Most AdSense rejections aren't bad luck — they're the same ten preventable issues, reviewed by a system that has seen every variation. Fix the checklist before applying and the first submission becomes the normal path instead of the lucky one.
Content requirements
Enough of it: 20-30 substantial posts is the comfortable zone — thin sites read as under-construction. Original: spun, scraped or heavily AI-generated-without-editing content fails review, sometimes weeks after approval when the re-review catches up. Useful: each page should answer something specific; product-less placeholder posts are detectable at a glance.
The pages reviewers check for
About (who runs this, with real names and history), Contact (working method, not a form into the void), Privacy Policy (naming cookies and advertising — the exact legal reason ad-supported sites need it), and Terms. Missing privacy policy is the single most common technical rejection. These pages must be reachable from the footer, written like an adult wrote them.
Site health
Own domain, top-level, at least a few months old with consistent publishing history. Clean navigation — every page reachable in a few clicks. Mobile-friendly template. Fast enough that the review crawler doesn't time out. No other aggressive ad networks running simultaneously during review. And no policy-adjacent content anywhere: the reviewer checks the whole site, not the page you're proudest of.
Before you click submit
Verify the site loads without a www/redirect loop in an incognito window. Check Search Console shows pages indexed — unindexable sites can't be reviewed. Then apply once, and wait. Reapplying daily after a rejection adds no information; fixing the named reason and resubmitting in a week does.
Approval is the floor, not the ceiling — but walking in with the floor properly built is what separates the accounts that get approved from the ones that collect rejection emails like souvenirs.
