I read the Adsense for Dummies book before starting so I knew to be on my best behavior when working with Google. I made sure to tell my family and friends to not click on any of the links to ensure that I stayed in Google’s good graces. I knew that I would get perhaps 2 clicks per thousand page views, so I knew to be patient and yet, I have been banned from Google Adsense anyway.

I have over 20 years of success as an entrepreneur and business person. My recent entrepreneurial attempt has been an attempt to succeed with an on line business model. So far I have been incredibly unsuccessful and I will share yet another failure with my reading audience (which has to be miniscule based on my poor performance) so that you will not make the same mistakes that I have.

Where did I go wrong you ask? How did I fall out of the good graces of Google? Well, I am not exactly sure. I honestly can only think of one thing that could have led to my ban.

When I started my blog, I attempted to do it on the cheap. I used an inexpensive site to by my domain name and used a free service to post it on. I thought that content was key (I still believe it is), so I began writing. I did not simply put out one or two pieces a week when I started, but rather I put out one or two pieces an hour.

My goal was to populate my site with volumes of material on leadership and other topics I loved. I will admit that some of the material was not great, but I did not print anything that I thought was bad. My first attempts were riddled with, and likely continue to be riddled with, poor copy editing.

Regardless, my materials and articles grew.

In an effort to grow my site, I guest blogged at several e-zine sites, shared my URL address on Facebook, back-linked, tweeted, listed my site on E-bay and Craigslist, and commented on sites like Hub Pages, Weebly, Blogger, Terapad, Multiply, Doddlekit, and Yola.

To my excitement, I began to get a bit of traffic. The hosting system I used would show you the number of people visiting your site in actual time and I compulsively checked my site's visiting census. My record was 17 at one time.

My site now had a number of articles with links to affiliated products, services, and books. I had not actually sold anything yet, but I felt on the verge. I believed that I was going to have about 3,000 unique visitors my first month. The least money I figured I would make was three dollars. I thought this because I assumed I would get two hits per thousand on my Adsense links at an average payout of 50 cents. I was on my way and loving it.

As my site reached 20 live articles I enacted a plan to further my site's success. I would write an article, try to learn something about driving traffic to my site, and then try and learn one way to improve the business of my site. The hosting program I chose was limited, but it did have widgets that could be imported to improve my site's offerings.

The widget I was most excited about was the widget that would allow me to backtrack any Facebook visitor. This would allow me to keep a visitor list and allow me to contact each visitor individually. What a find. I was wide-eyed and smiling as I hit the download link. Almost instantly, I got an "error code" with a sequence of numbers after. My site disappeared. Sweat exploded from my pores as I frantically tried to recapture my site, the articles it contained, and all the effort I had put into it.

After attempting every way I knew to get my site back, I changed battle plans and tried to list my site with a new hosting service. I was not able to use my old domain name so I created a new name. It took me days to get my site back up, re-populate it with quality articles and return it to its former glory.

On my third day of recovery, I attempted to put Adsense back into my site, but oddly enough I was blocked. Any attempt at getting to the site lead me to a screen that indicated that "no login existed" for me as my site was "associated with an unapproved action."

That was two months ago. Any attempts at speaking with someone or finding our why have been fruitless. My site which now has over a hundred articles and turns up on many search engines does not turn up on Google. Until today, I have held out some hope of being reconsidered, but I believe that to be childish on my part. Leadership means owning your faults and failures. I have not lead on this issue until now. I am sorry for what I did, but I did not accept it until now.

Once again, I must adapt to my environment and seek out new forms of online income. I have sought out other advertisers, Adbrite, Advertise, MediaTraffic, AdReady, ArcaMax, and AdMarketPlace. They have been helpful, but I do not believe that will replace my Google Adsense income.

Today, I hold out hope for pay-per-click advertisers that I am contacted by. I write articles about specific topics and hope to turn a profit using these. I have found Blogsvertise to be a good source of writing jobs.

So, if you want to be a successful on line marketer, don't do as I have done...yet.

Thanks for reading.