Itzayana Hardin
New member
- Joined
- Sep 3, 2026
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Got flagged site-wide for "Copyrighted material: Unauthorized Filesharing" on AdSense. First appeal was rejected (generic template, no specifics — "site still in violation").
Since then I removed all the flagged content, and also switched how removed pages respond: they were returning a plain 404 at the time of the first appeal, now they return 410 Gone instead — confirmed via server logs that Googlebot has already re-crawled several of them and picked up the 410.
Submitted a second appeal since making this change, still waiting on the result.
Questions for anyone who's dealt with this:
1. Does 404 vs 410 actually make any difference to an AdSense policy reviewer, or is that purely an SEO/indexing thing with zero effect on the appeal outcome?
2. Has anyone had a "Copyrighted material" appeal succeed after switching to 410, or is it irrelevant and it's really just about whether the content itself is gone?
3. Anyone had repeated rejections despite content actually being removed — did it ever get resolved, or did you eventually give up on AdSense for that domain?
Not asking for general policy advice, specifically curious about the 404/410 angle and whether it's a real lever or a waste of engineering time.
Since then I removed all the flagged content, and also switched how removed pages respond: they were returning a plain 404 at the time of the first appeal, now they return 410 Gone instead — confirmed via server logs that Googlebot has already re-crawled several of them and picked up the 410.
Submitted a second appeal since making this change, still waiting on the result.
Questions for anyone who's dealt with this:
1. Does 404 vs 410 actually make any difference to an AdSense policy reviewer, or is that purely an SEO/indexing thing with zero effect on the appeal outcome?
2. Has anyone had a "Copyrighted material" appeal succeed after switching to 410, or is it irrelevant and it's really just about whether the content itself is gone?
3. Anyone had repeated rejections despite content actually being removed — did it ever get resolved, or did you eventually give up on AdSense for that domain?
Not asking for general policy advice, specifically curious about the 404/410 angle and whether it's a real lever or a waste of engineering time.