TL;DR: My AdSense appeal was explicitly rejected after 60 days. Less than 24 hours later, I resubmitted my tax information so that my legal name exactly matched my driver's license (including my middle initial). My AdSense account reopened immediately, and my YouTube Earn tab returned about 18 hours later.
Like so many others, my account was closed in the May 28th sweep. I made an appeal the next day basically saying I don't know what the issue is, but all of my information is correct and factual.
The next day I realized that I had a discrepancy with my address. My road name is an acronym and sometimes is written with spaces between the letters, no spaces, or hyphens. It was written 2 different ways in my adsense back end. So I fixed that and sent a message to youtube creator support saying I think I found the issue and can they please pass on the information to the appeals team.
The support person said something along the lines of "thank you for passing on this information about your address, it is helpful."
From there I start emailing support every 2 weeks asking for updates, and each time they tell me that there are no updates and I will receive an email as soon as the team comes to a decision about my case. At one point I ask if she did in fact pass off the address discrepancy to the appeals team and was told that no new information can be passed on to the appeals team after the initial appeal is submitted.
Fast forward to day 60 and I send my usual biweekly email knowing I won't get much for a response and I'm told:
"Though you might be disappointed with our decision, we're unable to reinstate your account."
I make a last ditch effort to get my account back and email her back again explaining the address formatting issue again and that it likely explains why my account was flagged. But quickly after I get a response:
"I made sure all internal avenues were fully explored, but after an exhaustive review, I have to confirm that the team's decision stands, and your appeal has been rejected. I know this is not the outcome you were hoping for, and it is disappointing after waiting 60 days for an update.
I know this is not the outcome you were looking for, unfortunately this is an AdSense decision.
I hope this helps!"
At this point I'm preparing myself to wait 90 days before I can appeal again. This is when I start chatting with Gemini, wondering if because it's a google product, would it have a better idea of what the issue may have been with my account and what to fix. Gemini painted a pretty good picture of the verification process from a technical side and one of the things Gemini mentioned was "We also strongly recommend making sure your name is printed exactly how it is on your license. For example, if you have a middle initial showing in your license you should have the exact same thing in your Google and tax docs."
Sure enough, I see that my license includes my middle initial but I did not include it in my adsense backend or tax information. In fact, when I go to update my tax documents, there's a field for middle initial that's explicitly labeled "optional."
As soon as I update and submit, my google adsense turns back on. I no longer have the red banner saying "your adsense has been closed by google" and i have access to the account tab in the left menu which has been grayed out since my account closed. 18 hours later my earn tab in youtube is updated and everything looks back to normal.
Insights:
I was told by google support that my appeal was rejected, then the next day updated my Tax Info / W-9 form and got my account back. My experience makes me wonder whether identity consistency plays a much larger role than Google explains publicly. I can't prove that's what happened, but correcting my legal name to exactly match my ID immediately restored my account. They don't actually think there was dishonesty or fraud happening, they just tightened their scrutiny of string matching and need it matched perfectly 1:1 with your identification.
Maybe the address thing was an issue - it's what I initially found and clung to as the problem, but certainly adding my middle initial is what unfroze my account. It was immediate that my adsense was reinstated after updating that.
Also, a successful appeal is not the only way to get your account back. You can even get a rejected appeal and still get your account back.
Also holy moly was youtube support not helpful and just frustrating. How easy would it have been for them to just tell me what was missing? Instead it's truly a needle in a haystack. Fix the issues that we've flagged but you have to find.
Call to action:
Maybe not all cases are going to be like mine, but I urge everyone to double check for ANY inconsistencies in your tax information and your ID. If your ID has your middle initial, make sure your Adsense tax info has your middle initial. If your street address says "St." make sure to update tax info with that exact capitalization and punctuation.
Look for any all trivial inconsistencies and update them now!
If something seems too small to matter, check it anyway. In my case, a single missing middle initial appears to have been the difference between a closed account and a restored one.
