Hi Pamela

Welcome to webmasterworld - I'm sure you'll find answers to your questions here.

1) Can Adsense be placed on a niche Wiki? It's very popular in its niche in fact. What worries me though is as with all wikis some of the pages have wonderful content, but others are sparse. As the Adsense code would go into a border, it would appear on ALL pages. Would that be a problem? Or would I breach their ToS because of displaying on 'non-content' pages? Basically, would they apply common sense?

I don't belive there will be a problem - your sparse content is likely to be much more than that on many sites.

2) My partner and my son both have their own websites, and their own Adsense accounts. Is this an issue?

I am basically thinking here of whether there is a rule of 'one account per household'. They both have their own different bank accounts, and so far are treated entirely independently, as they should be. If I opened an account, would I push the luck too far?

Google have been known to be flexible in this respect and allow multiple accounts per household if there is good justification. An alternative approach would be to set one account up as an MCC account - don't know much about this myself but athers here can help. Best bet is to ask google - possibly via your partner or son.

3) On the same tack, we often share the main PC. Hence we will access our accounts from the same IP address and computer, with the same cookies. Will this cause problems? I sure don't want to cause a problem for them.

I don't believe this should cause any problems provided you all avoid click fraud and violations of the Terms Of Service (TOS). Should one account ever get banned, for what ever reason, they all will.

4) Regarding my three sites one other thing worries me. If I apply for site 1, and am accepted, and then put the code on site 2 as well: what if they don't like site 2? There is no reason why they shouldn't, but as with anyone with 3 sites, one site will be better than the other which will be better than the other. Providing they are all 'legal' in terms of not breaching any naughty rules, will I be ok?

Many of you guys have more than one site. What do you do? Do you worry you might get chopped because one site isn't as strong as the one you applied with?

This will be no problem provided you make sure each site complies with the TOS before you add the Adsense code.

5) The third of my three sites was bought from some guy on eBay. It's a decent site, which is why I bought it (a forum). What though if he had been refused an Adsense account before I bought it? I have no idea whether he had or hadn't, but what if he had, and I placed it on there? Would they zap me?

I believe the jury's still out on this one - some here think you should be OK, others think you may hav a problem if the site was ever in violation of the TOS previously, of it its previous owner was banned. You should be OK if you explain to Google how you came by the site and check that the site is OK with them first.

P

[edited by: jatar_k at 5:35 pm (utc) on Oct. 29, 2006]

1) Can AdSense be placed on a niche Wiki? It's very popular in its niche in fact. What worries me though is as with all wikis some of the pages have wonderful content, but others are sparse. As the AdSense code would go into a border, it would appear on ALL pages. Would that be a problem? Or would I breach their ToS because of displaying on 'non-content' pages? Basically, would they apply common sense?

It's your responsibility that all pages on your site confirm to the TOS. I wouldn't expect any troubles on a large site when one or two pages aren't. At worst you get a warning. But a ban is not likely.

2) My partner and my son both have their own websites, and their own AdSense accounts. Is this an issue?

If there are legitimate reasons to have separate accounts they're fine with it.

3) On the same tack, we often share the main PC. Hence we will access our accounts from the same IP address and computer, with the same cookies. Will this cause problems? I sure don't want to cause a problem for them.

Again if there are legitimate reasons, no problems. (You might want to drop them an e-mail explaining).

4) Regarding my three sites one other thing worries me. If I apply for site 1, and am accepted, and then put the code on site 2 as well: what if they don't like site 2? There is no reason why they shouldn't, but as with anyone with 3 sites, one site will be better than the other which will be better than the other. Providing they are all 'legal' in terms of not breaching any naughty rules, will I be ok?

Again, when you're following TOS, there's nothing to worry about.

Many of you guys have more than one site. What do you do? Do you worry you might get chopped because one site isn't as strong as the one you applied with?

Nope

5) The third of my three sites was bought from some guy on eBay. It's a decent site, which is why I bought it (a forum). What though if he had been refused an AdSense account before I bought it? I have no idea whether he had or hadn't, but what if he had, and I placed it on there? Would they zap me?

Maybe you can look in the wayback machine if you can find any copies with AdSense code.

Good luck with your site.
Bddmed.

[edited by: Bddmed at 5:37 pm (utc) on Oct. 29, 2006]

2) My partner and my son both have their own websites, and their own Adsense accounts. Is this an issue?

It is only an issue if one of you gets banned all of you will get banned pretty quickly thereafter. Even if they have no suspicion of wrongdoing for the 2nd & 3rd person. They freely admit that they are banning you as a related account. Guilt by association I suppose.

3) On the same tack, we often share the main PC. Hence we will access our accounts from the same IP address and computer, with the same cookies. Will this cause problems? I sure don't want to cause a problem for them.

No, other than see my explanation for point 2

4) Regarding my three sites one other thing worries me. If I apply for site 1, and am accepted, and then put the code on site 2 as well: what if they don't like site 2? There is no reason why they shouldn't, but as with anyone with 3 sites, one site will be better than the other which will be better than the other. Providing they are all 'legal' in terms of not breaching any naughty rules, will I be ok?

Yes

5) The third of my three sites was bought from some guy on eBay. It's a decent site, which is why I bought it (a forum). What though if he had been refused an Adsense account before I bought it? I have no idea whether he had or hadn't, but what if he had, and I placed it on there? Would they zap me?

Drop adsense a note asking them. They will tell you if the url is banned. Slightly differently to your circumstances but still relevant - one of the guys who I work with was buying a site and asked the guy who was selling it if it had been banned by adsense. He said yes and they confirmed it (price dropped like a stone after that e-mail exchange)!

Very interesting replies. Thank you very much indeed for them.

I few things still worry me though. The main one being that if I get banned I drag my partner and son down with me, like a deck of playing cards.

There is no reason I should get banned, as I won't do anything intentionally wrong, but reading these forums gives the impression that it is easy to slip down a paving crack and fall foul of some problem like that. I really don't want to expose others to risk because of my cluelessness. The reason for the separate accounts is simply that they do their own things, as do I.

This is a real tricky one.

The people that got banned, almost every time admitted in some way or another that they breached the TOS. If you're sure you're playing with the rules, don't worry.

There are no stories I'm with AdSense and I didn't get banned. Why would we.

The people that got banned, almost every time admitted in some way or another that they breached the TOS. If you're sure you're playing with the rules, don't worry.
There are no stories I'm with AdSense and I didn't get banned. Why would we.

This is what my head tells me, and I know you are right really. It's just that every page of threads in this forum seems to have at least one about a site being banned. Scary.

I wouldn't worry so much if it was just my sites. It's the risk exposure to the others.

And it is almost always a newbie that doesn't now anything about the program. They didn't have time to read the terms. Just thinking about how to get rich quick.

Buying cheap traffic. Scraping other ones content etc.

From the little posts you made, I understand you're building a genuine website.

So, I still think you'll be OK with Google.

Good luck to your website.

BTW. If you still think you're risking something, then go for some affiliate program first.

BTW2. My website ran without any ads at all for the first 3 years.

It's just that every page of threads in this forum seems to have at least one about a site being banned. Scary.

Remember this is a forum:

Those getting banned are very vocal about it, those of us who didn't get banned in the last X years generally don't post every so often we still did not get banned.

Don't believe everything you read

5) The third of my three sites was bought from some guy on eBay. It's a decent site, which is why I bought it (a forum). What though if he had been refused an Adsense account before I bought it? I have no idea whether he had or hadn't, but what if he had, and I placed it on there? Would they zap me?

I put my adsense code on a domainname I had bought I couldn't figure our some silly interaction between filenames and directory names and getting PSA ads. After asking adsensse support I was informed they cleared a block the domain had acquired in the past (and indeed the PSAs were gone). So when in doubt, drop the adsense support a note, that you now own that site and aren't related with any previous owners.

Forums in general do not do well on adsense. Extremely low click-through rate unless you go rather obnoxious with the ad placement.

Maybe someone should start an "I didn't get banned from AdSense today!" thread. Heck.. I agree that all the negative threads are downers and cast probably undue suspicion on the program. Read enough of them and one starts to wonder, "will I be next?"

It is true that most of them turn out to be cases of TOS violations, though. But.... not all do.