UPDATE 9/3/2012
After looking things over I found out why I got rejected, and why it happened so quickly: My About and Privacy policy were the default “This is a WordPress page, you can customize etc…” AdSense uses bots to perform an initial analysis of your site looking for “low hanging fruit”. Things like non-updated about pages are a big red flag. I updated my About page, as well as throwing in a standard privacy policy, and viola! I passed the automatic scan within minutes!
Moral of the story: Make sure you have fully configured your blog before applying to AdSense.
As an amateur tech blogger (with ADD), I believe my content should be as information-dense as possible. My posts are largely examples, code snippets, links and the occasional rant. If it takes paragraphs to explain, I’m doing it wrong.
Likewise, if I am posting about something that can be easily be found on Google already, I’m not going to waste the time. More on this in a minute…
Like most people with bills to pay (even more so people with spouses), it is always nice to be reimbursed for the things I spend time on. So I decided what the heck – I’ll throw some unobtrusive targeted ads on my page and see if I can’t get a couple bucks a year for my efforts.
I submit my application to Google AdSense, and come morning I have the following in my inbox:
Hello,
Thank you for your interest in Google AdSense. Unfortunately, after
reviewing your application, we’re unable to accept you into AdSense at
this time.We did not approve your application for the reasons listed below.
Issues:
–
Insufficient content———————
Further detail:
Insufficient content: To be considered for AdSense, your site must contain
enough text content for our specialists to review and for our crawlers to
identify relevant ads to show on your pages. We recommend including more
complete sentences and paragraphs on your site. We require websites to be
fully launched and functioning, allowing users to navigate throughout your
site with a menu, sitemap, or appropriate links. Once the majority of your
site is complete and functional, we’ll be happy to reconsider your
application.———————
Insufficient content. While I’m not the most prolific blogger on the internet, I try to make sure my posts are original, and provide some nugget of information that was otherwise difficult to find. Said nuggets often (if not usually) do not require paragraphs of disposition. In some cases, complete sentences might not be required.
The purpose of this blog is to make the internet less fail. I will of course continue to do so without Google’s support, but it is a bit disappointing to be told my years of effort isn’t relevant.