What Are Google AdSense Rules?

1. Never Click Your Own Ads or Artificially Increase Activity

Publishers must not click their own Google ads for any reason, including testing whether an advertisement works.

Google also prohibits any manual or automated method designed to increase clicks or impressions artificially. Examples include:

• Repeatedly refreshing pages to generate impressions
• Using bots, scripts, automated browsers, or deceptive software
• Asking employees or contractors to interact with advertisements
• Joining click-exchange or paid-to-click programs
• Purchasing traffic intended to generate advertising engagement
• Clicks must come from genuine user interest in the advertised product or service.

Publishers who want to inspect an advertisement should use the preview and testing tools provided by Google rather than interacting with a live ad.

2. Do Not Encourage Visitors to Click or View Ads

Publishers cannot directly or indirectly encourage visitors to click or view non-rewarded advertising.

Prohibited methods include:

• Writing “click the ads to support this website”
• Offering rewards, money, points, or downloads for interacting with an ad
• Asking friends, followers, or customers to click advertisements
• Placing arrows, animations, icons, or images that draw unnatural attention to an ad
• Labeling advertisements as “resources,” “recommended links,” or “special offers”
• Making ads look like navigation, download buttons, or editorial links

Google generally allows labels such as “Advertisements” or “Sponsored Links” when a label is needed. Ads and publisher content must remain visually distinguishable.

3. Use Legitimate Traffic Sources

A website displaying AdSense advertisements must not receive traffic through systems designed to create artificial impressions or clicks.

Prohibited sources include:

• Paid-to-click and paid-to-surf websites
• Autosurf and click-exchange networks
• Bots or automated traffic programs
• Unsolicited bulk email
• Software that automatically opens, redirects to, or loads a publisher’s pages
• Pop-ups or browser tools that interfere with navigation

Paid advertising itself is not automatically prohibited. Publishers may promote their websites through legitimate advertising platforms, but the landing page must deliver what the advertisement promised and provide a usable experience.

4. Keep Ads Away From Prohibited Content

Google Publisher Policies identify content on which Google-served advertisements are not allowed. Major categories of Google Ads include:

• Illegal content
• Copyright infringement
• Dangerous or derogatory content
• Misrepresentative content
• Content enabling dishonest behavior
• Sexually explicit content
• Child sexual abuse or exploitation
• Content promoting compensated sexual acts
• Adult themes presented as family content

Publishers are responsible for content they produce as well as guest posts, comments, forums, uploaded files, embedded media, and other user-generated material.

5. Publish Original, Useful, and Reviewed Content

Google-served advertisements should not appear on pages without meaningful publisher content or on pages containing low-value material.

Examples of risky pages include:

• Automatically generated pages are published without human review
• Copied or lightly rewritten articles
• Scraped search results or product feeds
• Pages that embed videos or posts without adding commentary
• Empty category, login, error, exit, or thank-you pages
• Pages created primarily to display advertisements
• Unfinished pages or placeholder content

Google also prohibits monetization of replicated content copied from another source without meaningful commentary, curation, analysis, or added value.

6. Use Compliant Ad Placement and Ad Code

Advertisements must not be placed where visitors are likely to mistake them for navigation, buttons, downloads, or regular website content.

Avoid placements that:

• Sit directly beside navigation or action buttons
• Cover text, images, forms, or interactive features
• Cause accidental taps on mobile devices
• Make it difficult for visitors to close an overlay
• Appear in pop-ups, pop-unders, or emails
• Load on non-content pages
• Looks like editorial recommendations
• Fully or partially obscure content
• Allow content to obscure the advertisement

Google permits certain modifications to AdSense code, but those changes must not artificially improve performance or harm advertisers.

7. Follow Privacy and Consent Requirements

Publishers must maintain a privacy policy that clearly explains data collection, data sharing, data usage, cookies, IP addresses, web beacons, and other identifiers connected to Google advertising services.

For users in the EEA, UK, and Switzerland, publishers serving personalized advertising must use a Google-certified consent management platform integrated with the applicable IAB Transparency and Consent Framework requirements.

Publishers should also:

• Keep their privacy policy accessible from the website footer
• Explain the use of Google and third-party advertising cookies
• Provide appropriate consent or opt-out controls
• Review regional privacy laws affecting their audiences
• Configure personalized, non-personalized, or limited ads correctly
• Confirm that their CMP supports TCF v2.3
• Test consent signals after website, tag, or CMP changes

Google’s Privacy & Messaging section in AdSense can help publishers create and manage certain consent messages, but using Google’s tool does not remove the publisher’s responsibility to comply with applicable law.