Google Ads Account Suspension: Circumventing System Policy Violation in Google Ads

Today, many businesses rely on Google Ads for brand awareness, lead generation, and revenue. As such, Google is instrumental to the growth and sustainability of their business, so it makes sense to play by the rules. Despite this, some business owners make the mistake of violating the system, which can lead to a Google Ads account suspension.

If your Ads account is suspended, it can cause significant harm, impacting your sales and revenue, and derailing your efforts in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Read on to find out the reasons behind a Google Ads account suspension, and how to deal with it if your account gets hit.

Why Does a Google Ads Account Suspension Happen?

Google doesn’t permit any ads or content that attempts to deceive its sophisticated ad review processes. If Google deems an account to be engaging in suspicious practices that interfere with the advertising systems, it could be suspended from the Google network.

One possible reason for a suspension in Google Ads is because of a violation of the Circumventing Systems Policy. In this case, it will be practically impossible to recover your Ads account. A circumventing policy violation refers to any action taken by a user with the perceived intention of trying to exploit or undermine Google’s system and policies.

What Happens When You Have a Google Ads Account Suspension?

When Google suspends your account, it will enforce some restrictions:

• It prevents you from creating new content or running any ads, including any ads that already exist.
• It suspends any associated accounts, including payments accounts and email accounts.
• It suspends any Merchant Center accounts associated with your suspended Ads account or any new Google Ads accounts you create.

4 Types of Policy Violations

Let’s take a look at some of the most common infractions of Google’s policy. These practices will all end in a Google Ads account suspension:

Cloaking

Cloaking is when a website presents different content or URLs to search engines compared to human users. For example, your site may display Flash images to users, but serve an HTML text page to search engines.

This practice is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines because it provides users with different results than they expected.

You must take care to follow Google guidelines so that your content is easily accessible, especially if it includes technologies that search engines may have trouble with, such as JavaScript or Flash.

Keep in mind that cloaking doesn’t include content personalization strategies, such as publishing different language versions of the same content. Providing the variation is compliant with Google Ads policies, and Google can review the content easily, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Manipulating ad text

Text manipulation is whenever someone uses text from multiple languages or Unicode blocks in an effort to bypass the automated system checks run by Google.

Some common techniques in text manipulation include:

• Deliberately misspelling prohibited words or phrases so the ad won’t be disapproved.
• Manipulating trademark terms in the ad text to avoid patent and copyright restrictions.

Generally speaking, it’s not a smart idea to use the trademark of your competitors at any point in your marketing campaign. Google discourages this practice, and your account may be suspended. Furthermore, you should avoid using trademarked terms in the ad title or ad copy. If Google finds your account is a repeat-offender with ad text manipulation, it may come down with a harsh penalty.

Paid-for call directory service

A paid-for call directory services repeatedly add or remove keyword content related to unaffiliated businesses or government services. This tactic is a direct violation of the Sale of the Free Items policy. After Google approves an ad with a non-premium phone number, the service changes the landing page to replace the contact number with a premium number.

Repeated policy violations

If one account is suspended, and you create a new account or domain to post similar ads, it is another attempt to circumvent the system. As such, when Google discovers it, these actions will warrant another immediate suspension.

How to Troubleshoot Circumventing Systems

Sometimes, despite your best efforts to follow the rules, one of your ads may get flagged or disapproved. Luckily, it doesn’t always lead to a full Google Ads account suspension.

Quite often, a disapproved ad happens when a word or phrase in your ad copy is too similar to a prohibited word or trademarked term. Most of the time, with a quick edit, you can try the ad again and get it approved.

Otherwise, if you feel your Google Ads account suspension is unjust, here are a few tips to try and resolve the matter:

• Submit a request to the Google Ads support team to have your account reviewed.
• If you have multiple Google Ads accounts, make sure the sites focus on different websites. If they all focus on the same site, you could be in trouble.
• Submit an appeal, explaining why you feel the suspension should be lifted. If you choose this road, be honest and take the time to be thorough and accurate.

Even Honest Mistakes are Wrong

It’s important to realize that if you incur a Google Ads account suspension, then you can’t simply open a new account and continue what you were doing before. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you will quickly get suspended again.

There are, of course, instances where people simply don’t know that they have attempted to circumvent the system. Honest mistakes can happen, or your site may be hacked.

Typically, these violations arise when a site is linked with several Google Ads accounts. Even so, it can be a challenge to convince Google that you didn’t mean to break the rules, and thus, you will probably not get a suspended account back.

How to Stay Off Google’s Naughty List?

If you want to keep your account on the straight and narrow, follow these best practices to avoid a Google Ads account suspension:

Familiarize Yourself with Google Ads Advertising Policies

The policies for advertising on the Google network set out the expectations and regulations for all users. The more you know, the better prepared you will be to advertise on Google Ads without a hitch.

Check Your Website Carefully

Nowadays, an updated, well-maintained website stands a higher chance of generating positive results, whatever your goal. Take care to maintain your website, ensuring it is always in line with Google’s policies, and safeguard it from hackers.

Using Redirects and Frames

A common reason for a suspension is when a hacker compromises your site and redirects traffic. Therefore, you should be careful when using redirect links or any data from another website.

If you have any doubts about whether your page is redirecting traffic, enter the URL for the page you want to use in your ads into the browser address bar. Press Enter and then watch as the page loads to see if the URL changes. If it’s not exactly the same, the URL is probably redirecting to another page, which could cause trouble with Google.

Wrap Up

PPC advertising is a competitive space, no matter what niche you operate in, or what products or services you sell. It may be tempting to do what it takes to get an edge, but in the end, it’s never worth cheating the system.

If you try to find a shortcut to circumvent Google policies, sooner or later, you will have a Google Ads account suspension. Ultimately, this will be a waste of time and money.

Google Ads is a sophisticated machine, and it will always discover when an account is doing something untoward. In the long-term, it’s much better to play by the rules and focus on creating compelling ads and smart bidding strategies.

You can improve your fortunes by reading our blog, How to Win the PPC Game in 2020? An Effective Strategy for Managing PPC Campaigns.