Google AdSense Penalties

THERE has been rampant speculation regarding penalties that Google imposes, or does not impose. Here I offer a guess about those penalties, based upon what various webmasters have reported.


This adsense penalty list is pure speculation. NONE of the penalties listed below may even exist. This information is NOT guaranteed to be accurate. It is intended to help you stay out of trouble.
The WORDS IN CAPS in the chart, are words actually used by Google Adsense.

Google Adsense Penalty Chart
	Penalty Type	How Applied	Adsense Penalty Name	Email Warn ?	Email Notify ?	Penalty Duration	Penalty Description
1	Page Penalty	Page/ URL demotion in Serps	Adsense Spammer Serp Demotion	No	No	Temp. Fixable	SERP demotion penalty for Adsense spammer, but ads are still served (made-for-adsense sites). The spammer accepts the penalty, has no intention of fixing the pages. Clicks come from the easily-spammed Yahoo and MSN. (SEE DISCUSSION BELOW)
2	Page Penalty	Paying ads not served	PSA	No	No	Temp. Fixable, random delay after fix	Check all your pages from time to time to see if you are getting too many PSAs (Public Service Ads). Fix the situation. Are you using suspected "Adsense Stop Words" on your page.
3	Site Penalty	Ads blocked	ADS DISABLED	No	Yes	Temp. Fixable	Ads blocked to specific URLs for page content violations, publishers other sites OK. Respond quickly, sincerely, and humbly.Reference: Owen
4	Personal penalty	Your account is terminated forever.	ACCOUNT DISABLED	No	Yes	Permanent, no recourse	for invalid clicks (account "cancelled"?)Get new name. Get new address. Get new domain.
Who Gets Which Ads? What is the criteria used to determine which web pages are served the best-paying ads?
???	ad quality?	low CTR ads served?	Low CTR site penalty?	No	No	Based upon click volume ???	Is there a "low CTR site" penalty? Do high-CTR sites get the best converting ads? Yes.
???	ad value?	cheaper ads served?	Small site penalty?	No	No	Based upon revenue generated ???	Is there a "small site" penalty? Do large sites get the highest paying ads? We know that the largest publishers receive the highest-percentage payouts, but are they also served the highest-paying ads? NO! Google saves those for themselves (search). Wouldn't you? It would be stupid not to.

Semantics Google Adsense appears to use the term "DISABLED" rather loosely. In one case, it's not so bad - in another (account), it's the WORST. Everything seems to be "disabled", which I suspect is a legal euphemism. It can mean "temporarily deactivated", or it can mean "terminated forever". This adds to the confusion. Webmasters always seem to use the term "banned", which Google never uses. This also adds to the confusion. Google uses the word "Cancelled" accounts when referring to annual payouts. What other terms has Google used when communicating with you? "Suspended"?, "Terminated"? Note: SERP Demotion = devaluation = relevance reduction Other Penalties What other Google Adsense penalties do you think may be imposed?

"DISCUSSION BELOW" - At https://www.google.com/adsense/policies,the fifth bullet under "Ad Placement" states: "* No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant." This is an extremely controversial statement, that has been argued to death in the Webmaster forums.1. What is acceptable minimal content? Two words? One sentence? One paragraph? 2. What if Adsense ads are the only links off the page? 3. Are scraped search results OK? We see plenty of these. 4. Scraped page content OK? This must be stopped. BULLSPIT! 5. Database-generated pages OK? Without limit is not good. Google is at cross-purposes here. AdSense Program Objective - Maximize Income, Promote SpamIf you violate AdSense policy, it doesn't matter to the Adsense Group. You continue to be served the ads by Google. The ads are still being run, indicating that your account is still valid. The only thing that gets you thrown out (Account Disabled) seems to be "invalid clicks". Google Search Objective - Relevance, Reject Spam HOWEVER, you will be punished by the Search Group, by having your position in the SERPs highly demoted for the keywords. BUT the clicks still count, even though greatly reduced from Google, BUT NOT from Yahoo and MSN. That's why you see SO MANY Made-for-Adsense web sites, even though they rank poorly on Google. They are used to generate cash from the OTHER search engines, as well as pollute their SERPs - a double whammy. Google is far more clever than any current search engine competitor. When Google "Disables" an AdSense account, ads are no longer served.

This Adsense data is the compilation of many hours of reading Google Adsense Webmaster Forums. I made this Google Adsense penalty chart originally to save myself some time - I thought I would save you some time, too! This is a subject which needs clarification - confusion abounds. I believe that this page may be helpful for Adsense webmasters.