How I Salvaged my $6,000/month Adsense Business After Being Banned from Google

[RichFun]

About 2 years ago around this time Google Adsense threw the Gantlet on my Adsense publishing empire. I had over 100 sites all Adsense with some affiliates. I was making over $200/day. It was pretty good times for a while..

Then I started getting warning emails. This site is banned and that site was banned. I got really worried and emailed them. But Google only directed me to their webmasters guideline and TOS. I read every word of it and didn't see anything that I was obviously violating their terms. Emails after emails, I had no luck getting my account reinstated. I didn't know how to fix my sites to comply with their mystery policy. It was a very stressful and disheartening time. Sure enough, within a few weeks, my entire account got banned. I went from $6000/month income to around $300 (affiliate and links).

As you can imagine, I was desperate. I had quit my job months before this and always planned to focus on diversifying my business, but I was drink too much of Google's Kool Aid and it was GOOOOOD for the time. I got lazy and complacent. So now I had to scramble to at least pay rent which was $900. It was a sobering time, but I knew I was in the right field and I'd pull this through.

I've heard so many IM gurus in worse situation than me when they finally pulled through to make their millions ie (Frank Kern - failing business with no money, John Reese - 6 figure CC debt, and so many others..) The point is they didn't quit. They fought on. I figured it was a blessing in disguise. It's the universe's way of wake me up to start making some REAL money.

I had to fight on.

I had a few options. I'll tell you what I was thinking and what I actually did, which I think helped me at the end.

Options:
1) Open up more Adsense Accounts and move everything to there. I actually did this and it worked for a while, but since I didn't know what violation I was breaking from Google, they caught up to me and promptly shut all my accounts down again.

2) I could have moved the sites to the new accounts and sold the sites off as soon as I had some earning to prove it. I considered it, but then I would be selling TOXIC ASSET to someone. They may get their Adsense banned. I don’t want to be like those shady mortgage brokers who sell off bad loans. I couldn't consciously do that. It's bad karma. So I avoided this.

3) Using other Adsense alternatives. I tried them all. adbrite, selling text links, you name it I tried it. The sad truth is they make fractions of what adsense brought in. I knew Yahoo's publishing had a fighting chance, but at the time they were in beta and for the life of me I couldn't get accepted. And I tried, oh did I try..

4) Finally, I decided to park a dozen domains. This means I abandon the site I built and direct them to a parked page. Since a lot of my site's traffic came from Ezinearticles, they would get direct hits to the parked pages. It would get very high CTR and I was making almost the same as Adsense. However, when you migrate them to parked pages, your search engine ranking drops off over time. So after a few months, your only source of traffic was from ezinearticles. Fortunately, I was writing relevant articles about the site topic, so I get good amount of clickthrough from the articles and get a good CTR.

After I migrated most of my domains to parked pages, I make about $2000/month from those banned sites now. It's about 1/3 of what I used to make from adsense. I review my domains every half year or so and stop renewing the ones that make less the $10/yr to cover cost. Surprisingly, a few domains make over $100/month.

The lesson learned:

- Don't drink too much of Google's kool aid, because they can take it away any time without a reason. That means, focus on other businesses outside of adsense if it's your only source of income. I know.. It's common knowledge, but it's really easy to get sucked into the easy lifestyle when you're making $200/day and not doing anything for weeks at a time.

- Submitting ezinearticles related to my topic saved my lazy ass. I know there's a lot of talk about writing the most popular topics and just add the bio with the right keywords. Basically using it solely for backlink purposes, but if I did that, I know I wouldn't have gotten the referral traffic to my parked pages now.

- Be white hat. I think the reason a portion of my site was banned was due to it being deindexed from google. Adsense eventually started banning all sites that are deindexed from google (my theory). Although I used ezarticles and other ezine directories, I was aggressive with my linking strategy and got into some link networks I now regret. Think very hard on how your SEO strategy will work for you in the long run. It may work well short term, but Google seems to catch up fast to any glitch, loop hole or pattern that's manipulative. I rather do it slow and safe to cash in for years and years vs fast and aggressive and cash out in a year.

-----

If you have adsense account, let my story be a tale of warning. If you got banned, you can use similar strategy to salvage you existing domains. Depending on how you built your website or network, this strategy may not work for everyone.

[internetmarketer99]

Great post, Rich. I appreciate your honesty. It's a lot easier to post about great-sounding successes, but sometimes it's the 'failures' that are most instructive.

A lesson, among others - "safe & clean" is a lot more sustainable than "quick & dirty".

Mark

[cagliostro]

Thanks for that great post. What i noted from your post:

1. All high profit accounts are at risk of banning. If you make 100$ per month i guess you are ok.

2. The very important backlinks can sometime get you banned. So it would be better to invest in the long run and not in quick climb into n1 page.

And one question: what do you mean google de-index before banning ?

[JasonP]

I always count my monthly adsense earnings as a bonus coupled with my affiliate marketing income. Google WILL shut you down eventually.

[LilBlackDress]

Great post Rich...so will your parked domains eventually stop producing or do you feel your ezine articles can keep them going?
Are you venturing into other things also?

[RichFun]

Thanks caglistro

1. I don't think high profit accounts are always at risk of being banned. Especially when you're doing things they approve, but the million dollar question is what do they like? I do think Adsense will review your account when it hits a certain threshold. I don't know what that is. But I don't want people to think "I should make less on adsense, because I might get banned." I heard people making $100k/month on adsense. Imagine how much ezinearticle actually makes.

One thing I will do, on my next wave of Adsense sites is to contact Google when I have just a few sites up. Ask them for their blessing first on the site format before I start going mass production.

2. It wasn't the backlink that killed me, it was the network link I join. They had an automated bot that placed links on my site going to other sites. I know it sound stupid I'd do that, but the company was very popular at the time and still around today of course they don't offer that service anymore.. I was a noobie then, live and learn.

what do you mean google de-index before banning ?
You know when you do "site:www*website*com" on google and nothing shows up even after the site has been online for months with other engines indexing you? You are deindexed. It's not good.

Originally Posted by cagliostro

Thanks for that great post. What i noted from your post:

1. All high profit accounts are at risk of banning. If you make 100$ per month i guess you are ok.

2. The very important backlinks can sometime get you banned. So it would be better to invest in the long run and not in quick climb into n1 page.

And one question: what do you mean google de-index before banning ?

[John Dales]

Thank you very much for this great info. Everybody doing Adsense should read this.

[rajsidhux]

See this type of thing baffles me! I mean how can you run with adsense when you can have your account taken away at any time for no apparent reason AND without any kind of recourse?

It would'nt be so bad if Google would work with you to try to reinstate your account or there were some procedures they had in place for people to put their accounts/sites in order BEFORE a bann took place or something, but there's not! You can't rely on that kind of unstability surely?

What do you guys think?

[Scott Million]

Originally Posted by RichFun

About 2 years ago around this time Google Adsense threw the Gantlet on my Adsense publishing empire. I had over 100 sites all Adsense with some affiliates. I was making over $200/day. It was pretty good times for a while..

Then I started getting warning emails. This site is banned and that site was banned. I got really worried and emailed them. But Google only directed me to their webmasters guideline and TOS. I read every word of it and didn't see anything that I was obviously violating their terms. Emails after emails, I had no luck getting my account reinstated. I didn't know how to fix my sites to comply with their mystery policy. It was a very stressful and disheartening time. Sure enough, within a few weeks, my entire account got banned. I went from $6000/month income to around $300 (affiliate and links).

As you can imagine, I was desperate. I had quit my job months before this and always planned to focus on diversifying my business, but I was drink too much of Google's Kool Aid and it was GOOOOOD for the time. I got lazy and complacent. So now I had to scramble to at least pay rent which was $900. It was a sobering time, but I knew I was in the right field and I'd pull this through.

I've heard so many IM gurus in worse situation than me when they finally pulled through to make their millions ie (Frank Kern - failing business with no money, John Reese - 6 figure CC debt, and so many others..) The point is they didn't quit. They fought on. I figured it was a blessing in disguise. It's the universe's way of wake me up to start making some REAL money.

I had to fight on.

I had a few options. I'll tell you what I was thinking and what I actually did, which I think helped me at the end.

Options:
1) Open up more Adsense Accounts and move everything to there. I actually did this and it worked for a while, but since I didn't know what violation I was breaking from Google, they caught up to me and promptly shut all my accounts down again.

2) I could have moved the sites to the new accounts and sold the sites off as soon as I had some earning to prove it. I considered it, but then I would be selling TOXIC ASSET to someone. They may get their Adsense banned. I don’t want to be like those shady mortgage brokers who sell off bad loans. I couldn't consciously do that. It's bad karma. So I avoided this.

3) Using other Adsense alternatives. I tried them all. adbrite, selling text links, you name it I tried it. The sad truth is they make fractions of what adsense brought in. I knew Yahoo's publishing had a fighting chance, but at the time they were in beta and for the life of me I couldn't get accepted. And I tried, oh did I try..

4) Finally, I decided to park a dozen domains. This means I abandon the site I built and direct them to a parked page. Since a lot of my site's traffic came from Ezinearticles, they would get direct hits to the parked pages. It would get very high CTR and I was making almost the same as Adsense. However, when you migrate them to parked pages, your search engine ranking drops off over time. So after a few months, your only source of traffic was from ezinearticles. Fortunately, I was writing relevant articles about the site topic, so I get good amount of clickthrough from the articles and get a good CTR.

After I migrated most of my domains to parked pages, I make about $2000/month from those banned sites now. It's about 1/3 of what I used to make from adsense. I review my domains every half year or so and stop renewing the ones that make less the $10/yr to cover cost. Surprisingly, a few domains make over $100/month.

The lesson learned:

- Don't drink too much of Google's kool aid, because they can take it away any time without a reason. That means, focus on other businesses outside of adsense if it's your only source of income. I know.. It's common knowledge, but it's really easy to get sucked into the easy lifestyle when you're making $200/day and not doing anything for weeks at a time.

- Submitting ezinearticles related to my topic saved my lazy ass. I know there's a lot of talk about writing the most popular topics and just add the bio with the right keywords. Basically using it solely for backlink purposes, but if I did that, I know I wouldn't have gotten the referral traffic to my parked pages now.

- Be white hat. I think the reason a portion of my site was banned was due to it being deindexed from google. Adsense eventually started banning all sites that are deindexed from google (my theory). Although I used ezarticles and other ezine directories, I was aggressive with my linking strategy and got into some link networks I now regret. Think very hard on how your SEO strategy will work for you in the long run. It may work well short term, but Google seems to catch up fast to any glitch, loop hole or pattern that's manipulative. I rather do it slow and safe to cash in for years and years vs fast and aggressive and cash out in a year.

-----

If you have adsense account, let my story be a tale of warning. If you got banned, you can use similar strategy to salvage you existing domains. Depending on how you built your website or network, this strategy may not work for everyone.

Wow man, that's not really the answer I wanted to hear, lol. It's scary.

This a great reason to add site flipping to your business model... you never know when everything is going to get taken away... a 10-12 month advance is not such a bad idea

Man... I mean wow, that would crush me. What type of linking were you doing? Were these sites garbage looking or clean?

[Scott Million]

Originally Posted by RichFun

Thanks caglistro

1. I don't think high profit accounts are always at risk of being banned. Especially when you're doing things they approve, but the million dollar question is what do they like? I do think Adsense will review your account when it hits a certain threshold. I don't know what that is. But I don't want people to think "I should make less on adsense, because I might get banned." I heard people making $100k/month on adsense. Imagine how much ezinearticle actually makes.

One thing I will do, on my next wave of Adsense sites is to contact Google when I have just a few sites up. Ask them for their blessing first on the site format before I start going mass production.

2. It wasn't the backlink that killed me, it was the network link I join. They had an automated bot that placed links on my site going to other sites. I know it sound stupid I'd do that, but the company was very popular at the time and still around today of course they don't offer that service anymore.. I was a noobie then, live and learn.

what do you mean google de-index before banning ?
You know when you do "site:www*website*com" on google and nothing shows up even after the site has been online for months with other engines indexing you? You are deindexed. It's not good.

Was it nextgen links?

[RichFun]

Originally Posted by Scott Million

Wow man, that's not really the answer I wanted to hear, lol. It's scary.

This a great reason to add site flipping to your business model... you never know when everything is going to get taken away... a 10-12 month advance is not such a bad idea

Man... I mean wow, that would crush me. What type of linking were you doing? Were these sites garbage looking or clean?

Yes, I am definitely adding site flipping to my model to my next wave of Adsense. I think it's a smart thing to do for risk diversity especially on the Adsense side.

The network was from reputable training program, when they first got started. It was part of a bonus when I signed up for their $800/month course. I thought it was great and place all my site in their network. Noobie mistake..

[claywalsh]

wow man,

your story is inspiring. I'm almost in the same situation as you and I feel the same way. When things get scary and the rent is due, you know your either gonna go all the way or go live with some homeless guys.

And then you really know what you must do.

[Scott Million]

Originally Posted by RichFun

Yes, I am definitely adding site flipping to my model to my next wave of Adsense. I think it's a smart thing to do for risk diversity especially on the Adsense side.

The network was from reputable training program, when they first got started. It was part of a bonus when I signed up for their $800/month course. I thought it was great and place all my site in their network. Noobie mistake..

Yeah, 3waylinks, Nextgenlinks, or any other linking pattern that doesn't involve permanent, one way links without the use of a script is a footprinter that I'm sure Google loves to nail.

[CliveG]

Great lesson for us all. Diversify your sources of income before it is too late. We seem to hear too many stories about total loss of income for no clear reason as a result of a single large company just shutting off a service. If you have income from, say, five independent sources you are better placed if problems arise.

[DannyLucas]

So - just to make sure I understand the original post - if you are making serious money from a site - you are in danger of getting shut down? Seems odd if that is the case.

[Ron.]

There's more to this story.

I know people that make $25,000 plus a month with Adsense and they've been doing it for years without a problem.


Also, if what you say is true, how is that any different from affiliate sites? Google controls the space in which you place your sites on.

If that's the case, we better not "make to much Money" doing anything.

Markus Frind( founder of Plenty Of Fish free dating site) generates hundreds of thousands from adsense. He's one of the top adsense earners.

Ron

[SouthamptonAngel]

An excellent story and one that shows the importance of diversifying. You can't allow yourself to become too attached to one source of income.

[tjk1058]

So you are using ezinearticles to send traffic currently to your parked domains?

If so, I thought that was a no-no with most parking companies as the traffic is supposed to be from direct traffic sources like type-ins.

I might have to try writing a few articles and directing them to parked pages then if this is the case... are these 1 click parked domains or 2 click?

TedK

[RichFun]

Originally Posted by tjk1058

So you are using ezinearticles to send traffic currently to your parked domains?

If so, I thought that was a no-no with most parking companies as the traffic is supposed to be from direct traffic sources like type-ins.

I might have to try writing a few articles and directing them to parked pages then if this is the case... are these 1 click parked domains or 2 click?

TedK

Yes, I am using ezinearticles to send traffic to the sites.

The parked pages don't care because it's high quality traffic. Only thing is if you submit and articles to ezinearitcles with parked page domains, it won't get approved. I had mine approved when there was a site and changed it to parked after. The link remained the same, but the destination is now a parked page. So far, ezine has not done any filtering for those articles. I think as long as it's not a blatantly broken link, everyone is winning.

In short, your strategy of writing articles to ezine with parked pages links won't work. It's like having an affiliate link. Come to think of it, I don't see why you can't change an existing page to a redirect of an affiliate or parked page after it's approved. However, it's a bit risky and you may get your articles taken down.

[RichFun]

Originally Posted by DannyLucas

So - just to make sure I understand the original post - if you are making serious money from a site - you are in danger of getting shut down? Seems odd if that is the case.

That is Not the moral of the story. It doesn't matter how much you make..

- Diversify
- Do things the right way

Some can make 5 figures on adsense monthly and some companies make millions with google adsense. However, you better make sure you're doing things right and have a good relationship with them when you're making those figures.

I don't want to discourage people from going into Adsense. I still think it's the easiest business to get into. I just want everyone to be aware of the risks and plan accordingly.

[mrmatt]

I was hoping you had a way to get your accounts back just in case it ever happened to me. Excellent job though on being creative and being able to salvage some of the income.

[naijapower]

Excellent job. Very creative of you. I am very impressed by your honesty and genuine feedback

[DannyLucas]

Well - again - I appreciate your comments. As is the case with most things - it is good not to have all your eggs in one basket. I think this adage more than applies to your post. And as to doing things the right way, well - I also strongly agree. Sooner or later (normally sooner) that whole thing about sowing and reaping is going to come to harvest and those that are doing things in an incorrect way - will be surprised when the snake turns and bites them.

[seoconsultant]

This is what i call a story of a true Worrier keep it up

[monitorit]

i love parking becuase you get good reliable payouts monthly and if you in with companys like parked evry two weeks! You can earn just as much and there is no need for a site. I would love to earn $5000 per month parking then that would give me scope to move to other areas with a reliable income.

[Boris_yo]

RichFun,

How many articles did you write? Did you outsource or written all by yourself?

By the way thanks for information you shared.

[cvetanski]

Cool and interesting story. And yes, sometimes Goggle can do something without any logical explanation, so you have to keep this in mind all the time.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

I guess I'm not understanding your post. I use GoDaddy because I can mask and redirect domains. As projects die off you just load up a directly related affiliate program using a masked link... which you can write your own title, description, and keywords for if you want or just redirect.

Why bother parking a domain if you can just redirect it to an affiliate offer?

Later if you want you can rebuild the site, remove the masked redirect and all the traffic goes back to your site. Search Engine results are great, but you don't want to ever kill of any incoming links.

By doing this all your sites stay "live" and you get commissions form sales made. The links from 3rd party sites never die. This is the same reason you should mask your existing affiliate links... in case an affiliate links dies you just change the Affiliate URL and you are up and running again... one simple change all your links stay alive.

Change is the nature of this business.

[RichFun]

Originally Posted by Boris_yo

RichFun,

How many articles did you write? Did you outsource or written all by yourself?

By the way thanks for information you shared.

I have thousands of articles published. Yes, I used outsourcing for writing and publishing. I wouldn't have done it to the scale it is by myself.

[RichFun]

Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ

I guess I'm not understanding your post. I use GoDaddy because I can mask and redirect domains. As projects die off you just load up a directly related affiliate program using a masked link... which you can write your own title, description, and keywords for if you want or just redirect.

Why bother parking a domain if you can just redirect it to an affiliate offer?

Later if you want you can rebuild the site, remove the masked redirect and all the traffic goes back to your site. Search Engine results are great, but you don't want to ever kill of any incoming links.

By doing this all your sites stay "live" and you get commissions form sales made. The links from 3rd party sites never die. This is the same reason you should mask your existing affiliate links... in case an affiliate links dies you just change the Affiliate URL and you are up and running again... one simple change all your links stay alive.

Change is the nature of this business.

That's very interesting point. I think that'll work for some domains that are still good with Google and has the potential to match a good affiliate. Unfortunately, some sites are just not good for affiliate programs and pure ads are best. That's when you'd just switch to the parked pages.