AdSense Approval Checklist for New Sites
Everything to put in place before you apply to AdSense, the common rejection reasons and how to reapply.
6 min read · Updated
AdSense has no traffic minimum, which makes it the usual first stop for a new site. That does not make approval automatic. Google reviews each site before ads can show on it, and a thin or half-finished site is the most common reason for a rejection.
This checklist covers what to have in place before you apply: the content, the pages, the technical pieces and the policy basics. It also covers the rejection reasons you are most likely to meet and how to reapply. Review criteria change from time to time, so check the current requirements in the AdSense help centre before you submit.
Account basics
You need a Google account, a site you own or control, and access to edit its code or settings. At the time of writing, you also need to be at least 18 to hold an account. Each site you add goes through its own review, so you can add one site, get it approved and add others later.
Use your real name and address in the payments profile from the start. They need to match your bank details when you are paid, and Google posts a PIN to that address once your balance reaches $10.
Original, useful content
This is the step that decides most applications. A reviewer wants to see a site that offers something a visitor would come back for.
- Write it yourself. Copied, scraped or lightly reworded content from other sites is a fast route to rejection. So is mass-produced text that says nothing new.
- Have enough of it. There is no published page count. Aim for a site that feels complete for its topic, with a solid set of substantial articles rather than a handful of short posts.
- Stay focused. A clear subject helps readers and reviewers understand what the site is for.
- Clear out the clutter. Delete placeholder posts, sample pages left by your theme and anything marked "coming soon".
If you are weighing up which topics to cover, our guide to RPM by niche shows how much the subject changes earnings. In our benchmark tables, finance content carries a 1.9x multiplier and general content 0.8x.
Navigation and structure
A reviewer should be able to move around the site without getting stuck. That means a clear menu, working internal links, categories that make sense and no dead ends. Check every link in your header and footer. Broken pages, redirect loops and empty category pages all suggest a site that is not ready.
Test the site on a phone as well as a desktop. Menus that do not open, text that overflows the screen and pop-ups that cover the content all count against you.
About, Contact and Privacy pages
These pages tell a reviewer, and your readers, who runs the site and how data is handled.
- About. Who you are, what the site covers and why. It does not need to be long.
- Contact. A working form or email address. Send yourself a test message.
- Privacy policy. Explain what data you collect, what cookies are set, and that third parties, including Google, may use cookies to serve ads. Google's policies expect a disclosure of this kind on any site that shows its ads.
If you have visitors in the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, you will also need a consent message that meets Google's requirements before personalised ads can serve to them. Our guide to setting up consent messages walks through it.
Technical checks
| Item | Why it matters | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Site loads reliably | A site that is down during review is rejected | Open it on mobile data and on another network |
| HTTPS works | Certificate warnings make a site look unfinished | Check the address bar on several pages |
| Ownership verified | Google needs to confirm the site is yours | Follow the steps on the Sites page in your account |
| ads.txt published | It declares Google as an authorised seller | Visit yourdomain.com/ads.txt in a browser |
| Pages are crawlable | Reviewers and crawlers must reach your content | Check robots.txt is not blocking the site |
At the time of writing, AdSense lets you verify a site by adding its code snippet, an ads.txt snippet or a meta tag. Pick one method and follow the steps shown in your account.
The ads.txt file sits at the root of your domain. Google's entry takes the form google.com, pub-0000000000000000, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0, with your own publisher ID in place of the zeros. Copy the exact line from your account rather than typing it.
Speed is worth a look too. A slow site is not an automatic rejection, but it frustrates readers and it will only get heavier once ads are added. Run your main pages through PageSpeed Insights, and read our guide to ads and Core Web Vitals before you place your first units.
Policy-compliant content
AdSense follows Google's publisher policies, which ban some content outright and restrict other kinds. Broadly, that covers sexually explicit material, illegal content, content that infringes copyright, dangerous or hateful content and content that promotes dishonest behaviour. Topics such as alcohol, gambling and weapons have their own restrictions. Read the current list, then check older posts and user comments as well as your newest pages.
Behaviour matters as much as content. Never click your own ads, never ask anyone else to, and do not buy traffic you cannot vouch for. Our guide to invalid traffic explains why.
Common rejection reasons
At the time of writing, these are the messages you are most likely to see.
Low value content. The most frequent one. It usually means too little original content, content that adds nothing new, or a site that looks built mainly to carry ads. Add substantial original articles, remove or merge thin ones and improve the depth of what is left.
Site down or unavailable. The reviewer could not reach the site. Check your hosting, your DNS, any firewall or security rules that block crawlers, and whether the domain changed recently.
Policy violations. Some content breached the publisher policies. Find and remove it, including in archives and comments.
Under construction or no content. Placeholder pages, empty templates or a landing page with nothing behind it.
Navigation problems. Menus that do not work, overlays that hide the content, or pages that are hard to move between.
How to reapply
Fix every issue you can find, not only the one named in the message. Reviewers judge the whole site, and a second rejection for a different reason costs you more time. Once the changes are live, request a review from the Sites page in your account.
There is no published cap on reapplying, but resubmitting without real changes rarely helps. A sensible rhythm is to make substantial improvements, give them a couple of weeks to settle and be crawled, and then submit again. While you wait, you can look at Media.net, which in our tables publishes no fixed traffic minimum (Media.net guide), or at networks with low entry bars such as Journey by Mediavine and Raptive, covered in AdSense alternatives. Ezoic now asks new sites for about 250,000 monthly users.
After approval
New accounts can see limited ad serving for a while as Google assesses the traffic. That is normal, and our guide to why ad accounts get limited explains what to do in the meantime.
For a sense of scale, our benchmark tables put AdSense page RPM at about $7.00 in Tier 1, $3.00 in Tier 2 and $0.80 in Tier 3, at a reference setup of four ads per page and 60% viewability. A site with 20,000 monthly pageviews from Tier 1 readers in a general niche works out at 20 x $7.00 x 0.8, or about $112 a month. Try your own numbers in the AdSense revenue calculator, plan your units with our guide to website ad formats, and when your traffic grows, read AdSense or Mediavine or compare networks side by side.