>> There
is no question that you can make some good money with
Google AdSense, but you’re setting yourself up for
disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes!
1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google
AdSense account.
Google says that’s a no-no and they will cut your
account off and keep all the money you may have earned.
Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause
serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax
authority is.
2. Do not hack or modify Google AdSense code other than
to change the parameters that Google authorizes you to
change.
Any attempt to bypass Google’s built-in algorithms not
only poses a danger to the integrity of the network, but
it threatens the financial modle that Google operates
under. You’re not dealing with some Mom-and-Pop company
here, and Google has the legal muscle and deep enough
pockets to drag you through every court in the land if
you damage their business with your hacking antics.
3. Keep AdSense ads off of your registration,
confirmation, and all "thank you" pages.
Don’t ask me why you can’t put your ads there. It makes
sense to me that those would be wonderful locations.
Google thinks otherwise, however, and doing so is a
hanging offense according to their Terms of Service.
4. Do not display AdSense ads and a competitor's ads (like
Overture's) on the same page at the same time.
That just makes plain good sense. Google doesn’t demand
100% SITE loyalty from you, but they do insist that
their own ads not be cluttered up by offerings from
their competitors.
5. Don't "beg for clicks" or provide any incentive for
clicking on your Google AdSense ads.
This is a biggie and you see this rule violated all the
time. Any of the “get paid to do stuff” sites that put
Google ads in the member’s control panels are walking
the plank and they don’t even realize it. Even those
sites with the polite little messages asking you to “help
keep my site running by clicking on our sponsor’s ads”
are asking to be cut off if those happen to be Google
ads.
6. Never click on the ads running on your own site, even
if you are genuinely interested in the product or
service and are thinking of buying it!
Nothing screams FRAUD louder than a webmaster running up
his or her own click counts by happily clicking on ads
fromtheir own site. The Google Gods can track this
activity and it won’t be long until you find yourself
getting a goodbye note from their fraud team.
7. No misleading labeling
Google is very specific about what text can be placed
around their ads. Their Terms of Service state: “Publishers
may not label the ads with text other than ‘sponsored
links’ or ‘advertisements.’ This includes any text
directly above our ads that could be confused with, or
attempt to be associated with Google ads.”
This is to keep visitors from becoming confused and
barking up Google’s tree when they clicked on an ad that
led to a porn site instead of the recipe site they were
expecting to visit.
8. Avoid keyword spamming and other divisive tricks
You may be tempted to buy one of those “generates
thousands of key-word rich pages in seconds” programs
that are so popular these days but I’ll tell you this:
Their days are numbered. Google is wise to such
shenanigans and they will be hot on your trail. Other
prohibited gimmicks include:
• ”Sneaky” page redirects that send a visitor off to a
different site then they were expecting to visit.
• Multiple sites, domains, pages, etc. which have
substantially duplicate content.
• Hidden text or links of any type.
• Excessive outbound links on any page. Google
recommends no more than 100. I’d keep it way below that.
• And here is a nugget of wisdom straight from Google’s
mouth: “Do not participate in link schemes designed to
increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular,
avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on
the web as your website may be affected adversely by
those links.
9. Don’t advertise anything on Google’s prohibited items
list.
It’s a lot shorter lists than PayPal’s or eBay’s, but it
includes a lot of the same stuff like hacking/cracking
content, porn, illegal drugs, gambling sites, beer or
hard alcohol (I guess wine is OK), weapons, and the
other usual stuff.
10. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google
AdSense is to let the other nine things stop you from
running an honest site that’s designed to make the most
out of this very profitable opportunity that Google
offers!
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