Client banned for breastfeeding photos

Bit of a perfect storm

[nippi]

A client of mine recently bought a site which had been running adsense with no issues for 7 years.

A few months after the purchase, adsense is banned as the site had 4 breastfeeding photos on it. Seems odd, looking at a major newspaper site today, and youtube.com seems google does allow adsense on some sites with breastfeeding images.... just not all.

Client contacted a google rep, who expressed confusion over the policy and promised to get someone higher up to comment. Comment ended up being, no, you need to remove the images. Client did this.

Problem now is, the initial infringement notice went to the previous site owner. When appealing an adsense ban for an infringement, you need to enter the infringement id and the publisher id. When this happens, and auto email is sent to my client "Sorry, those two ids don't match" and the appeal is ignored.

Emails to the Google rep are now also ignored, appeals through the invalid clicks form come back with a "You have no invalid clicks penalty"

So... that appears to be that. Its a bug in the system, there is no way for my client to appeal, and her days of monetising with Adsense are over.

So. My next question..... Anyone had any luck with Amazon contextual advertising?

[netmeg]

If I were your client, I'd try to explain the whole situation (calmly and politely - it's an outlier, so don't get excited) in the Google AdSense Forum, and convince a top contributor there (Gracie is a good one) to flag an AdSense rep for some personal attention. It might not work, but then again, it might work. Costs nothing to try.

AdSense contextual never did a thing for me, although category banner ads and/or specific products do well. You might also try media.net, depending on your level of traffic; from what I understand they use Yahoo and Bing ads. They don't do much for me, but others have done better with them.

[nippi]

"AdSense contextual never did a thing for me" did you mean adsense or amazon?

Have already tried at google adsense forum, could not get a rep to comment, just others saying you breached the rules, that's it your out and never getting back in.

From that forum

Hi publishers,

If your account has been disabled by Google for one or more violations of our policies, it’s because your account posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. For more information, please search your email for a message from AdSense. To learn more about the most common reasons that accounts are disabled, see our top reasons for account closure.

You may appeal this decision by submitting our appeal form. Please note that you may submit only one appeal for your account. Any additional submissions will not be reviewed.

It’s best to identify and correct the policy violation(s) before submitting the form. Carefully review our content and ad placement policies to ensure your site is compliant.

Thanks,

The Google AdSense Team


So see the problem?

a. Appeal lodged, infringement and publisher id dont match so appeal dismissed.
b. Can only lodge one appeal, so that its, site banned, no one has even responded to emails that the initial appeal was dismissed because of an administrative problem/

[netmeg]

Sorry, I meant Amazon. Yes, I see the problem, and if you can't get a human to answer you, then you probably do need to move on.

I will say this - if you yourself have an account in good standing and are eligible for support, you might contact them from your account and explain the situation. Again, costs nothing to try.

But failing that, yah, guess they will have to move on.

[nippi]

Yep, already moved on. Stings though. 5000 unique users a day and right this moment? Sites nearest competitor(also running adsense) has a full nude on the home page, of a pregnant woman.

Frustrating.

[Jane_Doe]

Can you ask the last site owner with the correct publisher id to enter the appeal for your client? Maybe pay them to do so if they don't want to do it voluntarily? Or is the Adsense ban why they sold the site?

From what you wrote you are only allowed one appeal per Adsense account, and I'm assuming per site within that account, so did the last site owner already try this?

[jbayabas]

Your last option is to get a new domain name that is somewhat similar to the previous one. And announce the new URL on the homepage or redirect the traffic to the new domain.

[nippi]

a. I contacted the previous owner who was unaware their adsense account was still open. They appealed, then closed the account. The appeal was rejected, as the account was now closed. An attempt to reopen the account failed, as the only site on the account was now banned. Duoh.

I think its one appeal per issue per account.

b. Client most reluctant to change domains. Current domain 15 years old, is strongly branded, and end result of a 301 anyway might be her whole adsense account gets banned because of trying to circumvent the ban.

[freitasm]

A bit off topic, but I can't understand why breastfeeding is such a polemic topic in the USA... We read about mothers being kicked out of shopping centres because they're breastfeeding "in public", or Facebook pictures being removed because they show a mother breastfeeding her baby.

Now, this?

If that was the worst thing in the world we would be a safer place.

[netmeg]

yea it's stupid, and it's probably not even Google so much as advertisers complaining, but considering how freaked out people still get at the thought of it, I'm not surprised Google had to put in a policy for it.

[nippi]

Breastfeeding is legal in Australia and the US in public. I mean... in New York, a woman can walk down the street with her top off if she so chooses.

To ban a site for something that legally is not viewed as being lewd, or adult, or #*$!... with no chance of appeal?

I am pretty flabbergasted. I have always extolled the fairness of google to my clients... If they got penalised invariably they deserved it at least in some way, and fixing the problems would lead to forgiveness. This is the first time in 15 years I can't say that.

[lucy24]

Heh. With a subject line like this, it could only be a matter of time before someone bursts into a chorus of

They're just mammary glands, mammary glands

et cetera.

Cancer information sites have similar problems.

[netmeg]

Again, I very much doubt it's just Google. Of all my various AdWords clients, I can think of only one who wouldn't throw a fit if they saw their ads on a page with breastfeeding photos. It is what it is.

[jbayabas]

b. Client most reluctant to change domains. Current domain 15 years old, is strongly branded, and end result of a 301 anyway might be her whole adsense account gets banned because of trying to circumvent the ban.

Adsense is where the money is. No amount of Amazon or affiliates can surpass it. If you can't have Adsense on the site, you'd be better off not having the website at all.

I was able to successfully transfer an old high traffic banned site to a new domain  family-friendly site 2 years ago. It was like starting from scratch. Search ranking was affected but gradually recovered because of loyal visitors. Earnings also recovered and even better than before.

[nippi]

netmeg. Its a parenting site, one that promotes breastfeeding There were 4 breastfeeding photos on the site, on a site of over 100,000 pages. The adds that appeared on the site, were breastfeeding bras, breastnipple creams, etc etc. Get the picture? These are not advertisers who would be thrown by bog forbid... and image of a breast.

Jbayabas did you 301 or not, that is the question.

[jbayabas]

No 301. All you have to do is announce the new URL on all pages of the old site. What I did is create a banner that says: visit our new and improved site www.newdomain.com and place it on top of all pages of the old site.

[netmeg]

Get the picture? These are not advertisers who would be thrown by bog forbid... and image of a breast.

1. Those are the advertisers YOU see. They aren't necessarily the advertisers everyone else sees.

2. Google doesn't think in terms of one individual advertiser or one individual publisher. They probably don't even think in terms of 100, because *it doesn't scale* So it wouldn't matter if three or four advertisers were likely to be okay with it, or even twenty or thirty. Statistically, that's insignificant in terms of Google advertisers.

Google is not interested in anything that doesn't scale. Anything.

[jbayabas]

It is not the advertisers, it's Adsense itself.  As stated in the program policies, AdSense publishers are not permitted to place Google ads on pages with adult or mature content. This includes images content containing strategically covered nudity, as well as sheer or see-through clothing. A woman's exposed breast falls under nudity. That's just the rules.

[nippi]

Understood on all. There was no intention to allow breastfeeding photos, they were loaded by a member, and site admin was unaware of it.

But like I said before:-

a. Go to Youtube. Hundreds of breastfeeding videos. Most with adsense.
b. The main parenting site in Australia. Graphic pregnancy nudes, and breastfeeding images. Nipples showing. Google must know, and says its fine.
c. Adsense rep herself, said in some cases breastfeeding images were ok, so its at the very least, a grey area.

Its at least worthy of an appeal, that could be heard, but the ingringement id/ publisher id problem is too much.

Without a 301.... cant see how a new site will work. 15 years of inbound links... no way I can move them all.

[jbayabas]

YouTube is owned by Google. They can do whatever they want. 

I'm sure breast feeding photos are allowed with exception. The only problem with yours is you don't have the proper id. So appeal is futile.

Without a 301.... cant see how a new site will work. 15 years of inbound links... no way I can move them all.

It worked for me. I'm doing just fine.

[swa66]

I think there are 2 core problems:
- inability to communicate with Google Adsense on a level beyond the first line that's too stupid to help themselves, let alone us (if you get to the first level at all)
- the general public in the USA that's overly concerned with things that are just the normal course of nature and classifies it as "obscene". I guess some would want babies to be created out of nothing if they could.

The first: I think we need to continue to complain to Google for a better communication channel. Eventually they'll listen that they are way too hard to reach and that their first line needs to become much, much better.

The latter: good luck on educating a general public where you're opposing well established religious and political powers and their goals. That takes almost a revolution to happen.

[freitasm]

Or perhaps "evolution"?

;-P

[Ironside]

AdSense got banned on one of my websites because of a few rude jokes, nothing to do with images at all. In all fairness, AdSense did give me the chance to remove the pages. However, a lot of these pages brought a lot of traffic to my website, I was earning very very little money through the AdSense advertising so I weighed things up and it was better to leave the pages where they are and forget about AdSense.

I get dating adverts on one of my websites occasionally, sometimes the girls are almost naked. Some might consider these to be a more offensive than a breastfeeding photos.

[nippi]

And then out of the blue after 2 weeks of no contact.

Many apologies for the delay in my reply.

Thank you for making the requested changes to your site. Our policy team has re-reviewed the content and will be re-enabling ad serving. Please wait up to 48 hours for targeted ads to begin appearing on your site again.

[jbayabas]

That is great news.

[karkadan]

@nippi

Sites nearest competitor(also running adsense) has a full nude on the home page, of a pregnant woman.

Adsense only warns you when someone has reported a photo.


When I started with Adsense (9 years ago) and I was a newbie, I told a friend about my project. He was so thrilled with the idea of getting some money with a website, he said he could make his own website, and asked me for help.

I ended up lending him my Adsense code (I really don't know why).

He started making a website about Argentinian models. I checked, and it was fine.

But Argentinian models are known to be kinda of... sometimes they are a step away from being Play boy models or soft core models. While there were no nude photos, or even hot photos, there were a couple that were in the gray area.

For 3 years, the site had no problem. (My friend just worked on it once, got bored, forgot about it). The site also had little traffic, and would have made 15 cents per day.

One day, I got warned for a photo of a girl in a bikini, standing, showing her back and behind. It was not even a thong. But Google has zero tolerance when something is reported.

Since then I keep everything on my sites family friendly. And I've never shared my code again.

----------------------

@nippi You should report, with your personal account (or "another), your competitors' "unacceptable" photos. Fair is fair. All rules should apply to everyone.

You can flag the photos, and then report to the Google Adsense Infringement Dept.

[nippi]

On reporting others? Look... if they were spamming I'd report them in an instant. I do SEO in payday loans and locksmith niches so spam reports are a daily thing for me.

But to try and hurt someone for doing something i don't think is wrong?

nahh...

[graeme_p]

This sounds like something you should try to publicise. Contact a few journalists : "Google says breast feeding is obscene" would make a good story.

They will react at that point, and you will get a bit of PR and links.

[nippi]

I've considered but quite frankly? I think Google has shot a warning blast across my clients bow.

Two more infringement notices received by her last week.

Both, really marginal calls, both difficult to address without being able to contact support.

I would very much like to go public, but truthfully? I fear Google might just turn around and summarily ban my client.