Frustrated about a recent Google Ads account suspension?

Violation of Terms and Conditions and Policy Violations

This is one of the most common reasons that get Google Ads accounts suspended or even banned. You need to go through the Terms and Conditions and Google Ads Policies to ensure that you have a very good grasp before you start making ads.

❌ Circumventing Systems — Engaging in any activity that seeks to circumvent the quality systems put in place by Google will get your account suspended. Some examples of activities that try to circumvent system include cloaking, sneaky redirects, and manipulating ad text.

❌ Counterfeit — You are not allowed to use Google ads to promote any counterfeit goods or anything that attempts to pass itself off as the original brand. Some examples of these include any clones, imitations, replicas, and knockoffs.

❌ Promoting unsanctioned pharmacies – Any ads that promote pharmaceutical products without first applying for authorization may be suspended. This will include targeting locations where you are not approved to sell pharmaceutical products

❌ Undesirable business practices — Unacceptable business practices is a very serious violation that could result in not only a suspension but a permanent ban. Some deceptive practices include phishing and misstating or concealing critical information about your service, product or business.

❌ Unfair Advantage —This is using Google ads to gain an unfair advantage over other participants in the market. For instance, having several accounts and targeting the same product with different ads to trying to appear more than once on the search listings.

❌ Repeated Violations — If you violate the terms and policies too many times you will get your account suspended.

Google Ads Account Suspended for Payment and Billing Issues

❌ Abuse of Promo Codes – The selling of promotional codes or the use of more than one promo code is forbidden.

❌ Chargebacks — Google makes money from charging you to advertise on the platform and hence when you initiate chargebacks you are depriving them of revenue. This could get your account suspended or even banned.

❌ Suspicious Payment Activity — If Google detects any falsified or suspicious activity on your account including being connected to previously suspended accounts you could get in trouble.

❌ Unpaid Balance — If you have at least one unpaid balance you could get a suspension, which can only be lifted by making payment.

Other Google Ads Policy Violations

❌ Dynamic landing pages/Redirects – If any of your pages redirect to other pages or have dynamic content, they may provide a bad user experience. They will be in violation of Landing Page rules and will get your Google Ads account suspended.

❌ Missing Business Information – If your website is missing critical information such as phone numbers, email addresses, and physical address it may be deemed untrustworthy.

❌ You Publish Deceptive Content –The definition of deceptive content varies but it may include anything that misleads or misstates the facts. For instance, you are not allowed to run Google Ads to promote get rich quick schemes or deceptive weight loss programs. You are also not allowed to make unfounded competitive claims such as our service is the best without third party backup of your claims.

All it takes is for a Google ads employee to believe you are being deceptive for your account to get suspended. There are other cases of deceptive content such as using trademarks and selling copyrighted material, which is likely to be flagged and get your account suspended.

❌ Your Website Was Hacked or You have Malware. Most of the time, the list of violations will not contain a “hacked website “as a reason for the suspension of your Google Ads account. Unfortunately, having a website that is hacked so that it redirects to webpages with malware or deceptive content could get your suspended.

If your website is hacked and the web pages have been infected with malware that is installed into users’ computers, your Google Ads account could be banned. This means the security of your website is very important since not taking the necessary precautions could seriously disrupt your business.

❌ Having More than One Account - Circumventing Google’s systems by having more than one account is one of the most common reasons that result in a permanent ban. Google expects every business to run its ads from only one account, and having more than one is seen as trying to circumvent the systems.

Google is often vague when they send a suspension or warning email and since many users may not have the expertise to fix offenses they make the mistake of creating a new account. Google Ads will immediately suspend the new account for trying to circumvent the quality systems as their systems can easily associate the two accounts.

As such, it is always advisable to fix any warnings or suspension rather than open a new account as doing otherwise could result in a permanent ban.

❌ Poor-quality Landing Pages - Low-quality landing pages may take many forms. For instance, bidding on Google ads only to take that traffic to a page full of Ads, to an affiliate website or a different domain obviously provides a bad user experience. Moreover, it is a violation of destination requirements that Google Ads takes very seriously.

❌ Suspicious Payment Methods - Problems with payment methods are a common issue when it comes to suspensions. It is usually prevalent with users that have more than one account that all have the same payment methods. For instance, if you have the same credit card for two accounts, Google Ads will link them together and suspend the accounts.

It often happens when a new Google Ads account has credit cards associated with an account that was suspended in the past. Another common reason that may trigger suspicious payment methods suspension is when the name of the cardholder is different from what you have on the ad account. Google could also suspend your account if you are using virtual cards or dome debit cards which they think could expose the platform to abuse.

How Do I Fix My Suspended Google Ad Account?

The fixes for a suspended account will depend on the type of suspension or warning and the cause of the suspension. However, the first thing to do when you get that initial email telling you of the suspension is to:

Google Ads Consultation!

Still not sure what to do? Book 30 minutes of time with me to discuss your account and receive actionable items you can use. This is based on my 17 years using Google ads and cleaning up over 150 Ad accounts.

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