Performing an AdSense Background Check
Jen Slegg has a nice write up at JenSense about testing to see if a site has been banned by Google AdSense. Sales of content sitesand blogs are heating up and some buyers are paying fairly decent amounts of money only to find that some sites have had a negative history with Google AdSense.
When you are buying a website from someone for the sole purpose of putting AdSense on, it can be a catch-22 about whether to ask the site owner if he or she has ever used AdSense on the site, and if the site has been banned from AdSense. But you don’t exactly want to outlay the cash and then discover the site has been permanently banned from ever running AdSense.
Jen lists the following ways to check out the site’s AdSense friendliness:
1. AdSense Preview Tool : If the site has been banned the tool will deliver an error message such as “e:-2146697208”
2. When a site has been suspended from AdSense, yet the AdSense code is still live on the site, instead of ads or PSAs, you will instead see an error of “You are not authorized to view this page”.
3. Check the Wayback Machine to see if the site owner was up to anysneaky tricks to manipulate AdSense clicking.
In addition to buying with the goal of making money via AdSense, some of Jen’s tips are useful for anyone interested in purchasing a site, for whatever intended agenda (links, SEO, reselling).
More on “Safeguarding yourself when purchasing a site for AdSense“
