Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I replied, "What is the problem, I will fix it".
(Mods, below is all paraphrased, please do not delete)
"No, since you violated our terms, your site has been disqualified and Adsense has been disabled." POOF!
Nearest I can figure, the site was knocked out because I had two images next to an Adsense rectangle, 336x280.
Being apprehensive at this point, I started to redesign my other sites. Instead of graphics, I put a Chitika ad next to an Adsense rectange. I email the Adsense support and asked them to review the page. I specifically asked him "Can I put a Chitika ad next to an Adsense rectangle. If not, let me know and I will remove it."
Reply came near the end of the day Friday. "The site you showed us violates the Google TOS and Adsense has been disabled." POOF!
This is pretty outrageous - I ASKED them to review a site for me, and they disabled Adsense on it?! (Perhaps it is a new employee out to impress his "boss" by knocking out websites)
My account is still active, but Adsense has been disabled on two domains. Lucky for me I have a YPN account. I don't know what the rest of you who live outside the US are going to do, but you need to prepare for the worst I imagine.
[edited by: Skeptic at 8:36 pm (utc) on Jan. 12, 2008]
Reply came near the end of the day Friday. "The site you showed us violates the Google TOS and Adsense has been disabled." POOF!This is pretty outrageous - I ASKED them to review a site for me, and they disabled Adsense on it?! (Perhaps it is a new employee out to impress his "boss" by knocking out websites)
Sound like a bum deal, but one thing I've guessed over the years is that sites that look very clean and professional get much more leeway than sites that fail the sniff test.
So the question you might want to consider is: How would a very conservative, legitimate business person perceive your sites (all and each of them)?
I might suggest to Google that they should go thru and review all the websites that Adsense and Adwords users have in their BLOCK list instead of bothering me.
At that time it was clear to me that it is really DANGEROUS to contact Adsense support with any non-critical issues. Their unwillingsness to read your email or understand your problem may result in the wrong actions being taken.
As outlined many times before (and not just by me), I think that Google has a serious problem in their interaction with partners (or better: suppliers) like us.
Gosh, I really hope that we will see a serious competitor to Adsense in 2008.
I got a very friendly and professional response within hours. The YPN employee told me the two images I had next to their 336x280 rectangle was not allowed. He suggested I either put a frame around the images or put a line between the images and the ad. I put a line, exchanged emails again until they told me the page was "fine."
YPNs ad targeting is still inferior to Google's, but their customer service is obviously more helpful.
I also had some blank areas to fill up because YPN does not offer anything like Adlinks yet. I just replaced the Adlinks with some affiliate links that would be appropriate to the theme of the site.
I've noticed that you chose not to answer coachm's question up there, so I can only conclude that the mentioned sites are perhaps substandard?
I guess you "forgot" that Google changes the rules every so often.
The rules you described were not the impact of changed rules. And when they do change rules, you are prompted by the system to acknowledge you received them. Blame someone else. You said it yourself, the Y ads are not targeted as well ... but this is good. Nothing but adsense bashing for your own lack of responsibility. I think this is good - as we hear so many complaints of google doing nothing.
YPNs ad targeting is still inferior to Google's, but their customer service is obviously more helpful.
LOL. The solution is simple - whenever you need help, slap some Yahoo ads on the page and contact YPN support. After they give you an answer, put the Google ads back.
Your story can be worrying if your sites are of quality and you invested time and effort building them..I've noticed that you chose not to answer coachm's question up there, so I can only conclude that the mentioned sites are perhaps substandard?
I can only reply that I did not seek out Adsense - I was invited to join their program. They encouraged me to "feel free to put it on all of your sites."
Same with YPN - I did not seek out their program - they invited me to join.
As far as the TOS goes - did you ever read it? I am not an attorney at law - the document reads like legal mumbo-jumbo to me. Not that YPN's is any better - but at least they have a helpful staff that responds to my inquiries whether something is allowed or not.
Any other questions?
The rules you described were not the impact of changed rules. And when they do change rules, you are prompted by the system to acknowledge you received them. Blame someone else. You said it yourself, the Y ads are not targeted as well ... but this is good. Nothing but adsense bashing for your own lack of responsibility. I think this is good - as we hear so many complaints of google doing nothing.
Actually, I am not "blaming" anyone - I only posted my story here to warn others - if they have any images next to their ads, they need to remove them quickly.
However, if it helps you to feel like a big man by trolling me, go ahead and do your worst.
From what you said, looks like your sites were banned due to placing images too close to their ads, it was one of the relatively recent TOS clarifications of an original and old TOS point related to not calling undue attention to ads.
Obviously you are not up to date on the TOS, and to anwer your question, yes, I and many other do read it and follow up on updates to ensure compliance, if you don't you can only blame yourself, you were fortunate in not losing your whole account, also for getting a warning, it is unfortunate that you did not bother to re-read the TOS and fix the issue.
Yours is a less worrying story for those that do their homework. Yet it has to be said that we all wish Google's warnings were more specific & consistently helpful (I know of other people that got details in their warnings).
The cost of dealing with customers/users/partners such as skeptic en masse are huge, which is no doubt, why google is not actually interested in communicating with this person or that person. It's much cheaper to NOT get to know people, and work on the aggregate.
Google often drive most of us nuts with the way it communicates (including me), but there is a bottom line to this, and that is that both google's profit, and our own profits would drop if google was to spend the huge amounts of money dealing with people who:
don't read the term
try to cheat or ignore the terms
steal outright
expect hand holding
and on and on.
It probably sounds strange but I don't go to a bag your own grocery store expecting to have someone bag my groceries, and I don't expect google to handhold, or do my job for me.
...the cost of dealing with people who do not act in good faith, do not conduct themselves in businesslike ways, are amateurish, have no business sense, and expect to be lead to riches is just too high for many businesses.
The site was knocked out because I had two images next to an Adsense rectangle, 336x280.I only posted my story here to warn others - if they have any images next to their ads, they need to remove them quickly.
Thanks for sharing. Sorry to hear of your loss.
If Google was playing hardball, your account would have been banned, not just a few websites. I've never heard of site bans without account termination. Is this new?
I don't use 336x280 ads much at all, but the Google TOS principle wrt images near ads is they can't mislead a reasonable person to think the image is a thumbnail with corresponding text links.
The misunderstanding of course is most likely to occur with one image per text link.
How many text ad links are there in a 336x280 ad? Did your images have parts that lined up beside the text links that looked like a 1:1 ratio?
Months ago I reported a site that used an imperfect 3:4 ratio or so and Google let it continue. It may have been using 335x280 ads. I forget.
Edit: I went back to check the site. It now has images next to 300x250 ads. The images, which appear on the left (like most thumbnails) are about the same size as the ad block, which has two text links. But it's still 1 image: 2 links, so presumably that's not a TOS violation. The single image does not have two parts as if two thumbnail images: two text ad links.
p/g
P.S. Did you make any changes to your ads just before they banned the site? Was there something in the stats that would have red-flagged it?
As for whether one image/two ads is a "violation" or not, I think we can agree that such a layout is borderline and COULD be against the spirit of the TOS. I imagine the judgment call also has to do with the exact proximity of the images, the existence or not of a separating border, the size of the images, the content of the images, etc. If images are likely to call attention to the ads or artificially increase the click rate, IMO that's a ban waiting to happen.
If images are likely to call attention to the ads or artificially increase the click rate, IMO that's a ban waiting to happen.
I can't help thinking of all the posts we've seen here by publishers who've wanted to know if this or that would get them into trouble. Why invite problems?
As far as the TOS goes - did you ever read it? I am not an attorney at law - the document reads like legal mumbo-jumbo to me.
In the Program Policies, under the section titled "Encouraging clicks" there's a list that states, among other things:
"Publishers participating in the AdSense program:
-May not place misleading images alongside individual ads"
Yup, that sounds like a bunch of "legal mumbo-jumbo" to me, too.
Anyway, here's a similar topic from last March. The answers from Juan_G will really clarify this for you:
[webmasterworld.com...]
I can only reply that I did not seek out Adsense - I was invited to join their program. They encouraged me to "feel free to put it on all of your sites."
What! How does your invitation exclude you from reading the rules? or ensure you receive prompt and professional customer support?
Advice: allways read the fine print and expect to be bound by the rules. Moreover, double or triple read the TOS, clean up your site and write a polite email requesting a reinclusion.
Good luck
I don't use 336x280 ads much at all, but the Google TOS principle wrt images near ads is they can't mislead a reasonable person to think the image is a thumbnail with corresponding text links.The misunderstanding of course is most likely to occur with one image per text link.
How many text ad links are there in a 336x280 ad? Did your images have parts that lined up beside the text links that looked like a 1:1 ratio?
The 336x280 usually displays 4 ads and I had 2 images next to it. I relied on the advice of an "Adsense guru" who speculated that would be okay. Yes, its my fault for listening to him.
I have lots of sites that have a Adsense rectangle next to a Chitika ad. Instead of wrapping text around the ad, the two ads together create a page break. But I can't even get an answer if this is allowed, so I am going to have to remove them all. New white space areas on my pages.
My newer sites are in PHP, so they are easier to tweak. But my older sites are all HTML pages, will take forever (ugh) to update.
Thanks to everyone who offered helpful advice in this thread. Others who can only post snide remarks can rest in the knowledge that I hold similar affection for them. I have several internet friends that refuse to even visit this forum because of the nastiness.
I've e-mailed them a few times BEFORE implementing something, if I wasn't sure. That way, you have an okay in writing.
From google's standpoint, I'm a little surprised that they didn't just ask you to change it, since you're clearly willing to cooperate. However, this may be their way of "asking" -- have you appealed, with all the facts stated in your email? Fix everything you can think of and send 'em an appeal. See what happens. I've known banned sites to be reinstated a few times, once the problem was resolved.
(And it's easier than you'd think to make inadvertent violations of the TOS. I realized a month into a campaign that I had drop-down menus that were dropping down over ads on certain monitor resolutions, on certain pages on my site. I fixed it when I realized it but Google could have nailed me for that.)
-- Leva
There have been lots of stories [by which I mean I can recall a half dozen or so] here of individual sites being banned without the owner's account being banned.As for whether one image/two ads is a "violation" or not, I think we can agree that such a layout is borderline and COULD be against the spirit of the TOS. I imagine the judgment call also has to do with the exact proximity of the images, the existence or not of a separating border, the size of the images, the content of the images, etc. If images are likely to call attention to the ads or artificially increase the click rate, IMO that's a ban waiting to happen.
My first site was a business/financial web site, I had rotating business-like images. Two people shaking hands, a person sitting at a computer, a person using a calculator, etc. By "rotating" I mean a different image would display each time the page would load.
I imagine if someone posted images that were flashing red arrows pointing to the ads, their account would be banned immediately.
[edited by: Skeptic at 4:55 pm (utc) on Jan. 14, 2008]
From a publisher standpoint, it might be smart to send a "mock up" of a page design to adsense rather than showing them a live page. "Is this okay? If so, I'll go live with it."
This is what I've done in the past and I think it's the best thing to do. No need taking any chances as I see it. If what you want to do is okay with Google then you only lose what you would have made had you ran the ads. On the other hand if what you want to do isn't okay with Google then you risk getting banned.
...it is really DANGEROUS to contact Adsense support with any non-critical issues. Their unwillingsness to read your email or understand your problem may result in the wrong actions being taken.Google has a serious problem in their interaction with partners (or better: suppliers) like us.
True. At this point I think twice before contacting them. I have got answers having nothing to do with my questions. Thats sad.
...it is really DANGEROUS to contact Adsense support with any non-critical issues. Their unwillingsness to read your email or understand your problem may result in the wrong actions being taken...
If that's true - and I'm not arguing whether it is or isn't - but if that's true, then what's the point of emailing support for approval on something and then "saving the email" as is often advised? What good is it to have that saved approval email if you can't get it to someone who will read it and comprehend?
On the other hand and somewhat in Google's defense, I imagine they get a lot of frustrating and repetitive requests and questions.
It sure seems like a good searchable index of FAQ's - actual questions that are frequently asked - would help to alleviate at least some of this.
FarmBoy
This time they are quoting me "webmaster quality guidelines" as the reason. Humph. My sites are a h*ll of a lot better than some of the crap I put on my block list!
Don't tell me you still have other sites with the same violations that you already know about?
Remove all ads from your remaining sites, cleanup, then contact them again, the way you are heading is towards an account ban.
Nope. Absolutely unrelated. They are all older sites that I had around for years - before Adsense came along.
My best description would be to call them "affiliate sites." Nothing dodgy on them. Duplicate content perhaps.
Looks like instead of banning my account, they are just going to knock out all of my sites. I am ruined.
My sites are a h*ll of a lot better than some of the crap I put on my block list!
No offense but if your point of reference to judge the quality of those sites in questions are the MFAs advertising on adsense that people tend to block (which Google tolerate since they do inject money in the system now that you can't arbitrage adsense with adwords), and you're saying yourself that they were affiliate sites with duplicate content, they couldn't be of much value...
