Google AdSense denied my site based on their policy on alcohol, but it doesn't sell alcohol

Question

I am building a website that advertises drink specials in my city of Rochester, NY. I just have a very basic website template up now. I was hoping to add Google AdSense advertisements, but I was just denied for having content related to drugs and drug paraphernalia.

When I read the official policy, Google stated that it was acceptable to have:

• Sites that sell wine and champagne
• Sites that sell equipment or provide information on how to distill or brew beer

• Directories of pub locations

  but it was unacceptable to have

• sites that primarily sell alcohol (beer, hard alcohol, or liqueurs) directly from their site.

My website does not sell alcohol, and I believe it is much more like a directory of pub locations. Does anyone have advice on how to get advertisements on the site, or is it a lost cause?

Answer 1

You are not the only one to have this problem:

• Account disapproved because of alcohol
• Alcohol Rejection for Homebrewing & Beer Reviewing?
• My wine review blog was rejected
• Rejection because of "Alcohol", yet wine and champagne sales are explicitly listed as "approved"
• Application disapproved for alcohol, but site within policy

Reading through those Google Product Forums, it appears that initial applications are reviewed only by robots. The robots crawl your site and reject your application if keywords related to alcohol are present. There is no way to get a human to intervene on your behalf. Your only recourse is to remove those words from your site and try again.

At one point Dan B even says:

These kinds of sites are always tough...even if you do get approved, it'd be a constant mess of their automated bots flagging you for the same reasons you are rejected, getting disabled, appealing, MAYBE getting the account back, and all over again...I'd not recommend AdSense for a blog like this.