Adsense??

[Rake Fighter]

I write a poker blog and was planning to monetize it with Adsense as well as affiliate links. I haven't added any advertising to the site yet as I want to build a traffic base before adding advertising to my site. I recently applied to adsense and was denied. WTF?? Adsense is run on tons of gambling related sites as well as being the primary source of advertising on sites such as cardsquad.com. Real weak. At this point I do not have any links to any online poker or gambling sites. How are gambling related sites allowed to freely put adsense on their sites while I am not.

Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we're unable to accept you into Google
AdSense at this time.

We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.

Issues:

- Gambling-related content

---------------------

Further detail:

Gambling-related content: Google believes strongly in the freedom of
expression and offers broad access to content across the web without
censoring search results. However, Google policy does not permit the
placement of Google ads on sites with gambling-, casino-, or
lottery-related content. We have found your site to contain content of
this nature. Please review our policies
(https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US) for a complete list
of site content not allowed on web pages.

[Jay]

Just develop a small 1 or 2 page site with some content that meets their criteria.. might as well make it look good too.

Once they accept you, just add the code to your gambling site.

[PPP]

Some people get away with cheating for awhile, but Google shuts them down eventually. They apply their policy pretty consistently.

I still don't know why anyone in the gambling sector would put adsense on a page anyway. It's throwing away money.

[The KID]

If you ad your aff codes afterword you are approved you will lose your account with adsense if you get reported (and believe me the chances are good). Any earnings you may have accumulated will be lost. It's not worth it, believe me!

[Jay]

I own a domain name that very clearly has poker in the domain name, although the focus is on something else. The focus is on playing poker, more instructional, then about online gambling.

I contacted them and asked if I could put ads on this. They emailed back (two days later) and said no problem.

Subject: Other
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005

Hi,

I was writing simply to inquire if I can put Google Ads on a site about
poker. Specifically http://www.poker****.***. I am unsure if
this falls under "Gambling or casino-related content" which is not
permitted under your ad policies.

Please let me know, thank you.

And here's the important part of their email.

Hello Jay,

Thanks for your inquiry about placing Google ads on www.poker****.***.
Upon reviewing this site, it appears that www.poker****.*** is in compliance with the AdSense program policies, and you may place Google ads on this site.

The rest of the email was just standard.

The entire focus of my site was poker related, and they would have known that if they looked at it. I didn't try to sugarcoat anything. I've just kinda assumed that they don't care about Adsense on 'content', but just don't want Adsense on casinos and stuff like that.

If your site is instructional, and people aren't looking to play online, Adsense might not be a bad idea. Personally I don't think it's that great though.

[The KID]

Did you have any banners or affiliate links up on the site at the time they inspected it? Are you changing it after they approve it or is it going to remain that way? Just curious if they approved it in the state you are intending to use it?