Forum Moderators: martinibuster
All looked fine, there were rules in place to prevent duplicate content... then we closed for 3 weeks holiday.
End of holidays, our lead programmer ended up off for another week sick.
The day he before he comes back, we get an email our adsense account has been disabled as our network of sites does not comply with the spirit of Google's Webmaster Quality Guidelines.
Now these are not made for AdSense sites, and they were not designed to present empty pages such as "You searched for BLAH but we've got nothing” type sites.. but the reality is... this is what happened for 4 weeks.
Across this network, we must have been serving many of these pages, probably millions.
Whilst Google did not advise of the exact problem, we are assuming that this was it. We have since fixed the problem which was far from intentional, but it appears our days as a Google publisher are over.
Purpose of this email is to point out, webmaster monetising through AdSense need to not just be on guard for problems like fraudulent clicks.... they need to ensure their programming does not serve up pages with little content, or pages capable of being declared doorway pages, or pages with duplicate content. Being unaware of a problem or its cause being accidental appears to be no defence.
Exhaustively check your programming, and do all you can to test for pages being served that really should not be.
And Viola.... the sun shines again.
As of this morning, my client has her adsense account back, her explanation has been read by a real person, and accepted.
Note that today is the first day back after a long weekend in the U.S., so Google actually responded fairly quickly.
your story is one of the reasons I left AdSense. I do not have to worry about these emails.
Good thinking. I decided that since I was worried about getting fired, I'd quit my job. I'm worred that if I got married my wife would divorce me, so I'm staying single. I'm worried about getting bunions so I never walk more than 5 feet in one go.
..and I'm worried about having a stuffed up nose, so I lopped it off.
...except now I talk funny.
I just can't understand how a company can get away for 3 weeks without a checkup on the servers etc. Just a chain of events that should not have happened.
Rushed was the big one and improper checking after the upload then leaving it all left alone for 4 weeks just boggels my mind this still continues.
consider this...
A)- 100% impressions to Adsense:
I wake up one fine saturday morning only to see that dreaded email, I skip all the beautiful things that I had planned with my family and start preparing a list of things that I must do now to continue earning.
B)- Diversified and multiple source of income.
I get that email from google. I react by sipping little bit more coffee yet I do not loose my sleep.
the second best option yields only 1/10 or less of adsense income
That's a major trouble signal, because if you can't make money with your own traffic, there's a strong chance it won't be very good quality traffic for most advertisers either.
or should i start selling hand made widgets on my website instead of doing what i can do best, creating useful content.
go ask around who is (almost) 100% dependent on adsense. if you get honest replies, i guess you'll be astonished.
[edited by: moTi at 4:58 am (utc) on Feb. 21, 2008]
the few other options are pay per sale or display banners. hassle and ultra low payout.
If the payout for those other options is ultra-low, then it's a reasonable guess that your traffic (assuming that you have enough of it) isn't of high quality from an advertiser's perspective. Remember, "quality" has different meanings in different contexts. A biographical site about St. Catherine of Siena might be well-written and spiritually uplifting, but if St. Catherine's fans are more interested in religious fulfillment than in researching purchases, and if they don't belong to a desirable demographic (such as well-heeled people who might be interested in tours to St. Catherine's shrine in Siena), then the site's audience quality leaves something to be desired from an advertiser's point of view.
isn't of high quality from an advertiser's perspective.
no. the formula low payout = low quality is just not right regarding affiliate or display banners. ppa programs can be rubbish and try to pull you over the barrel. or they don't fit to your site audience and are too much of a hassle to select the right ones. instead you decide to create content and leave the rest to adsense.
and what has earning from (cpm) display ads to do with quality of traffic? often not much. actually, they may be your first choice if you generate a huge amount of page impressions often in combination with low end traffic and difficult audience (forums, social networks). what if your site structure doesn't fit in that category. so be careful with claims that every site that is dependent on adsense has low quality traffic for advertisers. could be that its informational content is a perfect match with ppc contextual advertising but not really with other options. also depends on your home country and the marketing possibilities you find there apart from adsense.
[edited by: moTi at 2:43 pm (utc) on Feb. 21, 2008]
no. the formula low payout = low quality is just not right regarding affiliate or display banners. ppa programs can be rubbish and try to pull you over the barrel. or they don't fit to your site audience and are too much of a hassle to select the right ones.
Are you suggesting that AdSense always works well (or should be expected to work well) with every site?
and what has earning from (cpm) display ads to do with quality of traffic?
Quite a lot, actually. Why do advertisers pay higher CPMs for TRAVEL + LEISURE than for MODERN HITCHHIKER? Because T+L's audience is wealthier and is more likely to buy expensive travel and lifestyle products.
Are you suggesting that AdSense always works well (or should be expected to work well) with every site?
no. every site is different. you have to chose the right advertising network.
Quite a lot, actually.
in case of conventional banner networks, from a publisher view not much in the current state of affairs. if you got loads of page impressions but badly marketable traffic, you may go for cpm banners.
biographical site about St. Catherine of Siena might be well-written and spiritually uplifting, [...], then the site's audience quality leaves something to be desired from an advertiser's point of view.
[edited by: trader at 3:33 pm (utc) on Feb. 21, 2008]
if you got loads of page impressions but badly marketable traffic, you may go for cpm banners.
Few advertisers would want to be paying for CPM banners in that situation, unless they were very, very cheap.
Seems lie a good site to put on some travel to Sienna ads.
It would be hit or miss whether such ads would be productive for the advertiser, because the audience does not have travel in mind when they visit that page.
The most productive ads will generally come from places where the audience is already thinking about what you have to offer before they even see your ads.
The most productive ads will generally come from places where the audience is already thinking about what you have to offer before they even see your ads.
Bingo. That's why special-interest and enthusiast publications exist. The person who reads POPULAR PHOTOGRAPHY or WASHINGTON WEDDING PLANNER is more than a reader; he or she is a prospective customer for advertisers.
Yeah, it even assigns a unique login code each time you login. There's no way you can login without leaving a digital footprint. This is for security and to prevent invalid clicks aka click fraud.
p/g
Seems lie a good site to put on some travel to Sienna ads.
Maybe, or maybe not. It depends on the audience and its demographics.
in case of conventional banner networks, from a publisher view not much in the current state of affairs. if you got loads of page impressions but badly marketable traffic, you may go for cpm banners.
See above. Like targeted affiliate programs, CPM display ads can pay better than AdSense does (even for a site that's doing okay with with AdSense), depending on the topic, the audience, and advertiser demand.
Every publisher has to learn through experience what works (or doesn't work) on his or her site.
One of my clients runs a site about pets. The pet spider page may attract 15 visitors per month. Hardly enough to be able to sell advertising to a spider dealer, and placing the relevant advertising for that dealer or placing relevant spider affiliate products on that page would be far too expensive timewise for her.
Adsense allows her to monetise even low traffic, niche pages within a large website.
its not just the higher revenue, its the lower implimentation cost that makes adsense such a winner.
This is my first visit to this thread and I am appalled by Google banning the client of the OP. Surely they should have contacted her and asked a few questions first.
I have a faint suspicion here that Google (ASA)has been reading this thread and were also appalled by what has happened to the client of the OP. How come she was reinstated so quickly? I've never heard of someone being reinstated so quickly.
If that's the case, then we at Webmasterworld have some power. At least a bit more than maybe I thought we had before. If true, it also shows that Google can react in a timely and appropriate manner if just an ounce (or gramm) of public opinion is applied. That bodes well for you nippi. Reading your posts I fall in your favour for both you and your clients. Your posts have the ring of truth to them, an unfortunate accident has happened to you. Good luck.
EFV - why change the subject of the OP?
Why not ask the person who changed the subject, and to whom I was replying? For that matter, why change the subject yourself?
As for the question of whether Google should have contacted the OP's client before locking her account, that's a legitimate question, but let's face it: AdSense relies heavily on automation by necessity, and as a practical matter, it may be necessary (or at least advisable) to disable an account that fits a certain profile and review that decision manually after the fact. After all, Google's first obligation is to its advertisers.
Bottom line: It's nice to see that the OP's client was reinstated after a review, but considering the circumstances, it probably wasn't unreasonable for her account to be put on hold until someone at Google had time to take a closer look.
100% totatlly and absolutely wrong IMO.
Google, and all companies, is responsible 100% to its shareholders. Never forget that. And shareholders want only thing, profit, IMO.
That's not bad, its just the the absolute bedrock of any company. Its the backbone (right or wrong) of the capitalist society in which we live.
