PC Hell: Google Adsense Help - You have 3 working days to make changes to your site

Google Adsense is a program where web page owners can sign up and display ads on their sites and earn money. Depending on the type of site and the amount of traffic coming to the site, it can be quite lucrative. You might even become somewhat accustomed to the monthly checks from Google. This is why you might panic when you receive an email from Google Adsense telling you that you have 3 working days to make changes to your site, or you might lose that income.

This is what happened to me with one of my sites this morning.

The Letter from Google

The letter I received from Google this morning is below:

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not
accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

During a recent review of your account we found that you are currently
displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our program
policies
(https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-1pp-en).

--------------------------------------------------
EXAMPLE PAGE:

Please note that this URL is an example and that the same violations may
exist on other pages of this website or other sites in your network.

VIOLATION(S) FOUND:

COMMENT SPAM: As stated in our program policies, AdSense publishers may
not display Google ads on pages with adult or mature content. While we
understand that it may be challenging to monitor user-generated content,
such as comments, on your site, we require publishers to check that the
webpages containing their ad code complies with our program policies. More
information about this policy can be found in our help center
(https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=116000).

REQUESTED ACTION: Please make all necessary changes in the next 72 hours.

If the violations are corrected within the aforementioned time period, ad
serving will not be affected. If changes are not made and/or other policy
violations are encountered during the review process, ad serving will be
disabled to your site.

ACCOUNT STATUS: ACTIVE

Your AdSense account remains active. However, if we continue to find
problems, we may disable your entire account. Therefore, we suggest that
you take the time to review the rest of your network to ensure that all of
your other pages are in compliance with our policies.

Issue ID#

               --------------------------------------------------
               Thank you for your cooperation.

               Sincerely,

               The Google AdSense Team
               ----------------
               For more information regarding this email, please visit our Help Center:
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=113058&stc=aspe-ai4-en.

Background about the Situation

Actually the URL in the email was not even my domain. Someone copied the page source code from my site webtrail.com, and put it on another domain. Then they changed all the base content to spanish porn references. The Google Adsense codes are still intact on the site with my publisher ID, so Google assumes the site is mine and sends me the violation email. Here is a screenshot of the page

This is just plain malicious in every sense of the word. What do the culprits of this scam accomplish? Since the Adsense publisher ID on the page is still mine, they do not profit monetarily from the site. The only reason someone would do this is simply to get your Adsense publisher account disabled.

How to Contact Google Adsense Support

Since you cannot reply to the email from Google via email, how do you respond to the violation? There is a form you must fill out on their Adsense Help site to take care of a situation like this. Click on the following link to be taken to the form, you will have to log into your Adsense account as well.

Policy Notification Error Form

How to Stop A Google Adsense Hijacking from Happening

Because this culprit copied the source code of my page and placed it on their own domain, my publisher account was placed in jeopardy. To prevent this from happening to you, follow these simple steps to make sure only domains that you approve show your Google ads.

1) Log into your Adsense account

2) Click on the Adsense Setup tab

3) Click on Allowed Sites

4) Place a dot in the field for "Only allow certain sites to show ads for my account"

5) Type the domains that you wish to allow to serve Google ads in the box below

6) Click Save Changes