5 Things that Could Get Your AdWords Account Suspended

Pay-per-click advertising is an important way to drive traffic to your site. Google's AdWords is the number one PPC network used by most web masters. After all, Google is the biggest search provider, so it only makes sense that site owners want to advertise on the network to get the most traffic for their investment.

There are extensive rules associated with advertising on Google, and it is unlikely that most people who sign up for the service will read all of them. As a result, many people have found that their accounts were suspended very quickly after they ran afoul of rules without knowing it. Here are 5 things that could get your AdWords account suspended that you might not realize:

Refusal to Pay

You can challenge the validity of the clicks that you're campaign is receiving and refusing to pay. However, if you do this too often, Google will suspect you of committing fraud yourself and will suspend your account. By all means, if you really think that click fraud is being committed against your account, challenge the charges. However, if you are just trying to save a buck, be careful. Google will suspend your account, and you may never be able to get it back.

Site Violations

There are many, many violations that your site could commit with its content. However, the most common violations involve sites that have information about health care, pharmaceuticals and financial advice. These sites are often labeled "misleading" if you are not an expert in the field or do not have extensive disclaimers on your site about the information.

Landing Page Violations

When you link to a page in your ad, it must match the content of your ad. In other words, your ad can't promote an all-natural sweetener and then lead to a page that sells a weight-loss drug. Your landing page has to match your ad content, and the information contained there must be useful and relevant.

Affiliate Advertising

Google is not a big fan of affiliate advertising, and it comes down pretty hard on affiliate programs. If you are promoting affiliate products on your site, you need to make sure that you provide a good supply of other useful information to balance it out and that you do not overload your page with your affiliate links. Above all, Google wants to see that you are creating a good experience for the user, not just trying to sell them something.

Unclear Practices

If you set up a site simply to collect e-mails and other personal information for lead-generation purposes, you will likely have your site banned by Google. Again, the search giant wants to make sure that you are creating a quality experience for the user -- not just taking information

for your own gain. Make sure you that you make your practices clear, including what information you collect and why. Then be sure to provide plenty of useful content for your users.

There are so many rules in Google's terms of service that it is very easy to break one of them without knowing and to get your account banned either temporarily or permanently. These are just a few of the more common reasons why your account might be suspended, but it is worth learning the rules as thoroughly as you can to avoid any problems.

Has your Google AdWords account ever been suspended? Tell us about your experiences in the comments!

Author's Bio: Carmen Brettel is a writer and manager for www.studentgrants.org. In her spare time, Carmen enjoys gardening and volunteering at animal shelters.