Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I've signed up for Google adsense on march 13th. Lucky day :) Anyway, I submitted my site for review with tech support as I was not sure about their policy compliancy. Significant part of my site is various knife reviews, but no knuckle or ballisongs prohibited in their TOS. Another part is Desert Eagle Pistol FAQ, and the rest is music, flashlight reviews, hi res pictures (knives, guns, etc).
I got reply that they've reviewed my site and it was ok with their policy. Ok, cool.
Adsense generated more earnings than I have anticipated and that was also coo. Then on march 31 I get email from their support stating that my site is disabled, but account is active so I can use it for my other sites. Email stated that Google won't allow chat sites, sites that draw traffic through cyber squatting, domain parking, cloaking, framing... I do none of those on my site. I asked what happened, got reply that they basically disabled my site because it is not compliant with their policy, namely no firearms, ammo sales or promotion, and same for knuckle knives, ballisongs...
I replied that I had no such content, unless they consider knife or ammo reviews as promotion. Got identical reply about policy, and at this point I strongly suspect that it is a bot answering emails, not a live tech. I sent email again, asking which parts of my site were against their policy so I could remove adds from those parts and leave wherever it was ok. After all I doubt kitchen knives, flashlights and music lyrics are banned. Got exactly the same reply, word to word. Obviously it is a bot...
So, I wanted to ask, is this all worth pursuing further, is there any other way to get through, or to be precise past that damn bot and talk to someone live who at least can tell me what's wrong?
The other thing is, forward the email showing how you sent tech support an email to review site etc.
Calling and talking to them is always best.
Erm, I could see that they'd have legitimate problems with advertising on pages about weapons... Many of their large European markets are VERY much less gun-happy than the US, and it mightn't do their reputation any good. (And could be illegal in some juristictions; think it is here for example).
Rob.
P.S. The TOS bars "Sales or promotion of certain weapons, such as firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles" (emphasis added). That doesn't necessarily mean that every other weapon is OK.
As for the gun promotion. The gun which isn't really reviewed on my site but I host its FAQ/Maintenance pages is the Desert Eagle Pistol, and that's the gun you see in every other Hollywood movie or even TV. Dunno if I can compete with that as a promoter.
Besides they do have adsense adds on bunh of military sites.
The only thing I can think of is ammo reviews for desert eagle. Making people "aware" :) Sigh. pathetic IMHO.
For knives while adsense was working it did display very content related sites selling outdoor knives, kitchen knives, etc. Since they accept adds for such stuff I can't imagine how mine was wrong then.
Don't shoot yourself in the foot! he he
Anyway what I did a couple of years ago was simply call up the main number in Mountain View and tell the operator who I needed to talk to. My problem was resolved immediately. Click on "About Google", then "Corporate Info", then "Address", and give it a try.
As for the knife adds and such.
For one tonns of military sites have google adds. Second, google themselves have a lot of adds selling knives, self defence products, flashlights, etc.
And finally for the earnings, I made ~175 in 13 days I was up.
29$ was from fhashlight chanel;
28$ is hard to classify, ppl were clicking on the adds in image gallery which has lots of vrious pictures of all (guns, knives, flashlights, nuclear tests);
27$ was from Desert Eagle Pistol page.
And 21$ from knives. BTW, knives CTR was one of thie highest, 1.7%.
That money came form the adds Google was serving. So, they do make money on that industry just as many others.
Just do a search on google for knife or folding knife or tactical knife and see how many adds will be displayed on google itself.
