Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Bah humbug.
We are ants in an ant farm in the hands of a kid.
chew on that for a while, and as I'm sure you already know, we ants have other options for the good or the bad, it's a matter of balancing gains vs. Agony/risk or loss.
now that should sort out many threads down here :-)
I was just browsing the Adsense Blog, catching up on reading. In reference to their December 5, 2007 announced winner...
I don't know if I ended up on the site you were referencing, but the site I saw referenced as a "winner" has the following above the Google AdSense search box:
"Can't find what you're looking for? Try our search:"
I didn't realize calling attention to and encouraging searches was permitted. Hmmmmm.
FarmBoy
I don't think Mike was "selectively" harassed, more "random." I've had similar dealings with them.
Look, these guys are literally raking in $$$Billions, so I suppose their management is not going to rate grade-A. However, I have to admit to believing they are more arbitrary than focused, as Mike's case points up.
One hand not knowing what the other is doing shouldn't surprise anybody, but I think their size is becoming a problem with more aspects than they even imagine and I dn't believe they have the proper management on board to handle it.
We are ants in an ant farm in the hands of a kid.
A kid who has done a very good job with the ant farm.
He's a kid, the farm has had its ups and downs, and I am not the King of the Anthill by any means, but I eat good, I have a good job within the ant community, and all in all the farm is still an advantageous place to be.
I'm nowhere near looking at trying to escape anytime soon...
(And say 'yessir' if you do... keep your head down... don't look 'em in the eyes...)
Only for the Goog. ;-)
YM
the moral of the story is not to be the ant..
No, the moral is to know thy size and 'shrinkest' or 'expandest' thy expectations accordingly.
Spend little time realizing what is in the realm of the possible, then send all the remaining time making possible all that can be changed for you to be content.
End of the year free nuggets of wisdom :-)
[/FreeNuggets]
off now to the reports channel glitch
I also think there are some serious training and consistency issues in their "support" department, since when I asked for clarification on our "harrassment" incident and pointed out some other sites, similar to this one, as examples, a second support person said it was OK. He also acted like he didn't believe it looked the same when the other support person looked at it until I told him to check the update date and the historical net archives and all the rest of our pages which are the same format if he didn't believe me. But what about all the subjective issues in which you DON'T have input or clarification options, that are going on quietly behind the scenes, where manually set software switches can affect your smart-pricing in a simple click? The notice I recieved (late Friday - support doesn't work on weekends) said if I did nothing I would be banned in 3 days! I guess secrecy just brings out the paranoia in me.
From experience, I agree entirely with YesMom. If you're happy with your own income but see a glaring problem on their part, DON'T TELL Adsense, just ignore it and fix it yourself if you can, or YOU'LL wind up paying for it, not them. Sad to say but, "Better to claim ignorance later than to ask for investigation now". Except that in our case, it pretty much can't hurt anymore since we're making far more off other ad sources now, than on Adsense anyway, as we've obviously been 75%-90% smartpriced (the max I'm guessing since we haven't dropped any more in a month or so) since March and that's only on our remaining HIGHEST converting adsense pages which we haven't switched over yet.
I also think there are some serious training and consistency issues in their "support" department, since when I asked for clarification on our "harrassment" incident and pointed out some other sites, similar to this one, as examples, a second support person said it was OK
I don't mean to be snarky but if you think life is going to be consistent you have more serious problems than those that involve google.
Seriously, I agree. Google is clearly inconsistent. And, so is every other company I interact with, have consulted for, and been paid by.
It's the nature of working with human beings, and yah it drives me crazy, whether it's dealing with a retail store, my insane cable company, or whoever. It's nuts.
Google isn't special one way or the other. You aren't special enough to warrent being selectively harrassed by google, and each of us is probably inconsistent enough ourselves to deserve criticism for being inconsistent.
Get some mental health, and get used to the idea the world is inconsistent. (mostly kidding here, nothing personal).
(now why is it raining on my house, but not on my neighbor's? Anyone know?)
Better to claim ignorance later than to ask for investigation now
You simply got a warning message. Fix the issue and move on. There's nothing to be gained by brooding over whatever some other publisher is doing.
1) Consistency isn't possible, since different people inevitably will have different interpretations of possible "grey area" violations. (It's like dealing with customs officials: One might glance at your list of purchases and say "OK, you're good to go," while another might want to add up the numbers on your receipts to make sure that you haven't exceeded your duty-free allowance.)
2) We haven't seen your site or the other publisher's site, so it's impossible to know whether other factors might have come into play. Maybe there's something about your site, your pages, or your audience that causes Google to cut you less slack than it would for Publisher B. We just don't don't know.
As Jomaxx suggests, it would be more productive to fix the problem than to obsess about what another publisher is or isn't allowed to do.
About a year or two ago when G listed a number of "Featured" sites which they were using as models of great ad placement, etc.
I think I see your problem here, you are paying attention to marketing. That's never a good plan. I would be shocked if it ever occurred to marketing to run one of those sites by the quality team before listing them.
What should matter to you is reading what the rules say, and keeping well clear of the gray areas. If someone says you crossed the line, and only gives you three days to fix it, then fix it, plus a bit extra.
Selectively harrassed by Adsense
Yes, the world is not fair, particularly when people enter the scene. Nobody agrees on everything.. When an algo does the work then the rules are applied as well the algo was written. When an untrained or semi-trained human does the work - well who knows judgment and the feeling of authority provides mixed results.
Google has emerged a new company as of late.
Better to claim ignorance later than to ask for investigation now
In reading various threads on different AdSense forums, I'm beginning to think a number of people have adopted a "Don't ask" approach (rightly or wrongly) towards AdSense. In other words, out of fear of one of the "inconsistent" responses, they had rather be in doubt about the acceptability of a certain practice than to ask AdSense a question and bring attention to themselves.
FarmBoy
In other words, out of fear of one of the "inconsistent" responses, they had rather be in doubt about the acceptability of a certain practice than to ask AdSense a question and bring attention to themselves.
The simplest way to avoid worrying about the acceptability of a certain practice is to adopt the rule "When in doubt, don't."
I think this because most of us know what our sites are capable of and the level of quality they are.
The reason for doing this is pretty obvious, to me. Smart pricing will drive your income into the basement forcing some to go elsewhere but not directly severing the ties to them so that in the future they can be used again as publishers.
Ann
After exchanging three or four emails with G, explaining that I was who I always was, same info, etc., they advised me that (I loved this) the IRS could not process the period after my middle initial, therefore I should change my Google payee info (which, on their site they say cannot be changed) to sync up with my IRS info.
That was the last exchange. I did nothing. Got my EFT payment in my checking account today as normal and haven't heard from G or the IRS.
My point is that G has a burgeoning internal bureaucracy, and that's a business killer. One hand does one thing, the other hand does another, nothing good or constructive comes from it, except to annoy customers (in this case, me).
I realize that by posting here I open myself to more scrutiny, but I remain secure that even if ASA or any other G employee reads this post, it won't be reported anywhere, and even in the remote case that it is, nothing will come of it. That's how bureaucracies (fail to) work.
Happy Holidays.
My point is that G has a burgeoning internal bureaucracy, and that's a business killer. One hand does one thing, the other hand does another, nothing good or constructive comes from it, except to annoy customers (in this case, me).
Except you aren't google's customer. Knowing who a customer is is an important part of running your own business, by the way.
Anyway, Google certainly doesn't communicate well. But you are talking about a disease that strikes every large company at times, and some companies always (ugh, maybe google is one of those).
So, don't deal with any company that has more than 3-4 people in it, but you'll deal with some different problems.
If the IRS is bouncing legally-required reports because of a typing error, shouldn't the error be fixed?
EFV: I agree the IRS should fix their problems, but does the removal of a period after my middle initial require the involvement of a staffer at Google and me?
The point I made to G was that if the IRS has changed how they deal with "dots" I should not have to bear the burden of dealing with it. The series of hoops through which G asked me to jump was daunting, and as it turns out, completely unnecessary.
coach: I certainly am at least a customer as an AS publisher. I create revenue for G and vice versa; I make use of their services. Your contention is a semantical argument and invalid.
The point I made to G was that if the IRS has changed how they deal with "dots" I should not have to bear the burden of dealing with it. The series of hoops through which G asked me to jump was daunting, and as it turns out, completely unnecessary.
Whether you like it or not, YOU are responsible for your tax issues with the IRS, and Google is responsible to the IRS for following its laws. So, YOU are legally involved in this obigation, whether you think it so or not. It sounds like google messed this up, but I know from dealing with other companies this year, that IRS changes are affecting things elsewhere.
coach: I certainly am at least a customer as an AS publisher. I create revenue for G and vice versa; I make use of their services. Your contention is a semantical argument and invalid.
Actually, it's not. It's a serious issue for any business because it affects how you prioritize what you do, and who you focus on pleasing and addressing. I'd invite folks to take a look at the site in your profile, to see what can happen when you confuse who your customer is.
Generally, if you see your customer as google, let's say, you create a different site than if you see your customer as car owners. If you see your customer as advertisers, you do something yet again different. And on.
Business101. Identify who your customers are, and a customer is usually someone one interacts with in some way that PAYS (there's exceptions). You do not pay google for a service. They pay you.
It's also clear and sensible that google at least tries to see the "user" (not the website owner) as the customer, because THEY are the ultimate source of Google's income. Not you. And then next in the customer line is the advertiser. Not you.
You might expect to be treated like a google customer, but you aren't. Google can survive without any of us webmasters. You're just going to be disappointed.
[edited by: jatar_k at 6:59 pm (utc) on Dec. 26, 2007]
[edit reason] fixed quote [/edit]
BTW: Your argument that Google can survive without "any of us webmasters" qualifies as the most specious of 2007.
What is Google's primary function? To index web sites built by webmasters. Effectively, they would not exist without us.
BTW: Your argument that Google can survive without "any of us webmasters" qualifies as the most specious of 2007.
I figured that since we are talking about adsense, and we are in the adsense area, that you would have made the connection.
Didn't realize I needed to spell it out to reduce ambiguity.
Anyway, you and I don't pay the bills of google. They, in fact, pay us. Somehow I think it's good business practice to keep in mind who pays who, but heck, that's just me. I like to remember where the money comes from and who pays who.
I expect different things from people who pay me, than from people who I pay. Don't you?
Google doesn't pay us for the ads we display, per se. They share revenues with us. It's a three-sided transaction, and from G's perspective, they're firmly in the middle. Maybe using the word customer was a mistake on my part. Maybe I should have said business relationship partners.
In any case, all you're doing is arguing semantics, and it's not really useful to this discuss and far off topic. Please take a chill pill. You don't always have to be right. (well, I don't know you... maybe you do.)
In any case, all you're doing is arguing semantics,
Semantics are important. Usually when someone says "it's just sematics" they were the ones that did a bad job of communicating, OR, a more common scenario is they don't really understand the intricacies of what they are arguing about.
I simply can see no way that publishers are AdSense customers. "Partners" would have been fine.
AdWords users are customers. Website users can be viewed as customers. Even Google itself can be viewed as a customer of our ad space. But we as publishers are not customers.
If there was a problem with "semantics", it was your's.
