No, it did not happened today. Not yesterday either. I was banned by AdSense just over two years ago. I was banned before I ever made my first $25. Of course I thought that I was banned unjustly, but it really does not matter. What matters now is that looking back, understand that being banned by AdSense was one of the best things that ever happened to me. How can that be? Simple, it made me mad and I became determined to find a way to earn money online without AdSense. As a result the world is better off.
If it did not happened, I would still probably be creating an multiplying my useless “made for AdSense” websites. Maybe by now I would be making more than few pennies a day, but I would definitely never experience the satisfaction that comes from being an affiliate marketer.
What kind of satisfaction? Although my AdSense adventure was short lived, I have always wondered- “What happens after some one clicks on that ad?” You may have satisfaction of knowing that your website delivers a visitor to the advertiser, but that’s about it. Unless advertiser begins to exclusively placing ads on your site, you don’t even have an idea if your are appreciated.
How is that different in affiliate marketing? Well in affiliate marketing you have access to more statistics. With Commission Junction for example, you will know not only that a sale took place after you’ve sent a visitor to your merchant, but you can also find out what product your customer has purchased. Also you have a opportunity to find out how much was sold by a merchant thanks to your traffic- source of my satisfaction. That being said, I was just looking through some numbers and turns out that one of my merchants last month sold $16,000+ worth of merchandise….. With contextual advertising of all sorts all you know that a click costs about $0.10 on your website, not a fair estimate of the true value of your work in my opinion.
Anyway, if you have been banned by AdSense you are not the only one and by no means the last one AdSense would ever ban. In my humble opinion contextual ads should be one of the las steps in monetizing a website just around the time when website achieves “critical mass” in terms of traffic . I would still argue that if your affiliate links are doing well, adding contextual advertising would only create a “leakage”, and you do not want that.
Tip:
Some people say if you follow these rules, you are not going to be banned.
I appreciate this post. So many people think Adsense is the way to go, but you have proved them wrong.
I appreciate this post. So many people think Adsense is the way to go, but you have proved them wrong.