Forum Moderators: martinibuster
There was also a picture posted in another thread of the Google AdSense team in their halloween costumes.
Plus, there are several threads here reporting on earnings problems that include comments about poor or non-existent communications from Google.
Putting those three together, I'm reminded that there is basically a generation of time between many of us on this board and the people pictured in that AdSense team picture.
Many of us remember a time when you could call a company and talk to a human who could, and would, actually answer your question. There were few or no press 1 for this or press 2 for that automated telephone systems. Your call wasn't answered by someone on another continent.
Most of the people on that AdSense team look like they grew up in a time when good communication with customers was dying or dead. I wonder if that accounts for the lack of communication from Google?
And I wonder what else is affected?
FarmBoy
It's mostly still a secret sauce.
a) not give out any meaningful information. Meaningful information can be questioned, so the less information is out there, the better Google's position is.
b) rely heavily on algos to keep up the revenue per employee up. It's a silly measure, but apparently quite successful in blurring the vision of analysts.
c) negotiate contracts that try to get all the risks to their contract partners. The Adsense T&C makes no exception. Google tries to avoid any responsibility at all, tries to avoid any transparency at all.
d) keep even their employees in the dark about what's going on (aka "The Big Picture"). Stupid responses from account managers or support staff provide proof. Their capability to mis-interpret (or not read/understand) any incoming mail is unmatched.
If you can't afford a ticket to Vegas (pretty much the cheapest destination in the United States), then at least take heart that AdSensers do read the forums.
Beyond that, I've only had good communications between myself and the AdSense team by email. Being a moderator had nothing to do with the quality of that communication either because I didn't communicate as mb. In person I've found them reasonably circumspect about certain things, but no more than I am about my own business with friends or strangers and most WebmasterWorld members who you'd meet at a conference.
As far as a phone bank, I think that's great for providing service related solutions like data maintenance (SSN, address, etc.). That works for a company that needs to know when the phone is not working, your computer is not working, or your widget broke within the warranty period.
But the AdSense program is not in that category. The kinds of questions I imagine they'd be bombarded with would probably include newbs asking why they're not ranking, help with HTML and JavaScript, and time spent providing solutions on the "is your computer plugged in?" scale.
Wrong Farmboy,
It's the policy not the individual people. Those "kids" in my eyes are only both brilliant and very lucky.
I'm not debating their intellect.
Let's turn this around.
Let's assume the AdSense team members are very idealistic and eager to provide good communications to publishers. Yet it doesn't seem to happen. Why not?
One theory would then be that someone has instructed them not to provide good communication. That's a very pessimistic view as to believe that, you would have to believe they are hanging around just for the money in spite of their core beliefs.
And at some point, someone would slip up and reveal some information. A secret is very difficult to maintain once more than one person knows the secret.
Another theory would be that they are being kept in the dark intentionally. To believe that, you have to believe that all these bright people who learn about problems being experienced by pubishers are content just to stay ignorant and not find out the answers.
Again, at some point, I would expect someone to respond with a "I don't know but I'll see if I can find out and let you know" type response.
FarmBoy
Think about the company as a whole: Larry Page and Sergey Brin are rather young and they tend to hire a lot of young talent. Part of that talent may influence how the company handles its affairs.
Have you ever made it to PubCon? There are AdSensers galore there, give them an earful in person. ;) If you can't afford a ticket to Vegas
For some people, it's not a matter of I can afford it thus I will go. There are family obligations with children or elderly parents, or both. There are job or business obligations, community & church activities, etc.
If you're suggesting they give up their few free days in a year to travel to a convention site to obtain some basic information, I think that in itself is evidence of poor communication.
Besides, the problems are being experienced now. People are seeking answers now.
As far as a phone bank, I think...
I'm not suggesting they set up a phone bank. It was merely used as an analogy of how customer service practices have changed over the years.
Beyond that, I've only had good communications between myself and the AdSense team by email.
Reading some of the other current threads, it's obvious a number of people aren't experiencing that good communication right now. Just read the first two responses to the original post in this thread. The cause of the poor communication is being debated, not whether poor communication exists.
FarmBoy
A 5 star one on one service is not possible of financially feasible till you become a premium publisher. But I also agree the company as a whole needs to open up a lot more.
...what you are expecting is not possible...
A number of people, possibly a significant number, are experiencing an earnings downturn and/or stats problems.
A post on the AdSense blog or here by ASA something to the effect of, "We're aware of the concerns and we're researching it and will post further information soon"
OR
"We have researched the concern and have found no technical problems on our end. If you are currently experiencing a problem, please email us at #*$!x@google.com and someone will evaluate your account accordingly. We will only respond to questions concerning X or Y at this temporary email address. For other questions or concerns, see our help pages or contact us via the usual support email address"
That's what I expect and I believe it is possible.
FarmBoy
Every single month there's a thread by a rotating group of AdSensers experiencing a downturn. What could they possibly say to them that they haven't already written on their blog or in their help section? The fact that they read about the stats problems and took action is evidence that they're reading these forums.
One more January item: we announced our 2006 year-end results, and hit a new milestone: on December 31, we employed 10,674 Googlers around the world – the first time our employee base hit 5 digits!
Scroll down to 2007 for verification:
[google.com...]
So, 10,000+ employees and not one "allowed" to respond to my query...hmmm...not even a canned response!
And here ASA says:
Our engineers are aware of this aggregate/channels reporting discrepancy and are working on resolving it as quickly as they can. I'll let you know when I know more
Then you ask for
"and have found no technical problems"
And here ASA says:
This was a reporting issue ONLY. It did not affect the actual recording of your clicks, impressions or earnings recording in any way
I'd say you got exactly what you are asking for, but you and I know we want more, let's move on to that not waste time.
- We want the exact detail of how SmartPricing works
- We want to know how and when it affects us
- We want Google to disclose our pay share
right?
- We want the exact detail of how SmartPricing works
Yes, all of us would love to know this secret!
My gut feel by the way that 'improvements' are handled is that the management structure may be orientated too much towards development. That was OK when Google was a new contender, but it's now a major player, and major companies have to make a clear distinction between development and production.
Upgrades and enhancements should only get rolled out if they meet production criteria. But Google seems to be forever tweaking things and then having to backtrack or modify. For example the issue of supplementary pages where Google had to modify the way they handled it after implementation, not to mention the current problem with stats which seems to be going on and on. Where was the roll-back plan?
The communication on the stats problem has been extraordinary poor. On 26/10 ASA said.
Good news! The channels reporting issue has been fixed. Our engineers are still working to correct your reports from the last few days, but everything should be accurate from this point on.
Not his fault that he (or she) was wrong as he was probably only relaying information in good faith, but if I were ASA I would be very careful about saying anything in future.
[edited by: HarryM at 6:44 pm (utc) on Nov. 5, 2007]
I'd say you got exactly what you are asking for,
No, there doesn't seem to be any assistance or communication for those who still seem to be experiencing the problem after a fix was implemented:
but you and I know we want more, let's move on to that not waste time.- We want the exact detail of how SmartPricing works
- We want to know how and when it affects us
- We want Google to disclose our pay shareright?
We want? I think you're making some incorrect assumptions and engaging in a bit of projection.
I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I don't expect Google to provide that information for several reasons.
FarmBoy
you're making some incorrect assumptions and engaging in a bit of projection.
No, that's what most earnings & SmartPricing threads down here discuss, by 'we' I am not talking about you personally, but what WW publishers are coveting, and I am glad you agree it is impossible to get, perhaps even futile to request knowing how Google and large companies in general operate.
Now Adsense is just the opposite. I often feel violated, blown off and just generally disrespected. It's like calling tech support for a web host (not all webhosts obviously but we've all been there) once you're already signed up for a year. The main difference being that you can't "call" at all and email takes about 3 days to never.
It's been said so many times but I mean as much money as I spend in the Adwords program it is just horrible how we are treated on the other end of the same company.
I'm one of the few who are experiencing the huge eCPM drop that occurred in late October so yeah I'm on a bit of a rant about it, but I just hope this doesn't set the precedent for other contextual advertising agencies in the future. But in the end, who are we to question the company that started it all, maybe it's their precedent to set and our lot to fear that our primary income source has been cut in half with no explanation other than that of a handful of theories from people just as shocked as me.
If you send me a sticky with your email address and the date or other information about your message, I'll be more than happy to investigate what happened to it.
-ASA
Some of them are the last people you want to have a human contact with.
I think that there is a natural culling of people wanting help along the lines of "Do I need a webpage to have adsense", or "Make me rich from adsense".
Its not that they are trying to stiff the customer (us) but that they are fearful of the Yahoos and MSN of the world having too much in sight into
their operations.
You can believe that Y and M have full time employees who do nothing but try
to find out information about Googles in house systems, Algos, etc.
You can also be certain that Google has people to stop any leaks that their
employees might let slip. Do not reveal any information that would harm our
dominance!
I believe that this is the real reason you get so little useful feed back from
some other wise very intelligent employees.
I am sure all new hires get a " confidentially class" in their beginners indoctrination. Revealing too much inside information may lead to termination!
As the old WWII slogan went..."Loose lips sink ships!"...KF
Beyond that, I've only had good communications between myself and the AdSense team by email
Well MB I can fully understand that as well as the rest of your post and I imagine you enjoy cordial yet proper relations with those folks.
What is your personal take on the larger threads on this board at the moment?
Do you possibly think, given your wealth of experience, that some among us here are paranoid, scare mongering or simply a relatively small number of complaining tiny minnows in an otherwise huge ocean of satisfied publishers?
The one thing of real concern to me here [and on topic] is the very little explanation or communication from Google via ASA as one example. Nothing to calm the fears - rational or irrational.
My life experience always tells me that when people seem kept in the dark, they tend to imagine a wide range of things - usually wide of the mark. But very real to them at the time.
added:
In any corporation, even a small business the last paragraph above does more to destroy peoples morale than anything else.
[edited by: IanCP at 12:58 am (utc) on Nov. 6, 2007]
From looking at my sites I can see the ones that are markedly down, as well as the ones that are up, up, up. This is reflected in the various ongoing threads as well. Some people are significantly down, apparently more people than the usual folks who complain month over month. So that's significant. However there are many others who aren't feeling anything.
My gut feeling is that this is mostly an advertiser related slump.
...is the very little explanation or communication from Google via ASA as one example. Nothing to calm the fears - rational or irrational.
Apparently some people are not satisfied with the level of communication they get from Google and this thread (and others in the past) should underline that point. But I also don't blame them for not coming out on certain threads. Otoh, Matt Cutts has gone on record to soothe minds about certain updates one way or another. So maybe something like that might be what people are looking for?
[edited by: martinibuster at 6:07 am (utc) on Nov. 6, 2007]
But I also don't blame them for not coming out on certain threads
I noted after replying to your earlier post that ASA in fact did respond here so I apologise for that.
a. Overworked/understaffed
b. Blocked from providing any useful information
If either of these cases are true then I might be tempted to just through up my hands and not be very responsive.
Good communication would be an official status board, listing planned upgrades with scheduled dates and sign-offs when completed.
This morning I had to change the code for an adblock, and found the system had changed. Yes, I knew this change was vaguely in the pipeline, but no formal dates had been provided earlier or details of what would the change would entail.
Good communication would be an official status board, listing planned upgrades with scheduled dates and sign-offs when completed.
Amen to that.
This has been my thought since the time when I joined Adsense. There is virtually no official (as in: somewhere on an official Google site, labeled correctly, and ideally on an Adsense site) communication. They even do not use the mailbox functionality on the Adsense control panel for anything useful. Sad.
