Google Adsense Account Disabled – WTF?

It’s always nice to get a gift for your birthday, so Google was nice enough to send me one at 2AM the morning of ZacJohnson.com’s 5 Year Anniversary. Unfortunately it wasn’t a nice gift like the old Google Refrigerator and Certificate they sent me so many years ago… this time it was an unfriendly and automated email saying they will no longer be accepting traffic through my valued web sites and Google Adsense account, which I might add is around 10 years old and has had six figures in earnings over the past decade.

You can read the full email from them below…

Google Adsense’s Friendly Account Disabled Email

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not
accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
——————————

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we’ve determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we’ve found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google’s share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google’s advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we’ve taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

I was quite surprised when I received the email, not only that they terminated the account, but also that they were nice enough to immediately take all earnings out of the account and give them back to the advertisers and company. Fortunately I haven’t been using Google Adsense as a main source of income, but the thousand dollars in the account still would have been nice to have. I had used Google Adsense a decent amount in the passed, but with it just sitting on various sites and generating revenue for years without a problem then getting terminated, it’s just quite odd.

The next great thing about Google is that they are so personable and love providing you with quality customer support… yea right, trying to contact Google is definitely one of the areas they aren’t too interesting in improving. Instead of providing support, they will send you in an endless loop of forum posts which pretty much end up no where. If you are lucky enough to finally come across their Invalid Activity Appeal form, you can try your luck again, but they basically sent me the same denial email again. But then again, it’s all from “The Google Adsense Team” and just tells you to get lost in the forums again so I expected nothing less.

Life After Google Adsense

As mentioned earlier, it’s a good thing I don’t use Google Adsense as a driving source of revenue for any of my sites. Imaging making five figures a month with their network, then all of a sudden they send you an email telling you they are just taking all of your earnings from last and this month?! That could be quite a hit for anyone pushing some heavy volume.

What is sad is that I had my account for roughly 15 years and a lot of great data and stats were in there. I’ve also learned that I’m not the only one on the chopping block from Google lately. I’ve come across other posts and forums from other marketers who have had the same experience with Adsense. This is a good lesson for anyone out there to make sure you don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Just like Amazon wipes out their affiliate program state by state as new laws come into play, Google Adsense can simply give and take away whatever they want without any reason or say.

Life after Google Adsense will be the exact same way it was before my account got terminated… though this is a reminder to also keep screenshots and records of all your affiliate accounts that have lots of old data you might like to have. Fortunately I did save a decent amount from prior years. From an earnings and business model standpoint, the loss of Google Adsense doesn’t change anything.

Google Adsense Alternatives

Speaking of not keeping your eggs in all baskets, if you are currently running Google Adsense and looking for alternatives, there are plenty of them out there! I will be updating my list of Google Adsense alternatives and will post a full mega guide on the blog later in the week. In the meantime, here are some of the top blog posts I’ve written so far about monetization outside of Google Adsense.

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92 Comments

  3. The samething happened to me over a year ago. I had about $6K in the account and Google took it all back. Devastated me. I appealed to Google and they responded about 3 months later with a big fat NO.

    Google has screwed me so many times. I've had my Adwords account disabled for about a week because they claimed someone tried to break into my account, of which I found no evidence. I've had successful campaigns get killed for no reason I can find. I've had one of my sites get de-listed from Google Search for no apparent reason. It re-appeared about a month later after I requested a re-inclusion. Traffic never came back to where it was. Google is just a EVIL empire. They claim to "Do no evil!" but that is simply no true.

    Fortunately, if you want you can get another Adsense Account by signing up with a family member address, phone number, SS#, etc. That is what I did, but with your post, I'm now worried that Google will screw me again.

    Fortunately, when they disable your account, your websites can still use Adsense Ads from someone else. They don't ban your websites, they just ban your account.

    1. It's nice how they ban your account, take the money then let you run Adsense again through another account… It doesn't make sense at all.

  4. Recently, my page view on adsense dashboard is much lower than on the google analytic. Google has too much problems. I think that AFF or put a banner of some company will be the best way to make money online

    1. Using any method outside of Google Adsense will not only potentially make more money, but will allow you to now have to worry about issues like this.

  5. Feel your pain. I was banned from Google Adwords three years ago for some bogus reason. Tried hard to get my account back (since this is my job, and Google is the biggest/only market), but it's impossible. I'm banned for life. From a company that controls almost 90% of the market. I'm screwed, and it's costing me both money and market share in my niche.

    I really, really hope the US and/or Europe will attack Google's walk down this evil path.

    1. If you NEED to run Google Adsense, simply create a new business identity and re-apply. Then only use it on your best sites and with legitimate and real traffic they shouldn't have any problems with. Their terms and conditions even state that "other" Google Adsense accounts can run their ads on your site.

    1. It sure feels like 15 years, but it was a few years after I first started. Looks like the first checks I received were in 2003, so around 10 years ago.

  7. I can’t believe they did that! And then to just “take” the funds that you actually already earned as well! They should analyse websites before they give accounts, in order to prevent stuff like this – to tell people from the beginning whether they’ll be able to accommodate them or not.

    1. You would think they would do better research on accounts before disabling them. They have so many publishers I'm sure they run through hundreds if not thousands of accounts monthly. I bet it all ads up nicely.

  8. That really sucks, considering you've been a long time publisher for them. They went ahead and banned you for something that was not even your fault? I hope you do somehow get your account back, i wish you the best
    My recent post 7 Things You Can Do to Make the Best Out of Yourself

  10. The problem for me with Google has been they are "EVIL" when it comes to customer service. They have great products but can't be contacted.

    This is what could eventually ruin Google. I use Adsense because it was first, I don't really know of other ways to monetize a beginner site easily. I use AdWords because it is the most well known. The lack of transparency and a "Paid Support" option really mean that I could switch my money to somebody else that will actually talk to me.
    My recent post Walking Dead Person with the Sword

  11. I had a domain that was earning thousands a month with Adsense for years without an issue. Then out of the blue that domain got banned (not my whole account luckily). Not only that but a month later they de-indexed the site completely, all appeals being a complete waste of time. The best bit is that the Adsense team still send me "You could be earning xxxx amount more" messages for that very same website. I now see Adsense as something to pay the hosting bills and nothing more than that, I wouldn't rely on it as a serious source of income, you just can't trust them, which is strange considering how keen they are to judge us.
    My recent post Just Got Banned From Adsense?

  12. Zac Johnson's affiliate book and John Chow's blogger book was among the first I've ever ready about Internet Marketing. I now regularly follow your blogs (John and Zac) and I must say I was so surprised to see read about the ban of his account… Honest people getting banned for no reason (Google is becoming too powerful and too evil..)
    My recent post The Most Important Micro Investment for the previous year

  13. Hey Zac,

    I'm really sorry for the mess up on Google's part! This really sucks and they don't seem to care much about what the affected party thinks.

    You've been with them for so long they should at least think twice before making such a decision, and returning all the money in your account without giving you a choice to prove yourself is in bad taste.

    I can't wait to see how they respond to this! I hope you get your account back soon!
    My recent post Writing Changed My Life FOREVER, and it Can Change Yours Too

  14. Tough luck!!
    I donno why Adsense became so mean these days. Low EPC, low eCPM and now this banning valid publishers trend.
    My recent post Automate Your Onpage SEO Easily

  15. Ya that’s why I’m a little hesitant to use Google Adsense, and lately I’m hearing this happening to lots of people. I’d be interested in hearing how some of those people that do make a living with Google Adsense are doing.

  16. Pretty interested in what themes you were using for your site? was it fairly ad heavy ones like CTRtheme/Prosense or just standard themes?

    1. Adsense was running across a few sites, all pretty much generic and unique custom themes. Very little volume as I stopped relying on Google Adsense as a source of income a while back.

  17. Truly a shocking move by Adsense team. By the way I mentioned your case on my blog if you don't mind. I actually learned this case from John Chow. Fortunately, Adsense is not the only ad network in the world.

    Thanks,
    Noah

  18. Adsense will always be around. I honestly think google will get to the point where they need to let the publishers they used to have back in. To continue to make a profit online I know so many friends who are now banned its ridiculous I think the private browsing & no cookie tracking extensions/plugins is effecting googles tracking hense why all the publishers being banned since most of us affiliates have ad blockers etc on browsers that we use.

    1. Hey Nick, thanks for posting. Google Adsense is so big and such a huge money maker simply because it's so easy to setup and anyone can start making money in just seconds. There is no need for any marketing experience or affiliate knowledge. Props to Google for making such a system and they will continue to profit from it forever… they may just lose out on some big players and the people they ban, who will learn to better monetize their sites and traffic anyway.
      My recent post How to Create and Make Money with a Free Stuff Site

  19. I feel for you Zac and your experience in loosing your AdSense account is just another huge wakeup call to all marketers out there starting out and thinking that Google AdSense is the way forward, whilst truth be told it isn't. Google in general really are starting to ruffle a lot of people's patience. Practically everyone on the web is at their mercy right now. I’ve not yet had my scrawny account banned but I’m not hanging around waiting for that day to happen, I plan to start monetizing outside of AdSense. Best of luck, not that you’ll need it 🙂
    My recent post Why Should Marketers Take Note Of Google Improving Related Image Searches?

    1. It's crazy how powerful Google is… they can simply do whatever they want and fluctuate billions of dollars in the process. It's one thing to ban Google Adsense accounts, but when they start messing around with search results and how they rank web sites, things could really get interesting. They are actually doing this now with the link building blog networks. It's understood that these are bad methods and ethics for link building, but they are also wiping out businesses and a massive of web sites in the process. Just stating the power and how everyone really is held under their grip.
      My recent post How to Create and Make Money with a Free Stuff Site

  20. Sorry to hear of your Adsense problems. I know how frustrating it can be, particularly the lack of a way to be able to contact a live body at Google to discuss this with. They seem to be very good at everything except personal contact with the people who make them money. A couple years ago they removed several of my Blogger sites calling them "spam" and leaving me little or no way to appeal their decision. I finally did appeal using their process and never heard back from them. I now use paid wordpress hosting etc. Unfortunately as long as people keep using adsense over all others, it will not change.

    1. I made it a point to link the appeal url in the original blog post above, as I'm sure this post will rank well for "Google Adsense Account Banned". In the end, it's still tough to contact Google and it's easy for them to simply ignore any emails and requests as well. Support is one of the worst issues of many internet companies.
      My recent post How to Create and Make Money with a Free Stuff Site

  21. My personal adsense account was banned last week, after over four years and almost $200,000 in earnings. Luckily I had begun to diversify my income streams after being affected by last April's Google update.

    To me, the most disturbing aspect of being disabled is the lack of any specifics on WHY. Based on their appeal form it seems it was due to invalid clicks, yet they give no specifics on what site, what IP used, etc.

    The other weird thing is they have not disabled my Corporate adsense account, which I had to list in my appeal, and which has the same name and address as my personal account???? This makes me scratch my head, AND makes me concerned that it won't be long before I lose that account too.

    It also pisses me off that they don't pay out the previous months payment even though there was no issue with my account that month. That to me is Google stealing money from honest, hard working people. And I highly doubt they are refunding the advertisers that paid for those clicks a month and a half ago ( and got the benefit of those visitors I sent by the way).

    It does also suck that you lose access to your monthly payment invoices for tax purposes too.

    In the end, there is NOTHING I (or the rest of you) can do, as there is just no way to contact anyone at google. If I was living in California I would definitely be taking Google to small claims court.

    Any lawyers reading this? A nice large class action might wake the bumbling fools at Google?

    1. Same thing here… I guess "invalid clicks" can be seen as nearly anything. We all know we aren't clicking our own ads, right?

      The part about the non-payment is also a huge killer. These are the rules we all play by and agree to when we make money with any ad network online. Google says they are giving that money back to the advertisers, but who really knows…

      I was told that someone had a massive amount of money in their Google Adsense account, then was banned, then they ended up getting lawyers and was able to get their account and payments back. No idea what truth there is to this, but it was a discussion that came up with a friend. Might be worth looking into.
      My recent post How to Create and Make Money with a Free Stuff Site

  22. That sucks Zac I am sorry to hear that I know your an up and up marketer it is a good thing you do not have all your eggs in one basket so to speak.

    It will probably be a good thing down the road anyways for you there are a lot of alternatives like you mentioned.

  23. Cant you just open a new account by making a new LLC then if need be tweak some of your sites ?

  24. I read somewhere a very valid point which said that we shouldn't rely on Google only. The first thing is Google as a search engine, if you solely rely on them as your main traffic source, you might get penalized one beautiful day, then if you use Adsense, chances increase of getting kicked from them.

    Not sure whether this is some kind of diligence they do once in a while but I seriously have started to get scared from Adsense and that almighty email …
    My recent post Bulk PageRank Checker

  25. I'm sorry to hear about what happened to your account…but besides learning the ins and outs of Google Adsense this is one of the main reasons I'm hesitant about using them as a medium of income.
    My recent post About MarcBellMarketing.com

  26. What a nice birthday gift from big G! Let's hope a viable alternative opens up one day.
    My recent post Heads Up: Quality Content at Low Prices!

  27. I am sorry to hear this… Google is just randomly doing the banning I guess… I have seen many people pointing out about loosing their accounts… Did you do any appeal… Any luck on what they say if you provide them with traffic stats and other details…. Also I feel that they should warn us before banning atleast fro the sake of account that is 5yrs old and have paid well so far!!
    My recent post Beauty Week at Bon Ton – Don’t Miss

  28. I've just know that thing via Anna's blog, Traffic Generation Cafe dot com, it's so bad news, man, I'm being afraid of because I'm going to create a new site to add a passive income stream by applying Adsense, wow, I may thinking back.
    My recent post How to Start a Blog: The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide

  29. This really sucks! I had mine (after 7 years…) disabled three months ago. Luckily I have my business up and running again, but G also took some thousands from me 🙁
    My recent post Longtail Pro Review

    1. Wow that sucks. It's surprising to hear so many people got screwed from Google and losing their accounts. Did you end up creating a new account and still running adsense, or did you move on to using different revenue sources?

  31. I've been with adsense for years, delivered thousands of visitors and got banned saturday. appealed. denied.

    no explanation, nothing.

    oh, and they stole the $2,000 that was in my account.

    something needs to be done about this.

  33. I really thing Google is wide open for law suits for confiscating funds with no recourse. Basically google is in the advertising business and have done a typical play. Use the little guy to build your market then kick them out of the market when you are bigger. Right now they basically want all hi performing ads to be on their own property because they make more money. They manipulate search results and cpc to do just that. If you are relying on them better wake up. Those days are over now. Do no evil HA… just business as usual – lie cheat steal.

  35. The worst thing is no matter how much we complain about google it is still the biggest and will be the same in the future and everybody needs to find way around such issues.
    I am sorry to hear about such "nice" birthday present…
    My recent post What is online surveys

  37. Gosh, this is scary. So many changes, and all so suddenly. I'm going to have to make some changes to some of my sites just to be on the safe side. I always try to be ethical – and many of us do, but sometimes Google sees things differently.
    My recent post What Will The Future Hold For SEO-Marketers?

  39. I'm sorry to hear that , but my site was disabled too …
    Sometime i think that Google doesn't have reason enough to tell publisher about ban !!

  40. Ohh… sad about it. Why Google Adsense banning its publishers like this. Someday they will have not any publisher, if they do like this. Very bad. I think Google is banning only when we do something wrong.

    Thanks for this information. I didn’t thought much about any other income source other than Google Adsense. Anyway I need to thank you again for showing the correct path and mentioning it. Now I will try to create my own products.

    I started my blog in march 21st. So my blog is still new one.

    Thank You!
    Shyam

    My recent post 3 FaceBook Optimization Strategies to Attract Traffic and Backlinks

  41. Ohh another bad news. I think adbrte and buysellads are the best alternative for goole adsense.
    My recent post Recommended posts gadget with post thumbnails for blogger linkwithin gadget

  42. google should make their policies more flexible so that many bloggers can be benefited with it…
    My recent post SAMSUNG P3100 REVIEW

  43. I too was banned from Google adsense, with them owing me over $40,000. I'm seriously considering a class action suit against them. If you might be remotely interested in that please contact me at frank@macor.com.

    Thanks
    My recent post Make more money starting now

  44. Take a look at https://AdsenseVictims.org THEN TAKE ACTION! Talking to Google doesn't work. Talking to attorney generals, the Federal Trade Commission, media business editors, and the BBB may put some pressure on them.
    My recent post Adsense Victims: UNITE!!!

  45. I think the reason why Google sends out the automated email is because they are banning people in mass. They ban so many people for so many reasons that it would be near impossible for them to give everyone an explanation for the reason why their account has been banned. Moreover, building your online business around Google is a huge risk in my opinion, I had my Google affiliate account disabled even before I could use it, and they offered no explanation for why they disabled it.

    Given that reality, how would anyone confidently build anything around them, as your account getting suspended is a reality.
    My recent post Natural Treatment For Anxiety

  46. I'm sorry to hear about what happened. This post makes me think not to rely on one source of income. And I work hard to achieve this.
    My recent post How to make money renting a room?

  48. adsense is actually madsense,now i will show them who i am.i swear that until i bring them down to down to earth,i will not stop.they disabled me 12 times.for no reason
    My recent post Download SEO Administrator

  49. I agree google has a very darkside. They canceled my account and won't tell me why. Thing is I was using adsense on hubpages. They are still plastering my hubs with adsense ads as before but now I don't get to share in the profits they are making.Im looking forward to Microsoft kicking their a**es when they file suits against the Android operating system

  50. It is really sad to see your adsense account disabled. But with a high traffic blog the better option is sell ads space directly. I already see you are using buysellads So I trust this hit is not so fatal for you.

  52. My account was also disabled recently

    I hope this does not happen the song for my new account again.

    thank you for your article.

  53. Hi Everyone,

    Well l was doing a bit of google searching tonight to try and find a few tips on how to get my adsense account reinstated, but blog after blog gives me little hope of getting my ban lifted.

    I was new to adsense and had high hopes of earning a nice income from doing what l enjoy, but now the dream is over and the nightmare has begun.

    I feel the pain of everyone who has lost their adsense accounts and l feel so sorry for those who lost considerable amounts of money when their accounts were diabled. It seems so wrong that this can occur, but l guess Google is Google and they can do what eve they want…….. well so they think.

    The time will come, they are terminating too many people without full or proper disclosure as to how, why, when and where the so called inavalid activity occurred.

    Now l am a bit of a novice, so at this stage l am no threat to Google, but from what l am reading it appears that google has been disabling the accounts of some internet heavy weights and some very smart people. I think it will eventually come back and bit google in the arse as they are seemingly turning on just about everyone.

    I hope that those of us who have been disabled from adsense are able to find a viable alternative and l especially hope that some smart cookie is able to punish google for the way in which they are ruining peoples dreams and sources of income.

    Good luck to everyone, whether you are disabled now or disabled in the future, atleast we can take some comfort from knowing we are not alone.

    Cheers from Aussie Pete
    My recent post Daft Blogger

  57. I still faced the same issue. Is there i can do anything?
    Also my friend is trying to get adsense but itz not approving, can you help me please?

  58. Sad feelings for Adsense disabled. I wish you will get your Adsense account back
    My recent post Deliver Quality Blog Traffic Via FB Group Discussion

  62. Just done the same to me and without any email or nothing…It's time someone took them to court for monopolising the Net..Google are total scum bags..

    They are greedy, underhand and avoid paying taxes..F–K them..do not build your business around Google period, kick thier poxy adds of your sites..why give away your hard earned traffic for a few cents..

    1. I wish everyone had the same attitude as yourself Mike. If we all gave the big G a miss they would have to reconsider how they treat us all
      My recent post Bye Bye Juliar

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