AdSense Approval Checklist: What to Check Before You Apply

Before you click "Request review", make sure your site is live and crawlable, has enough original content for a reviewer to judge, carries a privacy policy with the disclosures Google asks for, and contains nothing that breaks the Google Publisher Policies. Everything else on popular checklists (post counts, domain age, traffic thresholds) is either a myth or a soft signal. This checklist sorts the hard requirements from the nice-to-haves so you spend your time on what a reviewer actually looks at.

Nothing here guarantees approval. Google's reviewers make the decision, and some of what they weigh cannot be measured from outside. What you can do is remove every reason that can be measured.

Work top to bottom. The first two sections are blockers: if any item fails, the review usually ends there and you get "Site down or unavailable" or a policy-related rejection without the reviewer ever reading your articles. The later sections affect the "Low value content" decision and long-term account health.

Mark each line as pass, fail or not applicable. Keep the list somewhere you can come back to, because you will want to repeat it after every big change to the site. If you prefer a version with checkboxes, the interactive checklist covers the same ground.

1. Access: can Google reach the site at all?

Check	What passing looks like	Source
Home page returns HTTP 200	No DNS errors, no timeouts, no 5xx	Site not ready
Valid TLS certificate	Issued by a recognised CA, not self-signed, not expired	same page
HTTP redirects to HTTPS	http://example.com/ → 301 → https://example.com/	same page
No login wall	No password, no "members only" home page	same page
No maintenance or "coming soon" mode	Real pages, not a placeholder	Account setup
robots.txt does not block Mediapartners-Google	No Disallow: / in a group naming it	Crawler access
Firewall does not challenge Google	No Cloudflare challenge page for the AdSense bot	Connect your site
Submitted URL is the real domain	No typo, www/non-www both resolve	Site not ready

Google's own wording is blunt: "Is your site up and running? Make sure your site is published and live on the web." Check from a phone on mobile data, not just from your office network, because geo-blocks and firewall rules often only affect visitors from other countries. If any row fails, read the site down or unavailable guide first, and if you use Cloudflare, the Cloudflare guide.

2. Ownership and verification

• You can edit the <head>. AdSense says you "must have access to the HTML source code of your site" (Owning the site). Hosted platforms that do not allow head scripts (Medium, Substack, Notion pages) cannot be added. Blogger users sign up from inside Blogger.
• One verification method is in place. The AdSense code snippet in <head>, the google-adsense-account meta tag, or an ads.txt line. Use one and keep it there until the review finishes.
• The publisher ID matches everywhere. If your snippet says ca-pub-1234567890123456, your ads.txt must say pub-1234567890123456, not a different number from an old account.
• The site is a domain, not a random subdomain. AdSense accepts domains and subdomains on platforms in the public suffix list (Site management). A blog.example.com is reviewed as example.com.

3. Content a reviewer can judge

This is where most rejections happen, usually labelled "Low value content". The official bar is that "your content must be high-quality, original, and attract an audience" (Eligibility) and that the site must "contain enough content for our specialists to evaluate".

• No placeholder text: "Lorem ipsum", "Hello world!", "Sample Page", empty category pages.
• Every article answers a question better than a quick summary would. Add something of your own: tests, photos you took, numbers you measured, mistakes you made.
• No copied, spun or scraped text, and no pages that are mostly an embedded YouTube video with two lines of text.
• No large batches of near-identical pages (city pages, "X vs Y" pages generated from a spreadsheet) unless each one carries unique, checked information.
• The site has a clear topic. A site about running shoes with three crypto posts looks unfocused.
• Primary language is on the supported list. Turkish and English both are.

There is no official minimum post count and no preferred word count. See how many posts you need for a realistic target, and the low value content guide if you have already been rejected.

4. Trust and transparency pages

• Privacy policy (required). It must mention that third parties, including Google, use cookies to serve ads, and tell users how to opt out. The exact elements are in the privacy policy guide.
• About page (strongly recommended). Not a written rule, but the Misrepresentation policy bans concealing "information about the publisher", and an About page is the simplest way to show who you are.
• Contact page or address. A working form or an email address that is checked.
• Author information. A byline on articles and a short author bio help readers judge expertise.

5. Navigation and layout

AdSense program policies say that "sites showing Google ads should be easy for users to navigate" (Program policies).

• A visible menu on every page, on mobile too.
• Menu links go to real pages. No href="#" items, no categories with zero posts.
• Fewer than a handful of broken internal links. Run a crawler and fix every 404.
• No pop-unders, no forced redirects, no auto-downloads, no back-button tricks.
• If you already run another ad network, its behaviour counts. Push-notification and pop-under networks are a common hidden reason for rejection.

6. Policy, files and consent

Policy and behaviour

• Nothing from the Google Publisher Policies prohibited list: adult content, pirated downloads, hacking tools, fake documents, dangerous claims.
• Restricted topics (alcohol, gambling, weapons) are allowed but get fewer advertisers. Know where your content falls.
• No text that asks people to click ads or "support us by checking our sponsors".
• Comments are moderated. Spam comments with casino links count as your content.

The policy violations guide goes through the common cases.

Files and consent

• ads.txt is optional, but if the file exists it must list your publisher ID (ads.txt guide).
• Consent for EEA, UK and Switzerland traffic. For personalised ads in those regions you need a Google-certified CMP integrated with IAB TCF (CMP requirement), and TC strings created from 1 March 2026 must be TCF v2.3 (TCF integration).
• Identity verification. Since June 2026 Google may ask for a government photo ID before ads start serving (Account setup). Use your real legal name in the account.

Myths you can ignore

Claim	Reality
"You need 30 posts"	No official number exists
"Each post needs 1,000 words"	Google says it has no preferred word count
"The domain must be 6 months old"	An old China/India rule, removed around 2019
"You need 100 visitors a day"	No traffic threshold in any official text
"The site must be indexed first"	The AdSense crawler is separate from Googlebot

The real "six months" rule is different: you have six months to finish setting up your account, or it is deactivated.

Run a free scan

A free scan crawls up to 5,000 pages of your site and shows your readiness score and the top three issues. Start a scan and work through what it finds before you apply.

FAQ

How long does AdSense review take?

Google says it usually takes a few days, and sometimes two to four weeks. Leave the verification code in place for the whole review, because removing it can stall the process.

Should I apply with only a few posts?

You can apply at any size, but a site with five short posts rarely gives a reviewer enough to judge. Aim for a set of complete, useful articles that cover your topic from several angles.

Can I reapply right after a rejection?

Yes, there is no official waiting period. Fix the stated reason first, because sending the same site back unchanged tends to get the same answer.

Do I need About and Contact pages?

Google does not list them as hard requirements, but they show who runs the site, which supports the Misrepresentation policy and helps reviewers trust your content.