For many, Google Adsense is a convenient way to earn money by making content, especially on YouTube. But the hyper-strict, zero-tolerance policies are so un-flexible that you can get banned, permanently, for things completely outside your control. And once your Adsense account is gone...you can never get another one. That means goodbye to any possibility of a YouTube career.
It is incredibly easy to get banned from Adsense. Absolutely anything that even LOOKS like it might be an invalid click (a click on an ad that isn't a genuine "I am interested in what is being advertised" hit) can result in your account being disabled. Unfortunately, it seems that the bots that are shrouded in secrecy and cloaked in a drizzle of company intrigue that Google uses to detect invalid clicks have decided that if the majority of traffic coming through your ads originates from social media accounts you interact with, your traffic has a much higher chance of putting the advertisers "at risk". This only further tightens the strictness of the already stubborn policies you are bound to. At this point anything can result in the termination of your accounts. A fan clicking on several ads trying to make you money, spam traffic from various phishing sites, malicious mass-clicking of ads with the intent of getting you banned, even accidently clicking on your own ad due to page load errors. These are just some of the things that can end you immediately, and if you're not already established and bringing in money, then chances are your one and only appeal will be thrown out. Google is a big fish, and to them anybody short of major websites and channels with millions of followers generating many thousands in revenue every week is completely disposable. They don't HAVE to care about customer service because they know that people like me, small time content creators with tiny channels and even smaller website, will never show up on the radar enough to even be an annoyance. They can afford to treat me like I'm worthless, and so because I was new and didn't take every step imaginable to protect myself, they did.
My YouTube channel is now unable to be monetized in any way save for Contend ID, which means I can not make money from my YouTube channel. I could make another channel, but I would have to create a fake identity to get back on to Adsense, and if I was ever caught I would be immediately banned. The worse part? I don't even know why this happened. I got an email one day saying that my Adsense was disabled. No warning, no nothing. Just boom, out of the blue, gone. I filed an appeal, and it was rejected. So essentially I can never make money via any Adsense platform ever again, and it sucks. Thankfully, there are other methods of making money by creating content. This website uses a different ad network to generate my revenue, and I am working on a Patreon to see how well I can do going down that route. But none of it will be as simple or as convenient as Adsense.
So, take it from me. If you are an up-and-coming YouTube hopeful. Don't rush in to monetizing your videos. Wait. Generate a decent sized following and ensure you always have views on your videos. Create a back-up website and produce traffic on it by integrating it with the experience of your YouTube followers. And then, only after you are certain you have a decent enough following to generate a slow but steady stream of revenue, you can set up Adsense and begin monetizing. But then, you need to protect yourself. Join up with a YouTube Network that has no contractual obligations and has decent rev share to create a safety net for yourself. Do not bring up ANYTHING to do with how much money you're making with Adsense or just anything to do with it period, as ignorant fans can think that by clicking on your ads a bunch of times they'll be making you money. There are numerous horror stories of zealous fans ruining YouTube careers by doing this. Do everything you can to protect your channel and any websites from spam traffic. Keep ads on websites placed where they are easily viewed, but not accidentally clicked. If you need to due to desktop-mobile errors, disable ads on mobile devices. There are many other things you can do to protect yourself, but they will never completely remove the risk of something outside your control getting you banned.
I was eager to get started and ignorant of how the system worked, so I went in nearly blind and paid the price. Don't make the same mistake I did.
What needs to happen is this near-monopoly Google has over monetization of content needs to end. YouTubers need some way of being able to monetize their content without Googles say-so. There needs to be more options for monetizing websites and videos than just Adsense. Something needs to happen to make it easier, and safer, for newcomers to begin making money for their work without the risk of losing everything simply because they're new.
But until then, be careful.
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