Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Thus I was very excited when Google announced that they would express our checks for a charge of $30. I eagerly signed up for the express service. When my check number was reported in my payment history on Monday the 25th, I waited for the delivery man with great anticipation.
Imagine my dismay when not only Tuesday the 26th but Wednesday the 27th passed without any knocks on my door. Finally Wednesday night I contacted Adsense support to ask for the tracking number.
Why did I even have to ask? Why wasn't it recorded automatically in my payment history?
All day I checked my email waiting for their reply. Finally about eight in the evening I got a reply with the tracking number. I am very upset to find that my check was not sent until TODAY, the 28th, and from Ireland! I'm in Canada! How much closer to the US can one be than Canada, yet they wait three days to send my check and then send it from Ireland.
Further, DHL's tracking web page doesn't give a delivery date. I called DHL, but their Canadian office was closed. I managed to call their US office, but they could not access the records for Canada. The lady figured my check would be here Monday, the 2nd.
I'm really pissed. I paid thirty bucks to be filled with the hope of finally paying my rent on time, and my check isn't being delivered any quicker than if it were sent snail mail.
I responded to the lady at tech support with a complaint. I told her I was very unhappy with their express service. I demanded my thirty dollars back and an explanation of what steps they were going to take to ensure this would never happen again.
I pointed out how many clicks my ads had received and how much I'd earned since I started publishing adsense, and promised that if crap like this kept happening I would stop publishing adsense ads and go with another ad network. I have enough targeted traffic to some of my pages that I'm quite sure I could earn just as much by selling ad space to advertisers on my own.
<snip>
I'm serious. I don't need this kind of crap. This is too much money to be taken lightly.
BTW, if you want to know why I didn't sign up for their electronic funds transfer, it's because the EFT payment is labeled "BETA Test". My payment means to much to me to tolerate a delay if my payment gets screwed up.
One Final Note: One more thing that really pisses me off is how much Google is charging to express our checks. I know very well from the time I worked at a mail order software company that the express services will cut you a substantial break if you express a large number of items. There is no way that Google has to pay thirty bucks to express me my check, they're probably paying more like ten or fifteen. Yes, you heard it right folks: Google is making a profit on our express postage. I'm certain that with the quantity of checks google is expressing this month, there is not a single one that costs Google as much as thirty bucks to send anywhere in the world.
I feel ripped off.
- An Unhappy AdSense Publisher
[edited by: Jenstar at 2:34 am (utc) on April 29, 2005]
[edit reason] Please, no check # specifics or directed requests to google [/edit]
And yes, I would have a lot of breathing room if I had enough money in the bank that I didn't need my adsense check to pay my rent. But that's not the case. Until either I make A LOT more money from either adsense or my regular business, I'm not going to be able to have any money in the bank. The reason I decided to try adsense at all is that I hadn't been able to keep up with my bills through my regular work.
hope of finally paying my rent on time
I think you have much bigger problems than the $30 you blew on DHL and a little reality check would serve you well.
First off, Google isn't an employer, if paying your rent on time is the issue I suggest seeking employment. At a minimum, you should diversify your online income so you get more checks than just Google per month.
Secondly, what if your check gets lost? They may take up to 30 days to replace it and you'll be sleeping on the street if your rent is depending only on Google.
Last but not least:
What happens if you end up like some other sorry cases we read about that gets their account suddenly "suspended" for no reason?
Hope this puts things in a little better perspective that your problem is a bit trivial compared to what could happen and I hope you make whatever adjustments are needed to avoid the homeless shelter! :)
Google puts BETA on everything, and most times it works better than production ready services in other places.
Even taking the risk of beta EFT is no different than taking the risk of checks delivered by mail or UPS/FedEx/DHL.
Either way, if the payment got lost (either by the delivery company or by the bank), you would still need to wait 30 days before they will re-issue you a payment.
So if you're going for security of funds being in your account with the least amount of delays, EFT would always be your best option. You don't have to wait for the funds to "clear" since they are electronically sent, and you don't have to worry about a delivery service delay (whether it be USPS, UPS, FedEX, DHL or whoever).
In your situation, I would say EFT is the way to go for future months, beta or no beta.
So I think I have a legitimate gripe.
I'm glad to hear that the EFT is working well, but based on Google's description of it, at the time I selected my payment option, I didn't feel I could take the risk. When I sold my house in the US, my wire transfor for $45,000 went missing for a week because of a microscopic error on the part of the bank clerk who wrote down the wire order. I couldn't afford that happening again.
I expect I'll use EFT for next month though.
Finally, to the fellow who pointed out that if not getting my check as promised causes me trouble, then I have bigger problems and should just get a job, I'll have you know that I've been self-employed for seven years, living solely off the earnings from my business for that entire time. Even during the economic downturn I was able to support my wife and myself, and make my car and mortgage payments.
But any self-employed person will tell you, business does not always go well. I am in fact diversifying my income sources - by publishing adsense. Adsense is not my main line of business, it is a supplement to it.
Adsense is also not the only advertising on my site, I am also running amazon and powell's affiliate ads for books. But the pages that have the book ads don't get much traffic yet. With what money I am able to spare from living expenses, I'm investing in carefully tested advertising to promote those of my articles that don't get much traffic yet.
You know, if they had waited until Saturday to issue my check, and then overnighted it, I could see how I wouldn't have cause to complain.
But my check was issued on Monday the 25th. That's when the check number showed up in my payment history. I was told before by Adsense support that checks are mailed the day that the check number shows up, and based on my experience with past checks, that seems to be pretty consistent.
What pisses me off is that they waited THREE DAYS after issuing my check before they sent it, and then they sent it from a location where it's not likely I'll get overnight service.
If they had expressed it from the US, it would have been able to arrive overnight to Nova Scotia, Canada.
A heads up, i'm not positive but I believe if you put in the eft info right now it will not apply to the funds totaled for this month (april earnings). That would have needed to be in place by the 15th of this month. If you put in eft now it will apply to your earnings for may which you receive around july 1. You might want to still anticipate 'express' delivery of your check next month, even if switch now.
[edited by: kaz at 3:19 am (utc) on April 29, 2005]
The date in your account is not the date your check is mailed, simply the date it is approved and processed (ie. printed).
I've been self-employed for seven years, living solely off the earnings from my business for that entire time
I'm in the same boat since '98 I think, but it helps having a second or third income as trust me, I've lived on the edge a time or two in my youth running the check quicker than The Flash from the office to the bank to the landlord and sure as heck don't want to go back.
I stay home and do custom programming for a few customers, have a few racks of web servers in an offsite office, and work on my own web sites for my second income while wifey is some fancy schmancy director at her company. Get it while you can as we're preparing for early retirement, no later than 50, because if we wait until 60s-70s like everyone else travelling the world will just give us heartburn and gas :)
FYI, they can mess up DHL/UPS/FEDEX deliveries just as easily as EFT, been there on both sides of that coin so having plenty of spare cash to float is the only solution.
Once I have some content on my site earning money, it tends to keep earning money even if I don't put any more effort into it. I expect the money would dry up if I neglected my website completely, but I don't intend to do that. But if I get sick or something and can't work on my website for a week, it will still earn money.
I'm a software consultant too, and if I can't write code for a week, well dammit, I just don't get paid. And the only way I've found to keep the clients happy is to do fixed-cost programming, and what that means is that if I get stuck on a bug, and can't fix it, well then, I just don't get paid.
And that's why I have trouble paying my rent, even though I have no shortage of paying work. Software consulting is a miserable way to live, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
I used to write the articles I do as a way to attract potential clients, and built a good website that way, but once I had a client I still had to write code to get a check. But with adsense, the articles I've written are earning money today, and I expect I'll earn more as I produce new content.
But, honestly it sounds like you need to diversify - perhaps a new site in a related niche is in order?
Maybe you can change the terms of your lease to pay on the 15th of each month
I'm going to talk to my landlord about that when I call him tomorrow to tell him my rent will be late. That's a good idea.
I see all over this site that we should all diversify. I've been trying to, and it hasn't worked so far. Besides adsense, I am running affiliate ads for books at amazon and powell's city of books (http://www.powells.com/). But in two months I've only sold three books and only made about three dollars.
Can anyone suggest other ad programs I should try?
My main focus has actually been on rolling out a new HTML design to my whole site. It has many hand-coded static pages, so that has taken a lot of work and time. More recently I've started working on new content, and I realize that's what I really need to make my site earn for me.
I am quite heartened to have read just now, messages from so many other people who were able to quit their jobs because of adsense. I am getting about a third to a half of the money I need from adsense already. I have the hope that within a year I can get all the money I need to live from my website, whether it comes from adsense or other ad programs.
I'm also interested in selling ads directly. I'm not happy with some of the ads that google serves me. It's not that they are for my competitors, but that I think some of the ads do my readers a disservice, and I would like to publish more legitimate ads.
I've been thinking of putting up a page directed at potential advertisers, and sticking up "your ad here" banners all over my site. But to do it in any kind of manageable way, I would need to use some kind of ad server software, and I don't have any experience with any. I can accept PayPal, but really I need to be able to accept credit cards. Do you have any advice for me?
hm. I wouldn't think you'd need much more than some includes (I use PHP for my includes, along with modrewrite to parse .html for php), plus a free php powered banner rotator script that I got from hotscripts or some place about 2 years ago - that switches your banner every time a page from the site is loaded.
Software consulting is a miserable way to live, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
Been doing it on/off for 26 years and I'd say CORPORATE software is a miserable way to live. I'd do a corporate job for a while then back to consulting to let the pressure ease off for a while.
I agree with you on getting stuck with bugs though. I was mostly a windows C++ programmer and you would always get hung up on something silly in Windows before the project was over so I'd never give fixed price bids for Windows.
That's why I switched to web programming with open arms. No matter how complex the web site it always boils down to knocking out quick scripts to manage reading and writing databases, binding it to some web page design, most of the time simple mind numbing work. The best part is the more you do, the faster they get, copy cut paste TA DA! New site :)
Good luck with AdSense and hope the EFT works well for you, it did for me this month!
I can accept PayPal, but really I need to be able to accept credit cards. Do you have any advice for me?
I have my own sponsored links subscribers and they pay me direct using a payment gateway and merchant account but I got it almost free years ago since I did mostly ecommerce sites and the rep at the company that I resell payment gateways for cut me a sweetheart deal (no setup fees).
If I didn't already have it all setup I'd consider using PayPal just to see how it worked out. Paypal will let you accpet credit cards and would probably be the cheapest entry level service you could start with. They even have recurring billing options which is perfect for ad sponsors paying like $50/month to be able to automatically bill them monthly with no additional effort on your part.
Free Adserving Software- phpadsnew (they may have a new name but can still be found with that search). I didn't have any experience with it when I started either.
It sounds as though you have decent traffic but a site that is not fully monetized as of yet. Keep in mind that whatever sources of income you find, you will be hard pressed to find one that pays anywhere near as quickly or dependably as Google.
You really shouldn't complain - especially when I tell you this.
I helped my in laws in Romania build some websites about a year ago and we put adsense on them late December. The sites are now earning good money for them after a lot of work. Before this, they earned about $100 total/month between the both of them without adsense.
They waited for their January check but it never arrived. After some back and forth with Google, the check was remailed by UPS and they got it a week ago.
When they went to cash it, the bank teller told them it could take up to 45 days before they could get their money.
Not only did the local postal system here "lose" (yeah, right - to lazy to deliver it is more like it) their January check, their Febuary check never showed up either. Now we have to wait until May for that one according to Google.
Here it is 5 months after they enrolled, and they still don't have any money to supplement their $100/month salary and they'll probably have to wait another 3 or 4 weeks for that first check to be cashed.
Even if the Secured Express Delivery option is slower then regular mail for most people, the communist type mail system (Not being sarcastic, many older people here still think and act in the old ways) here makes me glad that Google can now send checks by private courier. = At least they GET their checks now!
Anyway, while I can understand your complaint, remember that there are always people worse off then you.
It sounds as though you have decent traffic but a site that is not fully monetized as of yet. Keep in mind that whatever sources of income you find, you will be hard pressed to find one that pays anywhere near as quickly or dependably as Google.
That's just it - I have a very well-established site that I've been building since 1998. Many, many of my pages are in the top ten for their relevant keywords, and I'm #1 for lots of keywords. I have only recently started advertising - up until last fall, my website was just a way to attract consulting clients. It's just that the way I did that was by publishing articles, mostly technical, in the hopes that sometimes a reader would offer me consulting work. That strategy has actually worked really well.
I have over a dozen articles, but only one of them makes more than ten dollars a month. One reason some of the others don't is that the ads google serves just don't make sense.
I have the idea of offerring to advertisers that they could target each ad to specific pages on my site. I could demonstrate how each page ranks for its top search queries, and the advertisers could see for themselves how my article would be relevant to what they've got to sell.
If I were able to charge credit cards right away, or accept paypal payments (which I can do now), then I would have the money right away. Even if my direct ads didn't pay as much as adsense, a little money RIGHT NOW is often worth a great deal more than more money a month from now.
I will have to see how much I can get paid for my ads, but if my idea that I offer a targeted market proves to be valuable to my advertisers, then possibly I could make more money than from adsense.
Also, I have some pages where a whole month goes by without a single adsense click. Surely anything will pay better than that, won't it? I've actually been taking adsense off these pages because I want to encourage linking and repeat visitors, and I don't want the ads to drive readers away if they aren't clicking them.
