"Public Ads" and Adsense account banning question

1. 78

   Shadesbreathposted 14 years ago

   A couple days back I was following a thread (Link Here)  where SunSeven was talking about a hub that was taken down because the ads "started showing Google Public Interest" ads.
   
   Nelle Hoxie made a comment about how that stuff is bad and can cost you your adsense account.  SunSeven seemed to agree.  I asked how that worked, how whatever a "public interest" ad is could be any worse than publishing a hub with "no ads" selected.
   
   I didn't get an answer and I'm curious.
   
   1. What are public interest ads?
   2. Why are they so terrible that you lose your account from them (worse than having no ads)?
   3. How the heck do you know if you have them on your hubs, especially if you are a lazy piece of crap like me who doesn't pay attention to technical stuff at all?  Is there a warning thing that comes up like the copyright one I get when people steal my stuff?

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   1. 74

      Arthur Fontesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      
      
      I forgot to enter my google pin and received an email telling me that google would only place public service ads on my pages.
      
      Public service ads means no adsense earnings is what I gathered from the email.
      
      I quickly found and entered the pin# so I am not sure if my account was ever in jeopardy.
      
      I also have a hub that for whatever reason google will not place ads on the hub for my time of ad placement.

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   2. 72

      relacheposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      1.  These are ads shown by Google for charities for free.
      2.  If all your pages (or Hubs) only ever showed these, you'd never be making Google any money so why should they even bother giving you an account?
      3.  There's a page in your AdSense account where you can see what sort of ads are being matched to your site(s), or you can just look at your pages.  If you are so lazy that you just can't ever be bothered to look or learn, then there's nothing to really be done, is there?

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      1. 78

         Shadesbreathposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         No, if I was that lazy, there wouldn't be anything to be done.  Fortunately, I was just motivated enough to remember the question had not been answered and seek some advice. 
         
         So, what I'm gathering is, check all my hubs for Red Cross ads and stuff, or hit the adsense info-maze.  Hopefully it has some kind of warning mechanism on it that points out trouble hubs (I think checking individual ones would be tedious, especially with a ton of hubs as time goes on).  Warning lights are a great idea, invented by thoughtful technical people for people who like to drive (or need to) but were too lazy to learn how to check all the fluid levels of their car, belt tension, compression, fuel mixture, electrical system status and stuff... people who had other interests and aptitudes.  Hopefully there's something like that on the Adsense thingy.     
         
         Thanks for the tips!

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         1. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Shade, the point is that Google itself places the public service ads, so there's no way they're jeopardizing anything!
            
            The importance of public service ads is that if you can see them on your website, you're not earning money.  The public service ads themselves aren't in contravention of anythng.

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   3. STAFF

      pauldeedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      I've almost never seen a public service Google AdSense unit on HubPages.   What I have seen are blank spots where the ads would go, and that happens for two main reasons: 1) Google's automatic filtering algorithm thinks that your content may not meet with the terms of the AdSense Program Policy, 2) you haven't completed the pin verification process (in which case it will happen 100% of the time in your share of impressions)

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      1. 78

         Shadesbreathposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         I'll have to go thru my hubs and look.  Never even occurred to me before to do that.  Somehow I figured it was all on autopilot as I collect my 12 bucks a month.  lol.

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         1. STAFF

            pauldeedsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            To be clear, Google's automatic filter is far from perfect.  I've seen lots of errors both of omission and inclusion.
            
            If you have a hub that isn't showing ads that you are confident is within the Google's guidelines,  I'd recommend  first tweaking the language a few times (it might take a day or two for Google to adjust after a change).   Then, if it's still not showing ads you may want to just set the ad level to none (so that you don't get the big white boxes).  You won't earn any money that way, but you also won't risk running into trouble with Google.  They aren't likely to ban you if your content really is within their terms, but it would not surprise me if the percentage of your impressions that get caught by the auto-filter has a small effect on the revenue you get per click.

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            1. 68

               rmrposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks, Paul. I guess I should head over and set some of B.T.'s ads to none. I don't think those hubs technically violate any rules, but I doubt that Google shares my sense of humor.
               
               @Shadesbreath-Those were the good old days, eh? *sigh*

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      2. 76

         Sally's Troveposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Another reason it happens is for no good reason. One Hub I have that violates nothing is "blocked" by Google for no good reason. There have never been Google ads appearing there. I started a forum thread about this issue here:  http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/36219#post815304
         
         Only after contacting the HubTeam directly did I receive this information:
         
         "...the ads must be getting blocked by some kind of automatic filter on Google's side.  There isn't anything we can do about that, but you could try changing some of the text around a bit so that it looks like a new page, or you could transfer it to a new hub and url.  That might unblock things."
         
         The point: sometimes there is no rhyme or reason that will ever be revealed to us lowly writers about why we get cheated by Google out of our 90 cents per month per Hub.

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         1. 74

            Arthur Fontesposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            I received a similar message from HP on the one hub I have with white spaces.  I am proud of the story so I have left it published.

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2. 68

   rmrposted 14 years ago

   Shades, if you have a peek at B.T.'s hubs about pipe nipples and his wife's ass (donkey), I think you'll see the white blocks that Paul is talking about.
   
   What I don't know, is if there's some kind of reprisal to worry about. Those hubs have been up for a long time.
   Does it make a difference of you set it to not show ads?
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/More-Nipples-Th … A-Stick-At
   
   http://hubpages.com/hub/If-You-See-My-W … se-Grab-It

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   1. 78

      Shadesbreathposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      LOL@those.  Been a long time since I saw those.  B.T. rules!
      
      And yes, I see what you mean about the white spots.
      
      I just got the impression from comments in that other thread you could lose your adsense account.  Perhaps that just means if you get so many of those that you become unviable as a business interest or something.
      
      Thanks for the links.  That was a nice little trip into the HP wayback machine too.

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   2. 65

      Appletreedealsposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Listen, just imagine this in 10 foot letters - OMG!
      They were hilarious. I can't believe I haven't seen them before.
      Absolutely the most enjoyable reads in a long time, Thanks.
      
      GA

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3. 0

   ryankettposted 14 years ago

   Sometimes public service ads are displayed when there are just no advertisers bidding on the keywords in your content.... it's very unusual, but I have seen this before on a short 150 word hub which I once published. I extended it to 300 words, shoved a few decent keyword phrases in, and what do you know.... normal ads showed up.
   
   If your content is considered dodgy by google, there will be no ads showing up. Personally if my content was so lacklustre and unappealing to advertisers, I would much rather help out a charity then see big white spaces on the page...
   
   If you see THAT.... then start to worry. I had white spaces on my 'USB Humping Dogs' page, so I just disabled the ads...

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4. 82

   Aya Katzposted 14 years ago

   I have only one hub with the blank spots. It is the one in which I explained what happened when I neglected to input my PIN number. Google has told me it violates that TOS, but for the life of me I still can't figure out how.

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   1. 85

      Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      It violates TOS to disclose certain details about your Adsense account.  You've probably got wording in the Hub which suggests you're disclosing too much.
      
      Like Nelle said, it's simply not worth jeopardizing your Adsense account over one Hub.  I'd just delete it if I were you.

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      1. 82

         Aya Katzposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Oh! So it might have to do with my telling the reader exactly how much I made before the ads were turned off because I didn't input the PIN?
         
         If that's what it is, can I fix it? Or would it be better to just turn off the ads? Or is it too late to do that, since they did it for me? Is deleting the only option that would help?

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         1. 85

            Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

            Aya, I just read it and I can't see any reason why.  Remember, the check isn't done by a human, it's done by a robot which can't read words in context.  You're mentioning Adsense, PINs and money, so it's probably some combination of that.
            
            It's really up to you - but as Nelle said, is one Hub really worth the risk of losing the account altogether?

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            1. 82

               Aya Katzposted 14 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks, Marisa. I'm thinking of maybe importing it to a private site, comments and all. Then I could link to some of my other hubs from there and still use the non-hub to generate traffic here. Would it be considered okay to do that? It's a shame to just throw it away, I think.

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               1. 0

                  ryankettposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                  As long as you don't display AdSense on that particular page on your 'private site'. Unfortunately that rules out most blogging platforms such as blogger, which I don't think allow you to pick and choose which posts are monetised or not. If it is a non-AdSense monetized site, then there will be no problem. Just so long as you aren't linking to hubpages from anything too dodgy... like adult content.

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                  1. 82

                     Aya Katzposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                     I haven't deleted the hub yet,  but I have "unpublished it" and I've republished it on Weebly.com as GoogleDiscards. Let me know if you think this is okay and I'm not violating any rules.

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                     1. 85

                        Marisa Wrightposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                        If you're not using your Adsense account on that site, it's absolutely fine.

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                        1. 82

                           Aya Katzposted 14 years agoin reply to this

                           I'm not using my Adsense account on that site. I think I'll put everything that might be "forbidden" on that one site and keep it un-monetized.
                           
                           The only question is: how to get traffic to a site that doesn't carry ads? Because it seems to me that Google has very little incentive to send traffic my way, if they don't stand to make anything off it. Should I court the other, second tier search engines?

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5. 83

   rebekahELLEposted 14 years ago

   here's what happened to me a while ago. I had not registered my pin yet because I was not close to pay out. when I was checking my account once, I saw they had added a message that said I had no ads showing, only public service announcements until I registered my PIN. Once I did, the ads came back.
   
   I'm sure this isn't the case for you, but anyone should register their PIN as soon as they receive it so this doesn't happen.

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6. 0

   Nelle Hoxieposted 14 years ago

   To make my exchange with SunSeven clearer.
   
   SunSeven said that the content of the hub was no longer within Google's TOS and that it wasn't worth the effort to rewrite it. I agreed with her saying that it isn't worth it to risk your adsense account over one hub or even 100 hubs in my opinion.
   
   Atleast that's what I remember the exchange as.
   
   It wasn't so much the PSAs that were showing in my mind, it was that SunSeven said that it was no longer was consistent with the TOS.

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