What to Do When Adsense Says You Have a Policy Violation for a Non-Existent Page?

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What is one to do when Google Adsense says you have a policy violation notification for a page that has been deleted or otherwise doesn’t exist? This can happen if you have previously received a policy violation for a page, and you just delete the page rather than dealing with the hassle; things will seem fine for a while, but then you get a notice of an Adsense policy violation for the page which you deleted ages ago – it’s like the page has come back from the dead just to renew that policy violation.

For this article we are using an actual, current example from the site All About Cruises. At one point in time this site published an article exposing the issue of certain things being sold onboard cruise ships. You can see what the subject of that article was, contained within the text of the link, in the below screenshot of the policy violation:

adsense policy violation for deleted nonexistent page

Just to be sure, you go to check to make sure that you deleted the page (you were sure that you did), and of course the offending page does not exist. And that’s because you deleted it when you first got that policy violation notification from Adsense, months or even years ago.

The Offending Page Simply Does Not Exist
page not found deleted adsense policy violation

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In fact, the last time that archive.org shows the page as existing is years ago, and yet, there’s that brand new Adsense policy violation for that page that you deleted so long ago. It seems that elephants aren’t the only ones to never forget; in fact the elephant analogy is apt, as it feels like Google is trampling you with their 4-ton elephant of ghosts of page policy violations past (to mix a metaphor).

Archive.org’s Wayback Machine Confirms the Page Hasn’t Existed for Years
wayback machine archive org deleted page adsense policy violation

So you do the only thing that you can do, you re-submit the (non-existent) page for review, hoping that whomever is reviewing it will realize that the page doesn’t exist. We mean, cripes, all they have to do is click on the link they have provided to realize that the page doesn’t exist! (Wouldn’t it be great if there were a place to include an explanation when you resubmit the ‘page’ for review? Yeah, we think so too.)

Of course, the odds are very good that there is no ‘whomever’ reviewing your naughty (non-existent) page; everything is driven by Google’s massive system of arbitrary algorithms and AI. (Nice alliteration there, eh?)

So, because your request for review is being reviewed by the same system that is telling you that a page that doesn’t exist violates Google Adsense policy, predictably you get a response that says that your (non-existent, deleted) page “was reviewed at your request and found to be non-compliant with our policies at the time of the review.”

google adsense policy violation review for nonexistent deleted page denied declined

Not only is it incredibly frustrating, but it can also be really concerning, because that violation notification tells you, in bright red letters, that this is a situation which must be fixed.

must fix adsense policy violation for deleted page which doesn't exist

So, what can you do? What should you do? Follow these 3 simple steps:

What to Do When Adsense Says You Have a Policy Violation for a Non-Existent Page

Step 1: Take a deep breath.

Step 2: Realize that there is literally nothing you can do – Google is stupid.

Step 3: Note that Google says that, as your punishment for having that naughty page, “Ad serving continues to be restricted or disabled on this page.” So, let them continue to not serve ads on a page that doesn’t exist. This will not affect your overall ad serving.

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