Get Your Report for Free!

Top 5 AdSense Publisher Concerns

  • 303
  • 1.7K
Top 5 AdSense Publisher Concerns

The Google AdSense team reached out via Twitter for feedback about the kinds of things AdSense publishers wanted help with.

“Dear publishers, we want to know if you face any difficulties when using AdSense. We’d love to solve these issues & create video content for you to understand how to navigate the product. So please let us know in the comments below.”

Top AdSense Publisher Concerns

It’s understandable why AdSense would reach out. Google’s official AdSense forums and Facebook page are dominated by three questions:

  1. Why was my AdSense account disabled?
  2. Why hasn’t my account been approved yet?
  3. How do I contact customer support? (presumably to ask one of the two above questions)
Screenshot of official AdSense Facebook pageOfficial AdSense pages are full of the same repeated questions.

If you want to understand the mind of the typical AdSense publisher, one of the best sources is the WebmasterWorld AdSense community. I am a moderator of the WebmasterWorld AdSense community so perhaps my opinion may be biased. .

Top AdSense Publisher Concerns

The following is a list of top concerns that AdSense publishers have. They are listed in no particular order.

1. AdBlockers and AdSense Revenues

AdSense publishers are concerned about how ad blockers impact their revenues. AdSense publishers would like to understand if Google has any plans to get their ads whitelisted in ad blockers so that publisher revenues can increase.

Ad Blockers Should Be Illegal
Ad blockers deprive sites of needed income

2. AdSense Monetization and AMP

One of the biggest fears of transitioning to AMP is of declining AdSense revenues. According to WebmasterWorld forum members, AdSense revenues have been in a freefall for years. Publishers are naturally wary of making a bad situation worse.

Trotting out testimonials by publishers who were successful is not good enough. What publishers need are useful videos filled with actionable advice. Case studies of successful AdSense implementations of AMP are useful only if they include step by step instructions.

How Do Large Websites Make Money with AMP?

3. Better Communication Between AdWords and AdSense

There seems to be a disconnect between what happens between the AdWords and AdSense teams at Google. What happens on the AdWords side will affect publishers on the AdSense side. Publishers are asking for better communication from Google to Publishers about the impact of changes from AdWords on AdSense.

For example, the Brand Safety update was extensively covered for AdWords advertisers in 2017 but it was not well known by AdSense publishers.

In a discussion in the AdSense forum from April 2017, many AdSense publishers had never heard of the Brand Safety update.

It may be helpful if the AdSense support team needs to communicate what’s coming down the line from the AdWords side and share with publishers discuss how it might impact them on the AdSense side.

Impact of Brand Safety Update on AdSense Earnings
AdSense Shows Blank Ads on Older Articles that Aren’t Crawled

4. Improved Coordination Between Google Play and AdSense

Another example is an apparent disconnect between the AdSense teams and the Google Play team. Software is available that will create apps that will frame a website, any website. That way, a website can be promoted as an app on the Google Play store.

What is happening is that people are using the software to display content that belongs to other publishers and monetizing that content with Ad Mob.

Does that violate AdSense policies? This is an example of a disconnect between the AdSense team and other teams at Google. Web publishers would appreciate seeing Google AdSense address this concern. 

Scammers Found New Way to Steal Content, Adsense Affected

5. Focus on Helping Publishers Make More Money

What publishers may find useful is content that is frank about how a new feature will help a publisher make more money. A majority of discussions in an AdSense community are about how to make more money or the fear of losing money (which is still about making more money).

It may sound crass to focus on making money. But making money (and lots of it) is what the AdSense program is all about for publishers. 

How does a new feature help an AdSense publisher make more money? how to make more money.

For example, a WebmasterWorld member posted a discussion about a new category of sensitive topics for blocking. What is it? What exactly does it block? How does this impact earnings and what benefit does it provide site visitors?

Was this new sensitive topic category created to placate publishers? How does it help publishers make more money? Is there an official AdSense post about it?

New Sensitive Categories in AdSense

AdSense Publishers Responds via Twitter

Most of the responses to the AdSense tweet were fairly repetitive and of little use to the greater publisher community. However there were a few responses worth noting:

Google AdSense’s Official Request for Comment

Read the AdSense tweet and publisher responses here. Do you have a concern? Voice it, ask your question and with a little luck maybe Google will answer your question with an official video.

Images by Shutterstock, Modified by Author
Screenshots by Author


Subscribe to SEJ



Roger Montti


Read the Next Article
Read the Next