AdSense Disabling Arbitrage Accounts by June 1st

[Freddy81]

They told me my account will be disabled at 1st June, and also added that I'll receive payment for all outstanding earnings in accordance with the standard AdSense payment schedule.

For this day (17 May), does it mean that they will pay for April 1-30 earnings, or for May (1-18) also?

[newsecular]

I to got the "friendly account disablement" email today, May 18. It came out of the blue. It says my business model is not a good fit for AdSense and that the account goes down on June 1. Payment will be made normally though. I am a UPS club+ size publisher.

I will be the first to admit that I have been running substantial arbitrage and MAF sites. They have just grown exponentially lately due to all the efficient AdWords tools. Yet, MAF and arbritage is not a breach of TOS in and of itself right?
I admit that they are not the greatest user experience out there. Yet I do believe they do comply with the specifics of the TOS, there are no blatant breaches. I run dozens of sites/domains with AdSense and I have been careful to abide with the specifics in the letters of the TOS.

I have now begun changing my business model to comply, what else to do? I am closing down anything I assume could be the trigger of this. I will scale down my efforts to a comply-safe fraction of the current system. I will then plead and beg the AdSense team to please reconsider.
I am also closing down my UPS club sized AdWords campaigns (someone must be missing this cash I assume).

Please AdSense team. Please give honest (at least non-breaching) webmasters a chance to straighten things up and stay in the program. I for one have gotten the message that a redo is needed, I urge for a fair chance to fix things. Thanks.

[jomaxx]

someone must be missing this cash I assume

Not webmasters. Most don't want MFA's advertising on their websites in the first place. In fact I bet you try to block them yourself.

Anyway, it IS too bad the account is being terminated altogether. However most MFAs require more fixing than simply changing the source of traffic. They're highly optimized in order to have no reason to exist except to show ads. Great for ROI, bad for users who inadvertently end up there.

[europeforvisitors]

Not webmasters. Most don't want MFA's advertising on their websites in the first place.

Those same Webmasters may be surprised and unhappy when they discover that disappearing MFA ads won't necessarily be replaced by higher-paying non-MFA ads--at least not in the short run. Over time, though, a tougher stance by Google against click arbitrage should work to the advantage of both advertisers and real publishers.

[newsecular]

Jomaxx - yes that’s true, I also try to block the low paying MAF and arbitrage site ads from my sites, intensely so. Yet I myself do run the same ads myself on AdWords... what can I say...
Should one stop ones profitable AdWords campaigns because one does not like those same ads on ones own sites?

My main sites were not built as arbitrage sites as such (old 2003 domains), rather I have split-testes and optimized, split-tested and optimized again until the sites have become somewhat like shallow one page MAF/arbitrage sites.

I am puzzled as to what to do and what to tell the AdSense team on Monday. Apparently there are no serious blatant breaches as I am getting a UPS-club check for May. Yet I am left out going forward, through a canned message.

Working in the blind as there are no reasons given in the email.
Will a significant scale-back effort be counted for something?

Any ideas for how to work this out is much appreciated.

[sailorjwd]

Could this have anything to do with 'a friend' being banned from adsense 13 months ago?

[newsecular]

"Over time, though, a tougher stance by Google against click arbitrage should work to the advantage of both advertisers and real publishers."

I agree with that. A system for dealing with this is needed. Yet, the solution right now can not be to throw out the unwanted webmasters en mass. If I had gotten just one serious warning email - I would have done anything to comply, of course.
This hard line is like saying one is inherently a bad webmaster.

[ronburk]

At the risk of stating the obvious: hopefully anyone getting word from Google like this checks the email headers to make sure it came from a plausible IP address.

[zett]

I agree with that. A system for dealing with this is needed. Yet, the solution right now can not be to throw out the unwanted webmasters en mass.

Why not?

Unwanted = not wanted = we don't want you = please go = please leave us alone = go away

You have admitted that you have been slowly exploring ("optimizing") ways to increase your Adsense revenue, knowing all too well that you might reach the grey area of "over-optimization" or MFA (and yes, it's MFA not MAF). And you reached that line and crossed it. You exploited the system regardless of statements made by Schmidt & Co. that they see arbitrage as critical.

From Google's view, if you have optimized your Adsense pages in the past over a longer period, then you will probably do it again in the future. If they do not want to see that kind of behaviour, why would they still let you in?

Interesting, though, is that we are seeing parts of the bubble bursting now. Less MFAs = less Adwords revenue = less Google profit. This decision must have resulted in serious fights over at The Plex.

[sgsurvey]

Got the same email here. I just reached my 70k-month.

That sucks.

[dibbern2]

I think it serves no purpose to slam these people here in the forum. They already have enough trouble --and justifiably-- with whats happening to their AdSense accounts.

I am grateful for the open way they've told their story, without hiding that they knew they were walking over the line. None of us is perfect when it comes to making choices.