How To Solve “Site does not comply with Google policies” Problem

Now when I am using Google Adsense for the last 6 years, it’s the right time to explain how I solved the “Site does not comply with Google policies” problem when I was being rejected again and again. Believe me, It is worth making effort to get your blog approved by Google Adsense.

Adsense is the best and most reliable advertising network out there, especially for small blogs. To maintain quality, Adsense has been very strict on reviewing blogs in the past couple of years.

Let’s have a look at this hint-less email I was getting often –

Hello,
Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after reviewing your application, we’re unable to accept you into AdSense at this time.
We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.
Issues:
Site does not comply with Google policies
———————
Further detail:
Site does not comply with Google policies: We’re unable to approve your AdSense application at this time because your site does not comply with the Google AdSense program policies or adhere to the Webmaster Quality guidelines. It’s our goal to provide our advertisers sites that offer rich and meaningful content, receive organic traffic, and allow us to serve well-targeted ads to users. We believe that currently your site does not fulfill this criteria.

The issue with this email is that it does not give exact information on what the problem is. But if you carefully examine your blog, You can find what is wrong with your blog. Before I tell you what was the problem in my case, let me explain the common 8 issues why Google Adsense might be rejecting your blog –

1. Copyrighted Content

You don’t deserve to make money by copying others’ content. At the very least, give the author of the content due credit if you use it. Before submitting an application for Google Adsense, remove any content that is protected by copyright or that has been copied from another source.

2. Prohibited Or Illegal Content

Content that is prohibited includes material related to hacking or cracking, pornography, tobacco, drugs, alcohol, gambling, weapons, and violence, as well as any other illegal content listed here. These types of content are just not acceptable. Period.

3. Important Pages(About Us, Privacy Policy, Contact Us)

Google might reject your application if you don’t have some important pages that every site should have. Write About Us page and tell your readers and Google what you do. You can generate a privacy policy page using an online privacy policy generator. Don’t forget to write the Terms and Conditions page you are selling a product or service. Contact information(address, email, or phone number) are very essential to build credibility and trust among your readers or consumers.

4. Unique and Quality Content

We already have discussed that copyrighted content is not acceptable. Write something unique that really add value to the internet. There is no point in discussing a topic that has already been written so many times on the web until you add your personal experiences to the post.

Write posts in detail. Google likes lengthy and informative posts. Do not post reproduced content. Your blog must have original content and language that Google supports. Write great articles and link to great articles. Do not place unreliable outbound links on your website. It is not good for your reputation. Never advocate for anything that undermines Google’s products.

5. Website Design (User Interface and Navigation)

Blog structure matters a lot. If your website is taking decades to load then it’s neither useful for your readers nor any advertiser. Check your site score on sites like GTmatrix and PageSpeed Insight and figure out what’s making your site slow.

Google does not like broken links. Remove all the broken links from your blog. You can use an online broken link checker or a suitable plugin to do this. Use a clean and responsive theme with a lot of white space. Text/images should not be messy. Your Blog structure should deliver a good overall experience to your readers.

6. Website Traffic and its Sources

Some people are fortunate enough to receive approval with fewer than 100 views per day, while well-established blogs with 1000+ daily views are rejected. So, in my opinion, traffic cannot be a justification for the rejection of your Adsense application. But make sure you are getting most of your traffic from search engines.

Make sure you are not paying money to third-party services to get visitors. You must not be using impression generation software, auto-surf programs, or anything else that is not a natural way of getting visitors to your post. Getting direct traffic from social media sites like Facebook is not a problem.

7. Website Age

Is your blog old enough to be get approved by Adsense? To insure the quality and interest of advertisers, Adsense has introduced a rule for some countries like India and China that the website must have been active for at least 6 months before you can apply. So this might be one of the reasons why your application is being rejected.

8. Insufficient Content

Well, how much content do you consider to be adequate? While I was rejected even after having around 60 posts, a friend of mine had his blog approved after only 6 posts. Therefore, in my opinion, the quantity of content is not Adsense’s top priority. Simply write some lengthy posts (1500 words or more), as these are supposed to contain more information and be more helpful to readers. Pages should have sufficient text. It’s possible that blogs with a heavy emphasis on pictures, videos, or Flash animations won’t be accepted.

How did I Fix the “Site does not comply with Google policies” Problem?

I was getting 1500+ hits/day back then from 60+ blog posts. Most blog posts were popular among ATC aspirants in India. My Adsense application had already received five rejections. I got in touch with a blogger friend, who suggested that I switch themes.

I was using the same Genesis child theme that I am using now. Because I was certain that the theme could not be problematic, I did not heed his advice. My blog was following all the recommendations listed in the eight points above, so I had no idea what the real issue was.

Then one day I emailed a south Indian blogger about my problem. She analyzed my blog and advised me to “add some technology or health-related articles”. 

I added 3 posts about the stock market and technology the very next day and applied for Adsense. Here is the reply that I was waiting for so long –

Now let me try to explain how it worked. Maybe I was writing articles on categories that Google did not have advertisers for. Yes, I am talking about “Niche”. 

How Important is the Niche of Your Blog for Getting Adsense Approval?

For a moment, suppose you have a business about Insurance. Would you like to advertise on a blog that is nothing to do with Insurance? Obviously not. Simply If your blog does not have content relevant to the Adsense advertiser’s business then it’s not useful for them in a way.

So I would say the Niche of the blog is really important. At least the right niche can make Adsense approval extremely easy. Blogs about Finance, Insurance, retailers, travel, tourism, and Education are more likely to get approved by Adsense.

A word of advice – Google simply wants you to behave naturally. Get natural(organic) traffic, natural likes, natural sharing, natural subscriptions, and natural discussion. And this will happen only when you write unique, useful, interesting, and engaging posts. Analyze your site based on the above points, figure out and fix the problem. I am looking forward to hearing your personal experience through the comment box.