I have just read an interesting post about a change in Google’s policy for accepting new applications into their income generating program, AdSense.
It seems Google has finally decided to do something about the amount of poor quality websites that have sprung up during the past few years and has tightened up the AdSense approval process. This will not affect those people who are already running AdSense on their websites, but it will be more difficult for people to join in the future.
Is this the end for MFA (Made for AdSense) websites?
A lot of people are posting questions in various forums asking why their application to join the Google AdSense program has been rejected. This is part of the standard email they are being sent:
In order to participate in Google AdSense, publishers’ websites and application information must satisfy the following guidelines:
- Your website must be your own top-level domain (www.example.com and not www.example.com/mysite).
- Your domain must have been registered and active for at least 6 months. before you apply for AdSense.
- You must provide accurate personal information with your application that matches the information on your domain registration.
- Your website must contain substantial, original content.
This is an excellent move and one that should have been implemented a long time ago. However, new applicants do not seem to be made aware of these rules before they apply as I could find no mention of any of these points in Google’s AdSense guidelines or any other official documents applicants are asked to read before submitting an application. I am more than happy to be corrected on this if someone can send me a link.
Content is still king
Google is sending out a very strong message to potential publishers who wish to create useless websites with the sole intention of making a bit of money on the side – this kind of approach will no longer be tolerated. It also reinforces the old adage “content is king”.
It is very easy to create a website which is automatically populated with content from other sources, and whilst I think this kind of approach does have some value, it has to be supplemented with a higher proportion of original content.
Google is now insisting all new websites accepted into the AdSense program must reside on a top level domain and they must have been regularly updated for the six months prior to the application. This ensures a degree of commitment from the website owner and it also ensures that some costs have been involved during the creation of the website. I can see these two rules making a massive difference to the number of applications being made to join AdSense.
This can only be a good thing for webmasters who take their websites seriously.
