$10,000 a month Adsense Accounut Banned

that sucks.that's one reason why I refuse to put all of my eggs in one basket.

I really find it hard to believe why anyone would base their business of Adsense.

When I first found out what it was, common sense told me it was crazy.

It's worse than building your business on quicksand. It's like building your business on the middle of an ice cube in the Sahara and waiting until it melts.

Feel sorry for the guy. $10,000 per month must have been a lot of effort.

He's part of the club now!

I had my adsense account banned years ago just before I would have gotten my first payment. They said that the clicks were fake. I have no idea why they thought that - I didn't click them even once. Nothing you can do to appease the adsense gods once they decide to be angry at you.

YOUCH.

I think the image suits it to a tee:

Diversify.

I like how he's now giving away how he made $125k in 2011 from AdSense. I wonder if this giveaway is before or after his method tanked.

Yea, I really don't understand Google's Adsense department. From all the stuff I've read, it seems as though they do NOT want anyone using adsense on websites and if you do, they'll get mad at you and eventually ban you.

His wisest words of wisdom:

It's the ol' Quality vs Quantity. Higher quality is the way to go. The people who make legitimate long term money are the ones who provide a valuable service. This guy had 200 sites. I'm going to say only 20% of them were making him 80% of his money. If he focused on the top 40 sites and dropped the rest maybe things would be different?

Wow ... that's a lot of money to lose. In his post, he mentioned a list of others who are banned also. It looks like Google is doing more than just deindexing "thin affiliate sites" ... but also banning their Adsense accounts for those type of sites.

...Sad to hear about that, I also got my Adsense Account banned last year I think and the funny thing is I have never yet used that account on any sites whatsoever yet they send me the same message and disabled my account,

Ive read Spencers blog for a while, he seems knowledgeable but ive never followed his guides. To base your entire business model on one Adsense ID seems naive. I know he's started to diversify, but that is something i've done from the beginning. Ive got my fingers in multiple pies to generate my income. I'm not earning 10k per month just yet but i'd hate to have that sort of income stopped without warning, especially after working for years to perfect the business model. Isn't Google cutting its nose off to spite its face? Don't they earn massively too by every ad that is clicked on?

Google canceled his llc adsense accounts too. He had multiple Adsense accounts but they were all with his name under llcs.

Did he mention anything about why he was banned?

Google's lack out accountability while demanding everyone else should be 100% accountable for things out of their control is basically the whole reason I started a forum, among other reasons.

When they got in the business of hurting families by pulling the rug out from underneath them, I got into the business of embarrassing their search engine.

I know this might draw some anger but really, it's just meant to be matter-of-fact. If you ask 'why' something happened ... They tell you to contact their legal department when ignoring you fails...

Google Adsense is a really good way to monetize a website, but you shouldn't base all your business on this. The good prices include that they ban very easily.

That's actually a good thing, now he can make 3 to 5 times that amount per month just by putting up ads for CPA offers to replace the adsense garbage.

I still don't understand why anyone uses that crap. There's much more profitable ways to monetize niche sites.

This happened to me as well. Banned an account that was owed nice money and weird it happened on the 16th of March (around the same time).

I've been following Spencer for a long time now and he is a great guy. Even though this happened NO ONE can take away what he has learned and the skills he has gained throughout the process such as picking the right keywords, rankings sites etc.

But yeah, this just shows don't rely on adsense at all. Ever. Have other streams.

-Omar

So his sites were micro niche? Seems like the writing has been on the wall for such sites for awhile now.

I've been following Spencer's blog for a while now and it also came as a shock to read that he had been banned...
This really proves Google just do what they want when they want... but one thing though, one of the comment to his post mentioned that Google also inexplicably shut downs large auth sites respecting their rules... i mean sites with valid and useful content, not micro niches...
So i think the problem is really about Google, not about building up micro niches or whatsoever.

I've read in the ocmments that media.net could be a good alternative option? what do you guys think?

Ohhh! how sad! How did all this happen..

This is probably the reason why some IM prefer to choose other adsense to earn money..

What we have to learn is "Don't depend on 1 Method to Earn"
I know this guy have many ways to earn via mail list, Products and affiliate.

Its really sad. i have also lost my Google adsense account ban with $1000+ on it. I don't know what's wrong with Adsense. They think them self god.

ah google adsense... i also learned it the hard way.... i am making $3k to $5k a month for my 6 website using 1 account and then Google hammer!!! kaboom!!! they told me it was an invalid click WTF!!! 90% of their traffic are from google organic!!! LOL

so what the hell i do? Diversify revenue stream & Multiple accounts.

People who make sites only for money on adsense are likely to be banned. That guy opened 200 sites just to make money and he was targetting keywords and micro niches.

It's common sense that this sort of thing wont last very long.

I'm myself making 4 000 USD per month with Adsense, 3000 USD for one site, 700 for another and 300 USD for two other small sites.

I have more than 125 sites but Adsense only on a few of them, why ? Because it's too difficult to manage Adsense on so many sites, check for fake clicks and bombings (yes i had bombing attacks on my sites but i reported them with IP, StatCounter logs, actions takens, etc.)

Google Adsense don't like micro sites, they don't like them, don't put Adsense on those sites or you are at risk of being banned. They want quality traffic, quality content sites, large sites, authority sites.

I have a friend who was making 30K USD with adsense with micro sites, he got them all banned from Google and now he's crying everyday as he lost his business.

the moment he started to build micro niche sites was already a suicide.

There's his biggest problem right there. I never understood people who make good money with Adsense that scream the details from a mountain top complete with earning reports and posts on how to manipulate search engine rankings.

Adsense doesn't like micro niche sites, he has a website named "niche pur$uits".

Adsense doesn't like people sharing their revenue details, he has a category named "my earnings" on his site.

Etc. etc.

Talk about poking a Grizzly Bear with a short stick.

A lot of people have a problem with using micro niche sites + Adsense to make a quick buck... I don't. I would quite happily build 200 x 3 page sites, get them ranking, stick Adsense on them and earn the money whilst it's there. If Google shut my Adsense and I lose all the cash still in the account that month, of course I would be gutted, but it would be offset by the many thousands I've creamed from them over the months and years before (like the guy in this thread). Take your medicine whilst looking at your bank account, then monetize all your great ranking sites in any other ways you like.

Some people should climb down from their high horse... IM is a cut throat business, we're not all here to fill the internet with stunning content and hope to make some cash on the side. I'm here to make cash in the quickest, easiest way I can find, and I'm happy to roll with the punches.

jimnastics you are likely to be banned from adsense one day or another, if you know it and don't care it's up to you. I'm here for the long run and i want to make money for a very long time.

If he makes $10,000 with adsense....he'll surely find some other and better ways to monetize his traffic. Majority of adsense slapped people end up earning more with affiliate and other methods....so not a big deal.

If he could earn $10,000 monthly from adsense his traffic is a lot and he still can make money from other networks or using another way. Adsense is the best ppc network but its not the only way for making money through the net.

In fact when you make money with adsense it's because all the other ways are not working on your site. That's why i build my business equitably concerning my sources of income.

Adsense today is too high in my balance with 50% of my revenue that i couldn't afford to lose if something went wrong, i'm counter balancing this by building more traffic & sites in niches where i don't use Adsense at all.

why to cry, if you have that huge amount of traffic, you can easily make tons from other networks too, but yeah adsense is best among them

Interesting thread here...

We've followed Spencer for quite a while and have had a few chats with him in recent months. He's helped countless people in getting their IM business up and running and given away a TON of free tips, tricks, and info for free on his site. It's been mentioned here that he's earning $10,000/month in AdSense...that's way to low. He STOPPED reporting his income when he was up to $13,000 per month and that was quite a few months ago. I'm sure it's much higher than that now.

I think it's easy to say, after the fact, that he should have done this, done that, etc. I would go so far as to guess that a huge majority of people in this thread so far aren't making that kind of money in IM...and you really don't know what you would do if you were actually in that situation. It's easy to say now that he should scrap what he's doing, build true authority sites, Google hates micro-niche, etc...but I promise it would be difficult to dump what you're doing when you're (probably) making 15K or more per month in AdSense.

The other thing that's funny is that so many people are claiming Spencer should have diversified. Except...he DID! He created LongTailPro which has done extremely well in sales. (We've sold quite a few of the licenses ourselves and we're one of MANY affiliates for the product) Additionally, he just came out with a theme that made like 25K or so in the first several days of launching...not too shabby. Niche sites are just a portion of his income and his portfolio...

I think it's a bit premature to say that Google is banning AdSense accounts that are attached to niche sites. Way premature, actually. NOBODY knows (including Spencer) why his account was disabled...or those of other prominent AdSense earners recently. There are a ton of options:

- Multiple AdSense accounts
- Clickbombing from competitors
- Clicks not performing well for advertisers
- Google AdSense program looking to thin out their low-level publishers

...and many more potential reasons.

Either way, we're extremely grateful for some of the great content and information Spencer has put out. As one of the commenters on his blog mentioned...his site will most likely get even MORE interesting now that he has to scramble to find other networks to use to replace (or increase?) his earnings from AdSense.

The problem are not niche sites but to build doggy sites for revenue. You can make a niche site with great content and be the authority for that niche, that's what i'm doing myself and i'm making 9K USD with only ONE niche site (3K with adsense only, 4.5K for direct display advertisers who want to be there and the rest with an affiliate program).

Harsh stuff.

I'm sure he will be back

if you are doing nothing wrong then you don't have to worry i have adsense account from last 8 months

My adsense account is almost 10 years old, never got a warning.

i think they use some mathematics to know if clicks are real or fake
now when a website has 3000 visitors per day it is not correct to get 3000 clicks on ads
usually 3000 visitors might generate 100 - 1000 clicks on ads but not 3000 clicks
there might be some percentage/method they use it to know if clicks are real or fake

Google does not want sites that are created for the sole purpose of making a profit via Adsense. They want high quality sites that would still be around; even without Adsense on it.

Not only did this guy create hundreds of 'Made for Adsense' sites, but he also actively encouraged others to follow in his footsteps.

Keep this in mind, there is no such thing as an 'authority' or 'micro niche' site, there is only a 'high quality' site and a 'low quality' one.

For small/unknown publishers, it's almost inevitable that your adsense account will be banned eventually. Because once your site is popular, there will be someone who hates you for some reason, and he will try to mass/repeat click your ads, google will pick this up and ban your account. Maybe not on first offense, but eventually they will ban it and will not listen to your appeal. I know, because I too had my $15k/month adsense account banned, for "invalid" clicks. Google why the fuk would I invalid click my $15k/month adsense account?

Google Inc has missed revenue estimates for the past 2 quarters, and they are scratching their heads wondering why? because you banning huge accounts for retarded reasons, that's why.

Really feel sorry for the guy

it really kinda shocked me :O

at the moment i am building nichesites that would be monetized with adsense but i am not anymore sure if i should continue with the project :/

What the hell does this mean "After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account poses a risk of generating invalid activity." Any web site that has AdSense ads and traffic, has a chance of generating invalid clicks. Because there are so many jerks in the world that get a kick out of doing mischief.

Google can be a real pain in the arse. They never tell anyone what needs to be done so their siet doesn't pose such a risk. You can't win with them.

New title: Drama Drives Traffic!


Anywho...

Most of the list (link in OP) of so called Adsense alternatives that the blog post is considering isn't great.

I mean people use AdBrite for driving low cost traffic (PPC). If the PPC guys are getting low cost bids on Adbrite, what's that tell you about the publishers income, best be driving some massive traffic.

If the sites are useful & still have traffic, create your own product, or lease the traffic to the sites/pages ranked below you in the SERPs.

As long as you have traffic, you still have money/options.

google is banning all the microniche sites, better to change it as fast as you can.

The rate google bans accounts this time around is disturbing, making some guys out there to be afraid of unknown.

ouch that hurts.. He seems like a clever guy though, he can bounce back

That hurts definitly!

Does the nichepursuits-guy sell any ebook, WSO or something on how to build successful microsites?

I don't get why everyone is blaming Google here. You build hundreds of trash sites, with no other purpose than to generate AdSense revenue.

Google offers a search engine already - with results that may even include the same links/ads that your AdSense site does. Then you build tons of spammy links to boost up the rankings of this trash site. Then Google visitors click on the listing, then click on the ad. It's a double click to get to the information Google is trying to supply first.

These are thin, junk sites, and you wonder why Google frowns upon it? You guys are mad at Google, claiming they don't understand business, but for what? Getting rid of trash sites and spam that is making their SERP suck? Like the Blog Networks, these AdSense sites will be gone soon enough.

Many people who I know have suffered the ban hammer, had GOOD full content sites. Not thin client sites, but enough content to provide value. Who's to say that 12 page site about acid reflux which has above the fold adsense links to acid reflux adwords providers, doesn't offer up the same level of "quality content" and "good user experience" as an about.com or some other mega authority site? See, that's what gets me in all of this.

Without a clear definition of what's acceptable and NOT (yes, I know all about the posted guidelines by Google..I do have over 400+ sites still going strong with Adsense), it is going to be a tough road to march down for many people who have no idea if and when the arbitrary ban hammer materializes...

Better not mess with Google. Once they decided to ban your account, you can do nothing about it.

wow that sucks, I could only imagine what he felt like when he woke up and saw that. Big G is getting ****tier and ****tier to work with.

I don't know what's really the new algorithm of google or how can they check the site, are they checking it manually?? there are thousands of micro niche sites all over the web, i dont know if a real person would be checking those sites manually.. any idea?

there are alternatices to adsense such ad adbrite and chitika

Guaranteed it was his high profile that got him banned. If he would been simply more discreet, he'd still be banking.

Sad. I would definitely recommend that everyone should issue payments every month. Know a guy who saved up 5k and when he asked for payment, it got completely wiped off.

Depending on his niche if the niche is something which can make money through lead generation then probably he can make much more than adsense. Sometimes things happen for our benefit.

I got same situation now

it's such a shame that google are this harsh on legitimate publishers. The problem is too many people on the dark side have pushed google this far to keep banning adsense publishers that are legitimate with little to no answers on the reason why people are banned.

Guys - we're in recession. Ads just aren't converting. Google's automated processes will be taking a long hard look at publishers who aren't making money for their advertising clients.

Anyone specifically targeting just $1+ click keywords in their AdSense account is in a risky place. Diversify guys!

oh that's very bad, Google doesn't care about our business, they only thinks about their own profit.

I wonder why Nichepursuits.com Site Info doesn't remotely agree with his story, that looks more like what alexa says when most of your site traffic comes from directcpv RON.

this is really sad thing that happened, I'm his visitor too, if you're going to put all your eggs in one basket then you need to watch very good on it. But with google it can be hard sometimes.