Google AdWords Account Suspended? Here’s How To Fix It

Google Adwords plays a crucial role in garnering revenue for a business. So what happens when you get an email from Google stating that your Google AdWords account has been suspended? Confusion. Chaos. Panic.

If your ad was already up and running the day before, this suspension might come as a bolt of a shock to you. Unaware of what has caused this suspension and how to go on about it, you’re stuck in your own thoughts, trying to figure Google out. We understand that you’re losing your money, your time, (maybe your mind too) in this situation. To help you out, we’ve penned down this guide to help you recover from the Google Adwords account suspended issue.

What Happens When My Google AdWords Account Gets Suspended?

When your Google Adwords account is suspended, all your ads stop running. The suspension doesn’t just cease the advertisement violating Google’s policies but all ads running on that account. The ad groups, individual ads or any running campaigns are temporarily stopped until you can make the required amendments.
After suspension,

• Google won’t show any of your Ads on it’s network
• Google won’t take their users/ your potential customers to your website or landing pages
• Your merchant account may also get suspended
• Any other account that uses similar information (such as the same email) will also be suspended
• If you create another account with similar information, you guessed it, it’ll also be suspended

In most cases, google account suspensions come as a surprise and without enough information for you to recognize the reason. You’re now responsible for following the breadcrumbs and finding the reason yourself.
Don’t Panic! And definitely don’t be hasty. It’ll get you nowhere. Immediately reaching out to Google support to get the suspension removed might do more harm than good.
Instead, this is the time to patiently look through your Ad as well as your website or landing page and look for the violations. Don’t worry, we’ll help you!

Reasons of Google AdWords Account being Suspended

Google Ads accounts can get suspended if your ads have violated one or multiple Google policies. These policies set up by google are to ensure that the advertiser doesn’t put the users, Google, or their partners at any risk. This can include advertising malicious content or dangerous products, cloaking on the website, or even malware on your website.
Other than the violations of policies, one of the major causes of a suspended account is malware. This one is sure to catch you off guard since as an advertiser, you’re completely ignorant of the malware on your website.
We’ll get more into details about removing malware from your website, but before that, let’s discuss the google policies that you could be violating.

Understanding Google Ads Policies

Google Ads has 4 major categories of policies that an advertiser needs to be wary of. Violation of these policies usually results in temporary suspension of the ads account.
The 4 major categories are:

• Prohibited Content
• Prohibited Practices
• Restricted Content and Features
• Editorial and Technical

Prohibited Content

This refers to all the content that Google deems unfit to be advertised on its platform. Promotion of adult content, illegal goods and services, dangerous or fake products, content promoting discrimination or hate, and more are some of the prohibited content as per google’s policy. This type of content is believed to be harmful to the consumers reading it.

Counterfeit Goods

You cannot sell or promote counterfeit products on google. The goods have a logo that closely resembles the logo of a genuine brand, advertises similar features while trying to establish their identity as genuine.

Dangerous Products and Services

In their quest of keeping the users away from harm, Google doesn’t allow you to advertise harmful products like psychoactive drugs and tobacco products, firearms, ammunition, explosives, fireworks and any equipment for the manufacturing of these products.

Enabling Dishonest Behavior

Google doesn’t allow you to run Ads that advertise products and services promoting dishonest behavior. This includes creation of false documents – from passports and national identification documents to exams-taking services or paper writing. Other practices include services that enable users to gain unauthorized access to devices, tracking and spying services and technology, and more.

Inappropriate Content

Any content that promotes hate, violence, discrimination, or intolerance is not tolerated by Google. Any Ads or their respective landing pages and web pages displaying signs of racial discrimination, hatred towards an individual or a group/community, images of accidents, murders, self-harm etc., are all suspended.

Prohibited Practices

Prohibited activities refer to anything in the Ad copy, landing page, or website that tricks the users. One such issue can be cloaking on the website.
Cloaking is an SEO technique where the content visible to search engines is different from what is visible to the users. This technique is often used to rank on the first SERPs on content that wouldn’t rank otherwise. However, when this technique is used in Google Adwords and is caught by Google, you can bid your account farewell. However, if you’re willing to learn how to create content that gets ranked organically, you can learn about it here.
Other practices could include sending a user on a different temporary landing page while the actual destination is elsewhere.
If your website is collecting sensitive information about the users without well established protection policies, they are considered to be a part of prohibited practices.
If your Ads and the landing page or your website are not related in their content or their purpose, Google can interpret it as bait or misinterpretation to manipulate the users.

Restricted Content and Features

These policies relate to content that is restricted in some parts of the world but legal in others. Google, as the elite search engine in the world, ensures that culturally sensitive information is out of reach for some of its users. Therefore, in the case of such content, Google limits the visibility of your advertisements in some locations. Advertisers might also be required to fulfill other requirements to run these ads.
Some common products and services that are advertised within these stated limitations are:

• Sexual content
• Alcohol
• Copyrights
• Gambling and Games
• Healthcare and Medicines
• Political Content
• Financial services
• Trademarks
• Legal Requirements
• Other Restricted Businesses
• Restricted Ad Formats and Features
• Content Made for Kids

Editorial and Technical Requirements

Ads running on the engine should add ease and appeal to a user’s experience, not make it more difficult or annoying. For this purpose, there are certain editorial and technical requirements set in place that guide advertisers in the right direction.

Editorial

All ads, extensions, and destinations must uphold high editorial standards. These should look professional, contain well documented content that is easy to understand, relevant to the purpose and useful.

Destination Requirements

Your Ad copies and Ad destinations should be perfectly in sync with each other, the call to action should take users to the relevant webpage. The destination should also add value to the user who is visiting.

Technical Requirements

Advertisers must follow all technical requirements to ensure that the Ads are functional.

Ad Format Requirements

Google has set forth some Ad format requirements that you must follow while running ads. Specifications like the character limit for Ad copy, file size limits or video length limit, etc.
As we’ve discussed these 4 categories of violations, you might be able to find out where you went wrong. However, keeping these aside, it is a possibility that the violation wasn’t your fault.

Other Reasons for Google Ads Account Suspension

Apart from policy violations, here are some other reasons that your Google Ads account could get suspended for.

Age Requirements

For a majority of countries (unless otherwise specified), the minimum age requirement to own and manage a Google account is 13 years. Violation of the age requirements can be another reason for a suspended account.

While creating a Google account that is linked to your Google Ads account, ensure you submit your own age and not that of your business.

Ads Grant policy

Inability to comply with Google Ads Grant Policy can be another reason for a suspended account. Here’s all you need to know about this policy.

Unauthorized Account Activity

If Google detects any unauthorized activity on your Ads account, they might temporarily suspend the account for protection purposes.

Billing and Payment Issues

This includes situations like:

• Selling promotional codes or using more than one on your account
• Requesting your bank to reverse a charge on Google Ads balance.
• Suspicious payments made via your Ads account.
• If you have unpaid balance.

Under these circumstances, Google might suspend your account temporarily.

Did you know: While some account suspensions are temporary and can be unsuspended after mistakes are rectified, some account suspensions are permanent. Once you violate an egregious policy, you cannot advertise with Google ever again.

Egregious Violations

Violations as stated below come under permanent suspension:

• Circumventing Systems – Practices like cloaking, repeated policy violations, making another Google Ads account when the previous one is suspended, submitting false information and more.
• Coordinated deceptive Practices – Concealing information about yourself, your identity and country of origin while advertising content about social, political issues and public matters.
• Counterfeit – Advertising fake goods that have a logo or trademark that mimics the trademark of another legitimate brand.
• Promotion of Unauthorized Pharmacies – Selling prescription drugs without a prescription and advertising it in locations without a license. Google takes this violation very seriously and provides no prior warning before suspending your Ads account.
• Unacceptable Business Practices – False advertisement, impersonating brands and receiving payments from users without delivering on promised services.
• Trade Sanctions Violation – Ads run for businesses in embargoed territories or targeting embargoed territories.
• Sexually Explicit Content – Content promotion graphic sexual acts, underage, non-consensual, necrophilia or other illegal sexual content. Google takes this violation very seriously as well. In case of other sensitive content like compensated sexual acts, child abuse imagery, adult themes in family friendly content, profane language and animal cruelty; you’ll receive a warning 7 days prior to the suspension.

The steps to fix Google Adwords account suspension specified below are applicable for temporary suspensions. In the case of egregious violations, we do not claim that an appeal will work in your favor.

How to Fix Google AdWords Account Suspended Issue?

Once your Google Ads Account gets suspended, what do you do? No, not freak out! Connect with the Google support and question their decision, maybe? Nope, not that either.

This is where you start dissecting everything from the scratch, finding which policy you could’ve violated or checking your website for malware. Follow it up with making changes on your copy or your website before submitting your suspended account for review.

The secret to this is practicing patience and being professional in your approach. Even when you’ve rectified everything you could, Google might not revert just yet. The process might take some time, but if you’ve found all possible discrepancies and sorted them out, you’ll have an unsuspended account soon.

But how can you fix these issues? Here’s how!

Step 1 – Review the Violation Carefully

Now that we’ve already discussed all potential policy violations, it’s your job to figure out which policy has been violated. While this might seem like a difficult task, you can start by going through the email sent by Google.

This email might hint at the policy you’ve violated or might link to it. In both cases, you won’t have to fret while finding the cause of your account suspension. More often than not, the email sent via Google hints at malicious activity or content on your website.

If the content has been posted by you, this is where you make amends. However, if your website has been hacked, you can end up in worse trouble than a suspended account.

If web crawlers (spider/bots) browse the internet and reach a website (yours in this case) that contains malware, Google tends to blacklist such a website. Warnings like “Danger! Malware ahead”, “The site contains malware”, “Deceptive site ahead”, and more, inform users that the site is harmful.

This will stop users from coming to your website and can greatly affect the traffic that you were getting otherwise. In this case, it is imperative to resolve a hacked website as soon as possible.

Step 2- Assess What Needs to Be Changed

Considering that you’ve recognized the violated policy, you can now move on to deciding what part of the Ad copy, the landing page, or the website needs to be changed.

If you haven’t found any violations so far, you can use malware detection and removal software to find malicious content on your website. Post scanning, you can start comparing the information between your Google Ads account and your website. All specifications regarding the identification of your brand, cost-related information as well as all terms and conditions should correlate between the two.

Any discrepancies in the information shared on your Ads account and website can be the cause of your suspended account.

Step 3- Rectify All Policy Violations

You already know why your Ads account got suspended, now all that’s left to do is rectify the mistakes and notify Google about it. Let’s get on with the first one.

Depending on the reason being your suspension, you can rectify the violations in different ways:

Removing Malware From the Website

If malware is the issue, don’t waste any time in getting it fixed. Install malware-removing software to scan your website, then use it to clean and upgrade the website. The quicker you do this, the less will be the chances of getting blacklisted.

These softwares will rid your website of all spam content, redirects, and phishing pages. However, the software cannot remove malware from browser caches or WordPress. These need to be cleared before you appeal to Google. If you do not clean the cache, Google and users might still be able to see the previous content with malware. This will reduce your chances of getting unsuspended.

We also recommend checking if any of the spam pages have been indexed on Google. If that is the case, you must regenerate your sitemap and resubmit to Google.

Fix the Content Issues

Your Ads copy as well as linked landing pages should fulfill Google’s editorial and technical requirements. You can find support in Reddit and Quora forums that can help you write your copies better and more in tune with Google’s policies. Also, ensure that both your Ad copies and the content on the landing page or your website correlate.

Rectify Payment Issues

Outstanding payments is another reason your account got suspended. So what do you do now? You pay your dues.

Once you’ve rectified all these potential issues, it’s time to appeal to Google.

How to Submit an Appeal for Google Ads Suspension?

Submitting an appeal to Google is an easy task, however, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind while requesting Google to reinstate your Ads account.

• If there were multiple reasons for your account suspension, you must address every reason individually. This includes the violation, how you rectified it, and how you’ll ensure it isn’t repeated.
• This is your one chance at getting your account reinstated and you cannot afford to make an error. Any error hereon will be considered misrepresentation or false information by Google, and you won’t get your account unsuspended.
• You are required to provide a “summary of the issue” at the end of the form where you present the issue, and how you fixed it.
• The form also allows you to attach a file along. You can use this to your advantage in the case of malware on your website or provide proof of rectifications. In case of malware, you can attach a report from the software you’re using.

In case of a hacked website, you’ll have to perform some additional steps to ensure that your Ads account gets unsuspended. This includes:

• Ensuring that you have cleaned the cache
• Submitting a new sitemap
• Requesting a re-indexing

How to Avoid Adwords Account Suspension in the Future?

Avoiding account suspension is always better than appealing to Google to reinstate your account. Now that you’ve experienced a suspension, and we’re guessing, made the changes required, it’s time to be extra careful with your advertisements.

So what can you do to avoid the suspension of your account in the future?

• Be thorough with all Google Adwords policies and grants policies. Ensure no policy is violated in the future.
• Ensure there are no dues that have to be pending.
• Since malware is the most common reason for a suspended account, install a security plugin. This plugin will keep your website safe from spam and unauthorized activities.

It’s not very often that Google suspends an Adwords account without prior warnings. Google first reviews your individual advertisement and disapproves it if it doesn’t follow the guidelines. However, multiple Ad disapprovals eventually lead to a suspended account. If any of your advertisements did not pass the Google review, you might want to make changes, now.

To make things more clear, here is a clear differentiation between an Adwords disapproval and an Adwords account suspension.

Ad Suspension vs Ad Disapproval

Google AdWord Account Suspension and Ad Disapproval are related to one another but refer to different things. While Ad disapproval is associated with a singular Ad that doesn’t abide by all the guidelines,
In some cases, Google might not allow you to run these ads in the first place, disapproving them during the initial review process. Without the approval of Google, your Ads will not go live. This is where google first checks for any violations and flags them in situations like those mentioned below.
You mention inappropriate themes, advertise adult content, gambling, offensive content and dangerous or counterfeit products.

• Your ads contain copyrighted content
• You’ve mentioned your company’s business phone number in the Ad copy
• Claims like “the best in business” or “Number 1” are used in your copy
• Your call to action is not approved by Google – such as “click here”
• You haven’t followed the basic grammatical requirements for posting an Ad
• Your root domain is not consistent on the copy and the destination

Google usually sends an email to inform you of the disapproval so you can make changes. However, repetition of these issues can lead to the suspension of your account.

While disapprovals are in regards to individual Ads that haven’t even gone live, it doesn’t impact the traffic coming onto your website or landing page. In the case of a suspended account, not only the running Ad that violates Google policies but every other Ad running from that account is stopped.

What to Do if Your Review Request Is Rejected?

Your review request can be rejected. Even when you’ve made all the changes required and are ready to get your account reinstated, Google might not give in just yet.

In such a case, you can try contacting the Google Ads Team as a last resort. This step should be followed after all other ways have been exhausted.

Your priority is to fill up the review form and hope that Google reviews it. We do not recommend reaching out to the team before rectifying your mistakes and submitting your appeal.

If the Google Ads Team rejects your appeal, then that is the end for your Google Ads account.

Conclusion

Getting your Google Adwords account suspended can be a real hassle. The process of getting your suspended account reinstated is time-consuming and while you don’t rectify your errors, you keep on losing on revenue that you would have garnered. To ensure that such a situation doesn’t arise ever, or in this case, ever again, keep the following things in mind:

• Carefully draft an Ad to ensure you are not violating any policies. The same applies to the content of the landing page or linked website. You can post your queries in Quora and Reddit forums and communities when unsure.
• Closely follow google policy changes and modifications and ensure that your ad does not violate any new policies.
• Install a security plugin to protect your website from malware.
• Pay attention to all disapproved ads and websites and proactively make changes to avoid account suspension.

Avoiding Adwords account suspension is your best bet. However, if you end up with a suspended account, following these steps should help you get your account reinstated in no time.

FAQs

What Does Google Ads Account Suspension Mean?

Google Ads account suspension means that Google has shut down your ads for violating their policies. Google has four categories of policies which include prohibited content, prohibited practices, restricted content and features, and editorial and technical policies.
In most cases, this suspension is temporary and google will unsuspend your account once you’ve made all the required changes. You can appeal for a review from Google once you’ve rectified all policy violations.

Why Was My Google AdWords Account Suspended?

Your Google Ads account was suspended because you either violated Google’s Ad policies, age requirements, grants policy, experienced unauthorized account activity, or faced billing and payment issues. In case of violation of Google Ads policies, your suspension could be the result of promotions of prohibited content, restricted content, or use of prohibited practices.

Google Adwords suspended my account, how do I reactivate my account?

To reactivate your Google Adwords account, find the reason behind your suspended account. Look for the policy violation and make changes to fix the issue. Once you’ve fixed the issue you can fill an application with Google for review. This is basically to inform Google that you’ve mended your mistake so your account can be unsuspended.

I Was Running the Same Ads Before, and Google Didn’t Suspend My Account. Why Now?

Google policies are not consistent and keep changing with time. This means that what was once accepted on the platform, might not enjoy the same status today.

In some cases, this can also be caused if the web crawler is unable to detect harmful content in your advertisement. Since these AI bots aren’t completely error-proof, this can happen. These bots might be able to detect malware on your website which wasn’t there previously.

Another possibility is that another user who didn’t find your ad helpful or found spam on it can report it to Google. This can initiate the process of ad disapproval and temporary suspension.

How Do I Ask Google to Unsuspend My Account?

You can ask google to unsuspend your account through a review request form. Only fill this form after you’ve recognized the reason your account got suspended and have made the required changes. In the review request, you must specify the policy violated, the changes you made to rectify the issue, and how you plan to ensure that such a problem doesn’t arise again.

My Competitors Are Doing the Same Thing as Me and Their Ads Are Still Running. Why?

There can be multiple reasons for this.

• Google hasn’t detected their policy violations but might do so soon, thus suspending their ads.
• You violated multiple policies that have led to the suspension of your account.
• Your payment is pending or Google thinks that your credit card is a stolen one or finds your payments suspicious.
• Your website or landing page has malware which Google considers to be a prohibited practice.

Even when you and your competitors are running similar ads, the process isn’t comparable. Rather than focusing on what others might be doing or how they haven’t received a suspension, your goal must be to find out the reason leading up to your suspension.

Will My Google Adwords Account Suspension Issue Hurt My Organic Rankings?

No, your Google AdWords account suspension will not have an effect on your organic rankings. Your organic traffic is separate from the traffic brought onto the website through ads. This traffic comes through unpaid search results on different search engines. Even with a suspended account, you are still going to get your usual amount of organic traffic.

However, the suspended account will greatly affect the overall traffic coming onto your website through different channels (paid and unpaid).