl posing infront of a kite and she was topless. Can this really count as #*$!ography?

It doesn't need to be p.o.r.n., how fast did you remove it? G are very strange about nudity type stuff.

[piggelill]

HuskyPup, I removed the post just recently, after my ads were gone. However, the site that had this post has more or less 0 traffic, so I find it hard that someone even would find it.
Do Google have full time employees that surf the net trying to find sites that violate their terms?

incrediBILL, Iīll remove Adsense Optimizer

[Lame_Wolf]

There was a girl posing infront of a kite and she was topless. Can this really count as #*$!ography?

[google.com...]

Sites with Google ads may not include or link to:

#*$!ography, adult or mature content
Violent content
Content related to racial intolerance or advocacy against any individual, group or organisation
Excessive profanity
Hacking/cracking content
Gambling or casino-related content
Illicit drugs and drug paraphernalia content
Sales of beer or hard alcohol
Sales of tobacco or tobacco-related products
Sales of prescription drugs
Sales of weapons or ammunition (e.g. firearms, firearm components, fighting knives, stun guns)
Sales of products that are replicas or imitations of designer or other goods
Sales or distribution of coursework or student essays
Content regarding programs which compensate users for clicking ads or offers, performing searches, surfing websites or reading emails
Any other content that is illegal, promotes illegal activity or infringes on the legal rights of others

It maybe a good idea to become familiar with the TOS.

And how is your privacy policy ? Have you updated it ? It is something that is often overlooked.

[netmeg]

Just putting this out there, but one of the terms and conditions is that your sites be in compliance with the general Webmaster Guidelines. And fifteen sites on the same general topic with the same AdSense Pub ID and interlinked is gonna raise some flags, whether or not YOU think the topics are varied enough doesn't mean Google will.

If you replace the AdSense plugin and you still don't see ads, then I'd look at your strategy for these sites.

[piggelill]

Lame_Wolf, privacy policy is indeed something I have missed...

Do you just put a link to html page with some privacy policy rules?

[Lame_Wolf]

Lame_Wolf, privacy policy is indeed something I have missed...

Thought so.

And if the photo was of a topless woman, my guess is that you did not take that photo and most likely to be copyrighted, and another violation of the TOS.

Do you just put a link to html page with some privacy policy rules?

Yes, but not "some" privacy policy rules. You need one that covers you about DART Cookies, Tracking etc.

[incrediBILL]

I doubt it's just one topless photo, I've seen worse that was reported over and over before they finally took action. If it were the questionable content, you probably would get a notification to fix it prior to being disabled as I've gotten a fix it notice once or twice over the years.

My gut tells me that optimizer is involved, but I'd remove questionable content too.

Similar interlinked sites probably don't concern the AdSense team much, that's more of a search quality team issue, Adsense is all about the money, they could care less about interlinked sites all being the same topic.

Hell, the AdSense team was caught completely off guard by Panda and went around like chickens with their heads cut off when a lot of high profile sites suddenly stopped earning money, sending notes to people asking where the revenue went, offering assistance.

It's obvious the goals of AdSense and Search don;t mesh and they don't talk much, so I wouldn't worry about that stuff - yet

Clean up the aite issues and then contact AdSense if it still doesn't run ads

[piggelill]

Found a site to generate the privacy policy. Adding links to them now. Question is if I have to do something else? Do I have to notify Google or something?

[Lame_Wolf]

My gut tells me that optimizer is involved, but I'd remove questionable content too.

Mine too, but the OP was breaking the TOS in other areas. Best to clear up everything.