I came across an ad network (The AdNetwork) that promised to pay $18 (10 British Pounds) just for signing up. There was an additional bonus if you added their code to your site within 72 hours of approval.

Not one to turn away free money, I figured what the heck, why not give it a try. I completed the application and submitted my BLULOW blog for approval.

Surprise Surprise

Imagine my surprise when my blog was rejected. It wasn’t the rejection that bothered me so much (as a freelance writer, you get used to rejection), but it was the reason for the rejection that bothered me. Here’s the text of the rejection e-mail:

We regret to inform you that your website was unsuitable for the TheAdNetwork advertising network. There are a number of reasons why we may reject applications, please refer to our terms and conditions webpage on http://www.theadnetwork.co.uk/legal/ for more information.

Reason: Unoriginal Content: Your site consists of unoriginal content, which fails our advertiser requirements

Our team wish you all the best in continuing to better your site.

Regards,
TheAdNetwork Team

Huh?! Unoriginal content? I could have understood if they had said that I haven’t been posting to the blog regularly or they didn’t want blogs about living green and the environment, or even if they said they didn’t like the colors used I used on the blog, but unoriginal content? Ouch! They’ve got to be kidding me.

If at first you don’t succeed…

Okay, not one to give up easily, I decided to submit the No Job for Mom blog to them. Since I post to this blog regularly, there’s no way they can come back and give me the same silly reason for rejecting the blog.

I was doubly surprised to see that they rejected this blog too. This time, they didn’t bother to give me a reason. They gave me the same boilerplate email text, minus the reason for rejection.

We regret to inform you that your website was unsuitable for the TheAdNetwork advertising network. There are a number of reasons why we may reject applications, please refer to our terms and conditions webpage on http://www.theadnetwork.co.uk/legal/ for more information.

Our team wish you all the best in continuing to better your site.

Regards,
TheAdNetwork Team

I followed their link to the terms and conditions page and re-read their terms and conditions and re-read their acceptability terms. Neither of my blogs violates either clause.

It’s pointless to continue hitting my head against a brick wall so I decided to leave it alone and find other more viable opportunities.

Lessons Learned:

1. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.
2. My time is much better spent finding lucrative opportunities than trying to prove to one of the thousands of Internet ad networks that they’re wrong. Onward and upwards…

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