Google Adwords offline, compensation?

Has anyone had success seeking compensation from Google?

[pastypossie]

Two days in a row, Google has taken a very well run Adwords account offline. Absolutely nothing wrong with the account, great CTRs and targeting and in each case they have accepted responsibility.

Day 1) It was taken completely offline for a 'quality review' just after 6.00pm. With no prior notification.

Their email to us says it was automatically resumed, but this was not the case. It was down for 15 hours, and only went back online after a few hours of screaming at them when they opened for business in the morning.

Day 2) A billing issue on a payment which hadn't even been requested. Again the account went offline at around 6.00pm and could not be reactivated before they were open in the morning.

The fact that it has happened at roughly the same time two days in the row makes us think they are making excuses.

Anyone had any luck seeking compensation for loss of business on behalf of our client who experienced similar problems?

[patient2all]

Actually, you must consider yourself lucky. Until now, everyone who's reported being taken offline for a review has not received any notification before or after.

patient2all

[woop01]

How is Google legaly responsible for your loss of business? You aren't paying for daily, 24/7 exposure, you are paying for clicks. Did you pay for something that wasn't provided?

[pastypossie]

I can't think of another advertising medium where if a supplier messed up and intentionally, which is what it is caused you to lose business you wouldn't be able to seek compensation.

There is some interesting news doing the rounds about the impact that Ebay is having on the UK economy, I wonder if anyones considered what sort of impact the unreliability of search engines can have and especially Google has, considering they account for the vast majority of sales leads from the internet.

[pastypossie]

woop01 - the point is Google intentionally prevented us from receiving the clicks, without notification.

In the real world companies cannot legally behave like that.

[arran]

In the real world companies cannot legally behave like that.

I'm not sure about the legally part but i agree they would lose business. Time for more competition..?

[inbound]

This thread makes me so angry.

I wish you could tell your client to grow up.

Things like this happen. Get over it. I doubt there's someone out there doing it intentionally.

I'm assuming that Adwords do a great job for the client when they are running, get them to imagine the scenario that theu sue and big G suspends their account until the matter is resolved.

Rant over

[jim2003]

Hello,

It is my understanding that Google retains the right to not run any ad for any reason at its own discretion. I think when you sign up to use adwords you agree to that concept in the TOS. I am not 100% certain, but if I am right pastypossie really doesn't have a legitimate gripe.

[cline]

I once got a modest courtsey credit in the case of an editor who took an account offline because the editor mistakenly thought the site contained adult content.

[woop01]

the point is Google intentionally prevented us from receiving the clicks, without notification.
In the real world companies cannot legally behave like that.

Legally? How so?

You agreed to the TOS. You weren't charged for something you didn't recieve. I'm still not sure where Google broke the law.

[momotan]

Here's a tip to avoid this. Google farms out it's quality reviews to different companies. Recently i had a campaign shut down because the URL was not responding. The thing is that it was responding, but the people they farmed it out to were in India and they obviously had tech problems. I #*$!ed at them pretty hard and they turned it back on. I then banned that area from reaching my server. Now, i only see the occasional review come from the people in Denver who do reviews.

[inbound]

Just what we need, another outsourced (judgment) call center ;)

[DamonHD]

Hi momotan,

Yes, I had a few occasions where G said that a URL was not working, and disabled some ads.

On one occasion they had stumbled across a bug in just one (landing) page in my server (which saved me some wasted advertising pennies!) but on the others, so far as I could see, there was no problem. After a bit of (quite quick) back-and-forth with G they relented and turned the ads back on.

I think connectivity on the Net is a bit patchy these days,so it would be good for G to do (more?) automatic checking from a couple of locations round the world before alerting a human checker or disabling ads. Tricky balance for them though.

Rgds

Damon

[AdWordsAdvisor]

...Google farms out it's quality reviews to different companies...

Just what we need, another outsourced (judgment) call center ;

This is not the case, momotan. Based on inbound's comment, I think it is important for me to correct your impression. Ads are reviewed by Googlers.

AWA

[patient2all]

Forget the "legally" part. You don't have a leg to stand on :)

However, when there are 3 or 4 companies with Google's reach and level of PPC offerings, then you'll receive a letter prior to the review starting with

"Dear Kind Sir or Madam"

patient2all

[beren]

I'm really surprised anyone would want "compensation" from Google because they didn't sell you ads.

There are plenty of things to be mad about with Google and AdWords, but this is not one of them.

[mark1111]

I disagree. If an ad has been reviewed and is running and the advertiser is counting on it for income, why should G be able to knock it offline arbitrarily without any consequences because of a problem at their end? As someone observed above, if you place an ad in a magazine, for example, and they don't run it, you would typically receive some kind of compensation (often a free ad, which in Adwords might translate to x thousand free impressions or clicks).

[Sujan]

in an magazine you pay before they place the ad - with adwords you only pay if your ads were placed AND clicked.

jan

[beren]

circa 1960:

Adman #1: We'll make lots of money once we start paying the local newspaper to display our ads.

Adman #2: Boss, the newspaper went out of business this morning! They aren't publishing any more issues! We can't pay them to display our ads.

Adman #1: We can't pay them to display our ads?! This is upsetting my plans to get rich! Let's sue the newspaper publisher. They have an obligation to take my money and show my ads!

[pastypossie]

Beren - your not really getting my point.

I'm actually mildly concerned about the support some of you guys are showing for a system that makes stable business inherently impossible.

We are not talking about a news paper going out of business, we are talking about a media outlet that has a monopoly selectively disconnecting your supply to customers without notice. It completely unermines the credibility of paid search as a viable advertising medium.

I'm glad to see that someone from Google has read this, and hopefully understands the broader implications of what I am discussing, because upsetting their customers businesses, is in the end not good for Googles business.

[woop01]

Monopoly?

Yahoo Search Marketing
Adbrite
Kanoodle
AskJeeves