Should websites and blogs wait for 6 months before using AdSense Ads?
Google introduced a policy that a site has to be active for 6 months before AdSense Ads can be used on it. If you are a blogger or content writer looking for information on whether you can use AdSense on your blog before 6 months, read this article.
NOTE: This article was originally published by me at Zlobber.com on Dec 7, 2011.
Adsense is a great program from Google to help online content writers monetize their online content. I have been a Google AdSense publisher almost from the time Google launched this program and have gone through a lot of experience during my last 8 year journey with Google AdSense. During the initial stages, I have received warnings from Google for accidental violation of policies which helped me learn more about the program and correct my mistakes. Some of my websites were removed from AdSense program but got included back after I corrected the concerns raised by Google. I implemented AdSense Host APIs for revenue sharing in some websites.
In this post, I like to discuss the requirement "website should be active for 6 months before AdSense can be used on it".Why Google require site has to be 6 months old before AdSense Ads can be used
Google did not introduce this rule for no reason. They make money from AdSense program and so they want to promote it as much as possible. However, they introduced the new rule to ensure the overall quality of the program is not compromised.
In last couple of years, AdSense has become so popular such that many students think they can earn huge money from AdSense and live without a job. You can see numerous websites claiming "Y?? ??n fire ???r Boss ?n? m?k? yourself ???r ?wn Boss". There are lot of online fraud services offering ways to get rich by doing fraud with Google AdSense.
Such fraud programs have been affecting the quality of AdSense program. Google does not want their advertisers to be affected by fraud clicks on their Ads. In order to prevent or reduce fraud clicks and loss of revenue for the advertisers, Google introduced several rules and policies.
One of such policies to reduce fraud activity on Google Ads is, website should be active for 6 months before you can use AdSense Ads.
Why this rule is applicable only for certain countries?
The 6 months requirement is applicable for certain countries. Publishers from countries like USA, Canada and most native English speaking countries can use AdSense on their websites or blogs from day 1. Why? Is it racism?
Google is not in to racism or discrimination. This policy is applicable for certain countries because Google is facing large volume of fraud activities from those countries, especially because a large number of AdSense users from those countries do not have good writing skills in English and so they engage in illegal ways to monetize their online content. Some of the fraud ways they engage include click-exchange where they click on Ads of their friends in exchange of clicks by them. Google takes fraud clicks very seriously.
This does not mean there is no fraud clicks from countries like USA. Since the people from those countries are native English speakers, they can actually write content in English and monetize the content in genuine ways rather than engaging in fraud clicks and get some quick money and then later lose their AdSense account.
Another reason the fraud activities are higher in countries like India and China are, there is no proper address and identification system. For example, in India, a person can be known in multiple names and have different variants of the same in name in various bank accounts. People can use different addresses and can still receive mails. Sometimes people write name and initials, sometimes they write first name and last name and so on. The problem here is, if a person lose an AdSense account, it is easy for him to re apply for a new AdSense account in another name. If he get approved in that name, he can go to bank and open another bank account with that name and still cash the AdSense cheques. Most addresses in India include landmarks like "Near High School", "Near Railway station" and so on. When the fraud publishers re apply for new AdSense accounts, they will use different variants of the address and it is almost impossible for Google to detect the applicant is the same person.
In countries like USA, it is almost impossible to use a different variant of an address or name. Name and Address are well defined and bank will not accept an altered name or address.
So, there is racism or discrimination is not the reason for 6 months requirement for AdSense publishers from countries like India, Pakistan and China. Rather, Google want to reduce fraud publishers and increase the overall quality of AdSense program.Should I own the site for 6 months or just the domain has to be 6 months old?
The policy regarding 6 months old websites for AdSense eligibility is not very clear, even though the intention is clear - "prevent abuse". There are different interpretations given by different experts and I will tell me stand too.
Before we conclude the exact definition of the 6 months requirement, let us analyze the wordings used by Google in various places.
Eligibility to participate in AdSense
The official AdSense support website states that you must have owned the site for 6 months before you can use AdSense Ads on the site.
Have you owned your site for 6 months?
In some locations, including China and India, we require publishers to have owned their sites for 6 months. We've taken this step to ensure the quality of our advertising network and protect the interests of our advertisers and existing publishers.
This definition confirms you must have owned the site for 6 months. Even though the words does not clarify it, I am sure Google meant you should have an active site, running with valid content for atleast 6 months before you can apply for AdSense for this site. Read more at the official site.
Many people interpret this as the domain has to be 6 months old. I have seen domains listed for sale claiming "This domain is 6 months old and is eligible to use AdSense".
I am sure this is not what Google wanted. You cannot simply purchase a domain name which is 6 months old and start using AdSense on the next day. The intention of the policy is, you must have worked hard for several months to bring quality content to the site and started getting good traffic to your site.
Another intention of the policy, in my view, is to prevent fraud where people buy new sites, do something to get some money and then move on to the next site.
However, I have seen many people from countries like China and India getting AdSense applications approved even when the site is not 6 months old. This indicates that the 6 months requirement is only to prevent abuse of the system but if the site is very good, Google would go ahead and approve the site for AdSense.Can we use existing AdSense account on new websites before 6 months?
This is another question many publishers ask often. There are no clear answer from Google on this. I have seen many forum threads in Google AdSense forum asking this question and many top contributors have given conflicting answers.
The Help topic that talk about 6 months requirement is written in the context of new AdSense applications. It does not clearly say whether this rule is applicable for existing AdSense accounts on new sites.
Here is my take on this. Google want to do business with genuine publishers. The 6 months requirement is to turn away fraud publishers and low quality websites. If you have developed a high quality website with lot of valuable content, why would Google not allow you to use AdSense? In my personal opinion, Google may allow you to use AdSense Ads on a new site, if it has sufficient quality content that make it a valuable publisher for Google. However, if you created a brand new web site with the hope that you will have valuable content in future but have nothing yet, it may not be a good fit for AdSense. Can we use AdSense Ads on blogs before 6 months?
Many bloggers are confused whether they can use AdSense Ads on new blogs that they create on www.blogger.com or www.wordpress.com. In those cases, the site itself is more than 6 months old and the blog website is not really owned by the bloggers. Google has not clearly mentioned whether the blog should be active for 6 months before using AdSense.
This is the only information I could find on Google AdSense support regarding the 6 months requirement on blogs:
Signing up for a Blogger account is fast, easy and free.
Once you've created your blog, you can begin displaying Google ads in minutes by following the instructions here.
The above information states that you can start using AdSense on blogs in minutes after creating it. But be aware that this topic does not really specify whether this is applicable for publishers from China and India.
Here is my take on it. If you are from a country that have the 6 months requirement (India, China, other Asian countries) to use AdSense, and just created a new blog on blogger.com or similar sites, wait 6 months. During the first 6 months to 1 year, you are not going to make much revenue out of your blog anyway.
Even after completing 6 months, don't start using AdSense immediately unless you have good traffic to your site. Once you start getting 500 page views or more per day, you can start using your AdSense on those blogs, provided you meet other requirements for AdSense.
If you do not have an AdSense account, apply for a new AdSense account 6 months after you start the blog and after you have created more than 100 very good quality articles. If there is no traffic to your blog yet, AdSense will not be helpful yet and so why take risk? If you lose your AdSense account, you cannot reapply. So it is worth the wait.Publishers from which countries require 6 months waiting before using AdSense on sites?
I could not find any detailed information on Google AdSense help that clearly says which countries require 6 months waiting before using AdSense Ads on their sites. The only place I found was the help page that talk about AdSense Eligibility which says "In some locations, including China and India, we require publishers to have owned their sites for 6 months". Google has specifically mentioned India and China, but the same rule could be applicable for other countries as well at the discretion of Google reviewer.
Also See: What is the highest AdSense CPC?
Here is a AdSense forum thread that include few responses by a Top AdSense Forum contributor who repeatedly say that the 6 months requirement is applicable for everyone from every country, and it will be soon reflected in the AdSense policies. He conflicts with another top contributor in the same thread on this, but he is firm on his argument and he claims there were some background talk on this topic. He sounds like he has some direct information from Google regarding this. (That thread is almost 1 year old and Google hasn't changed their words on 'Some locations like China and India....')
Conclusion: 6 months requirement is applicable for all sites and blogs
Google specifically require publishers from India and China to wait for 6 months until the site get significant amount of quality content. Even though Google hasn't listed out the countries which require to wait 6 months before using AdSense Ads on the sites, it is a good idea for everyone to wait until the site have a significant number of high quality posts (100+ articles/blog posts) and have good amount of traffic (500+ organic page views per day). Most websites do not make any significant revenue during first year, so it is worth waiting to get an AdSense account than creating one now and losing it soon.
More reading: Tips to get AdSense approval
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Very useful article. I really need answers of such questions. Thanks a lot.