Approvalens
TRScan a site

Methodology

Approvalens does not guess. Every finding in a report comes from one of the rules on this page. Where Google documents a requirement we link to it; where a rule is based on common rejection patterns or on our own measurement, we say so.

How a scan works

  1. We open your home page and follow its internal links breadth-first — content links first, then menus, then the footer — until we reach 5,000 pages. Trust pages such as the privacy policy are always included.
  2. We read robots.txt the way Google does (most specific group, longest match, Mediapartners-Google ignoring the * group), your sitemaps and ads.txt.
  3. We request your home page as a desktop browser, a phone, Googlebot, the AdSense crawler and AdsBot, and compare the answers.
  4. We check up to 120 internal links and 40 images, probe a page that cannot exist to detect soft 404s, and test http://, www and the bare domain.
  5. We open the home page in a real phone-sized Chromium browser to measure overflow, overlays, load speed and content that only appears with JavaScript.
  6. We look up the domain in RDAP and the Internet Archive to see its age and past topic.

How the score is calculated

Each failed check costs its category points by severity. Category scores are combined with the weights below. A blocker caps the overall score at 35; one critical issue caps it at 74, three at 60, four or more at 44. Verdicts: Ready (85+, no critical issues), Almost ready (70+), Needs work (45+), Not ready (below 45 or any blocker).

Points lost per failed check

  • Blocker−60
  • Critical−25
  • Warning−10
  • Notice−3

Category weights

  • Access & availability18
  • Content18
  • Trust & required pages12
  • Policy14
  • Topic & niche9
  • Page quality10
  • Site structure7
  • Programmatic SEO & duplication5
  • Technical SEO3
  • User experience3
  • Verification & ads.txt1

The page-quality rubric

Every content page starts at 100 points and loses points for each issue below. 85+ is Highest, 70+ High, 50+ Medium, 30+ Low, below 30 Lowest. The rubric follows the questions Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines ask: what the page is for, how much effort went into it, how readable it is (Flesch for English, Ateşman for Turkish), who wrote it and when, and whether the title is honest.

How the niche map works

We match every page against 87 niche lexicons in 7 languages. Titles and headings count three times. The site's niche is the one present on most pages, not just the one that tops a few; a page is read in that context, so a fish-disease article on an aquarium site counts as aquarium content. Off-topic pages must lean clearly elsewhere and must not share vocabulary clusters with your main topic. Separately, we cluster pages by shared vocabulary without any lexicon, so the map works even for topics outside our lexicons.

How programmatic and duplicate pages are found

We group URLs by slug shape (best-{x}-in-{x}), group pages by HTML layout, and inside each group replace the words that change from page to page with a slot. Sentences that stay identical on at least half of a group are template text; the rest of each page is its own. We also compare every pair of pages for near-duplicates (5-word shingles), find sentences repeated across many pages, detect title patterns and find pages whose titles target the same keywords.

Every check

Access & availability

Verification & ads.txt

Content

Trust & required pages

Policy

Topic & niche

Page quality

Site structure

Programmatic SEO & duplication

Technical SEO

  • Canonical points to another site

    CriticalOfficial rule

    A canonical tag to another site tells Google the original content is elsewhere. That looks like copied or syndicated content, and Google may treat your pages as duplicates.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policiessupport.google.com/publisherpolicies/answer/11190248

  • Mobile viewport

    CriticalOfficial rule

    Without a viewport tag, phones show a tiny desktop page. Most visitors come from phones, and Google asks for a good experience on the site.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/7299563

  • Canonical points to another page

    WarningOfficial rule

    This tells Google to ignore these articles and use another page instead. It is usually a theme or plugin mistake, and it hides your content.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/technical

  • Mixed content

    WarningOfficial rule

    Browsers block or warn about insecure files on secure pages. Images may disappear and the padlock may break, which hurts trust.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/12176698

  • Good pages marked noindex

    WarningOfficial rule

    These look like real articles with enough text, or your homepage, but they tell Google not to index them. Google may also turn off ads on content it is told not to evaluate, and a reviewer may see too little content. This is often a setting left over from when the site was being built.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots-msupport.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295

  • Articles marked noindex

    WarningOfficial rule

    Noindex hides pages from Google Search. Google may also turn off ads on content it is told not to evaluate. If many articles are noindex, a reviewer may see too little content.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/1346295developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/technical

  • Missing page titles

    WarningOfficial rule

    The title tag names the page in browser tabs and search results. A missing title often points to a broken theme or template.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/technical

  • Compression

    NoticeOfficial rule

    Compression makes pages download several times faster. It is usually one switch in your hosting or CDN settings.

  • Favicon

    NoticeOfficial rule

    The favicon is the small icon in browser tabs and in Google results. A missing one is a small detail, but it makes a site look less finished.

  • Language attribute

    NoticeOfficial rule

    The lang attribute tells browsers, screen readers and search engines which language the page uses. It is a small fix.

  • Meta descriptions

    NoticeOfficial rule

    A meta description is the summary that can appear in search results. It does not affect AdSense approval much, but it helps people choose your page.

  • Social sharing tags

    NoticeOfficial rule

    Open Graph tags control the title and image shown when your page is shared on social media. They do not affect AdSense, but they help your links look trustworthy.

  • Structured data errors

    NoticeOfficial rule

    Broken JSON-LD is ignored by search engines. It does not affect approval much, but it means your markup is not doing its job.

User experience

  • Real-user speed (Core Web Vitals)

    WarningOfficial rule

    These numbers come from the Chrome UX Report (CrUX): real visits by Chrome users over the last 28 days, measured at the 75th percentile. Good means LCP (loading) of 2.5 s or less, INP (responsiveness) of 200 ms or less and CLS (visual stability) of 0.1 or less. Poor means more than 4 s, 500 ms or 0.25. Core Web Vitals are part of Google Search's page experience signals. They are not an AdSense approval rule, but slow pages lose readers and earn less.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/core-web-vitalsweb.dev/articles/vitalssupport.google.com/webmasters/answer/9205520

  • Pop-up covering the page

    WarningOfficial rule

    The Better Ads Standards, which Google's policies follow, count large pop-ups and full-screen overlays as bad experiences. Reviewers want to see your content first.

    betterads.org/standards/support.google.com/publisherpolicies/answer/11035030

  • Content needs JavaScript

    WarningOfficial rule

    Google can run JavaScript, but not always quickly or fully. If your text appears only after scripts run, crawlers may see an almost empty page.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/12176698developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/technical

  • Fits on a phone screen

    WarningOfficial rule

    Pages that scroll sideways are hard to read on a phone, and most visitors come from phones. Google asks for an easy, readable experience.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/7299563

  • Loading speed on mobile

    WarningOfficial rule

    Slow pages lose readers, especially on mobile data. Under 2500 ms is a good target. Speed matters for visitors more than for approval.

  • JavaScript errors

    NoticeOfficial rule

    Script errors can break menus, forms and layouts. They often come from outdated plugins or broken ad code.

  • Page size

    NoticeOfficial rule

    Heavy pages are slow on mobile data and can cost visitors money. Large images are usually the cause.

  • Browser check

    NoticeOfficial rule

    These checks need a full browser. A failure here can be temporary, so it does not lower your score.

  • Small text on mobile

    NoticeOfficial rule

    Text that is too small makes people zoom or leave. Around 16px body text is a good minimum on phones.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/7299563

Domain

  • Reused expired domain

    CriticalOur estimate

    Google's spam policies name expired domain abuse: buying an old domain and filling it with low-value content to profit from its history. If you bought the domain for its old reputation, reviewers may see it that way. This is our estimate from public archives.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies

  • Free domain extension

    CriticalCommon rejection pattern

    Free extensions such as .tk or .ml are widely used for spam. Sites on them are often rejected or hard to verify. This is a common pattern, not a written rule.

  • Hosted platform

    CriticalOfficial rule

    To use AdSense you must be able to put code in the head of your pages. Many free hosted platforms do not allow this, and AdSense only accepts sites on domains or on approved platforms.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/91205support.google.com/adsense/answer/9724

  • Domain expiry

    NoticeOfficial rule

    If the domain expires, the site goes offline and someone else can register it. A site that goes down during review is rejected.

  • Subdomain

    NoticeOfficial rule

    In AdSense you add the main domain as a site, not a subdomain. The reviewer may look at the whole domain, not only this part.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/12170421

  • Topic changed over time

    NoticeOur estimate

    A topic change is normal for many sites. It only matters if the old reputation is used to rank new, unrelated content. This is our estimate from public archives.

    developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies

  • Domain age

    InfoOfficial rule

    An old rule asked sites in China and India to be six months old, but Google removed it in 2019. A new domain is not a reason for rejection, though new sites often have too little content yet.

    support.google.com/adsense/answer/9724web.archive.org/web/20181120102449/https://support.google.coweb.archive.org/web/20190405163855/https://support.google.co

  • Archive history

    InfoOfficial rule

    The archive shows how long the site has existed and what it looked like. It is for context and does not lower your score.