Reviewers check that the site is real, original, navigable, and safe to place advertising against. Most rejections come from missing pages, thin content, or a policy conflict the publisher did not notice.

What a reviewer is actually deciding

Not whether your site is good. Whether an advertiser would object to appearing on it.

That reframing explains most decisions. The checks are about risk to the buyer rather than quality in any editorial sense.

Is the site real and operated by an identifiable party. Is the content original. Is it navigable, so a human reviewer can assess it. Does anything on it conflict with advertiser policy. And is the traffic plausibly human.

The pages that must exist

The most common cause of rejection and the easiest to fix.

The privacy policy matters more than publishers expect, because advertising involves data collection and the network needs you to have disclosed it. A policy that does not mention advertising at all is a gap a reviewer will notice.

A contact page with only a form and no other detail is weaker than one carrying a business name and address.

Content thresholds

Rarely stated numerically and consistently applied.

What reviewers look for: enough articles that the site is evidently ongoing rather than assembled for approval, substance in each rather than a paragraph, and a coherent subject rather than a scattering.

A site of a dozen substantial articles in one area reads better than fifty thin posts across unrelated topics.

Recency helps. A site whose most recent post is eight months old reads as abandoned, and reviewers are assessing whether it will still be publishing.

Originality is checked. Content assembled from other sources, or generated at volume without review, is the most common substantive rejection reason and it is increasingly detected.

The policy conflicts publishers miss

Not the obvious categories, which everybody knows about.

Copyrighted material used without rights, particularly images taken from elsewhere, which is both a policy problem and a legal one.

Content about restricted categories written in a way that promotes rather than discusses them, which is a line publishers cross without noticing.

Pages that exist only to funnel traffic elsewhere, which reads as arbitrage.

And user-generated content with no moderation, since the network is assessing what could appear rather than what is there today.

The applicable network's published policies are the reference, and they are worth reading properly once rather than skimming, because the categories are broader than intuition suggests.

Traffic

Where applications fail silently.

Networks assess whether traffic is plausibly human and plausibly acquired. A site with a sudden spike from an unexplained source, or traffic patterns inconsistent with its content, invites scrutiny.

Purchased traffic is the clearest disqualifier and it is more detectable than buyers of it assume.

For a genuine site the practical advice is simply not to accelerate before applying. A modest, steady, explicable traffic profile approves more easily than a large and erratic one.

Before applying

  1. Read the network's policies, properly, once.
  2. Add the missing pages and make the privacy policy cover advertising.
  3. Remove anything borrowed, especially images.
  4. Publish consistently for a period so the site reads as active.
  5. Check the site loads and navigates on a phone, since reviewers use one.
  6. Fix anything broken, since errors during review are taken as neglect.

After a rejection

The reasons given are usually generic, which is frustrating and not arbitrary. Detailed reasons would be a guide to circumventing the checks.

What to do: assume it was the most common cause rather than an exotic one, fix the whole list above rather than guessing at a single item, and wait the stated period before reapplying.

Reapplying immediately with cosmetic changes is the pattern that produces repeated rejections.

And consider whether the network is the right first one. Requirements differ substantially, and a publisher rejected by one is frequently accepted by another whose thresholds suit an earlier-stage site.

Working with more than one demand source eventually is the position to aim at anyway, for reasons covered in direct-sold vs programmatic, compared honestly.

Frequently asked questions

What is a reviewer deciding?

Whether an advertiser would object to appearing on your site. The checks are about risk to the buyer rather than editorial quality.

What causes most rejections?

Missing pages. An about page, real contact details, and a privacy policy that actually covers advertising and data collection.

What content threshold applies?

Enough substantial articles in a coherent subject that the site reads as ongoing. A dozen good pieces beat fifty thin ones across unrelated topics.

Which policy conflicts get missed?

Borrowed images, restricted categories written promotionally rather than descriptively, pages existing only to funnel traffic, and unmoderated user content.

Does traffic matter?

Yes. Networks assess whether it is plausibly human and explicably acquired. A modest steady profile approves more easily than a large erratic one.

What should I do after a rejection?

Assume the most common cause rather than an exotic one, fix the whole list, wait the stated period, and consider whether another network suits an earlier-stage site.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Rejected with no reason given?

We go through the checks a reviewer actually applies, which is usually a missing page rather than the content.

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