Forum Moderators: martinibuster
<rant>
I have a successful BB gun site that ran AS ads for over a year with ever-increasing success. About 2 months ago I got an email from them alerting me that AS had been disabled on all of those pages because it violated their TOS. When I inquired, I was informed it was an editorial decision based on the fact that the word "guns" was all over the site. Incredulous, I asked how they expected me to avoid that word when the site was about, um, BB guns and airsoft guns. LOL
I went round and round with their rep about it via email. I used rational arguments (parents buy these things for their kids, they aren't handguns, etc.). After several emails, it became clear that the rep I was dealing with was answering with replies the "higher ups" were giving him. I know this with certainty because he divulged it to me (I'm sure to his own job peril). He would not/could not give me direct answers to my specific questions, and was instead giving me overgeneralized answers that always amounted to the same thing: "We don't differentiate. If it has the word 'guns' in it, bye bye."
Here's the kicker that shows the true motivations of Google. They have all kinds of AdWords advertisers who sell BB guns and airsoft guns. Their ads were showing all over my site via AS with high CTR and highly specific targeting on each page. So Google actually doesn't have a problem with those forms of "guns" at all, AS LONG AS YOU'RE PAYING THEM TO SHOW THE ADS. Google only has an issue with these kinds of "guns" if they have to share the revenue with a publisher.
"Follow the money" has never been truer. They used a principled argument to disallow showing ads on my site (we have a problem with anything to do with "guns"), but that principle goes right out the window when it comes to taking advertisers' money in that industry.
I'm a Libertarian, so at the end of the day, I'm fine with Google doing whatever they choose to do as long as it's legal. I miss that income, sure, but it was one of 8 sites I have, so it didn't kill me. What it did do was remove my blinders about them as a company. Principles are nothing if making a buck gets in the way. Well, that's fine, but don't pretend you actually have principles then. Have the fortitude to be up-front about how your business actually decides such issues. Meantime, I've lost any respect I ever had for the company. Such a blatant double standard turns my stomach.
</rant>
Um, Google told me their problem with it was that "guns" was not something they wanted advertised.
Was this the ADSENSE group or the ADWORDS group you talked to?
Go to Google and searching on GUN or GUNS and it pulls up ZERO ads so that's apparently banned 100% and you said they advertised "guns" and they don't. HOWEVER, they do have ads on BB GUN and PAINTBALL GUN which isn't 100% hypocritical but it's certainly a fuzzy area.
They take bb gun adwords clients by the droves. I had nothing but bb gun and airsoft gun ads running on my site every day. There were never ads that were not in one of those industries. My site is extremely targeted in terms of content. It's highly unlikely that someone not specifically looking for a bb or airsoft gun would happen to visit it from a Google link.
So you see, their "one size fits all" approach (ie, disallowing any publisher site that even has the word "guns" in it) is what I had the problem with. If you didn't see it earlier, I mentioned that when I asked the rep at Google if that meant sites selling pneumatic air guns (like mechanics use to remove lug nuts) couldn't run ads, he told me "In all likelihood" they would be disallowed too, simply for having the word "guns" or some variation in their content.
Let me add another wrinkle... News sites that show stories about handguns, automatic weapons, etc. show AS ads. I've seen it on the big news sites. I've seen bb gun ads from AW there. It's one big FUBAR pot of hypocrisy. Thank GOD I have plenty of other sites that shouldn't (I say SHOULDN'T but who knows?) get the ax for some arbitrary hyper-Liberal nonsense like that.
Another interesting thread highjacked by the discontented. Yaaaaaaaawn.
Yes, I hijacked it. HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA! Here's a tip, Skippy. Instead of contributing to the "hijacking" by commenting on it just to see your name on the screen, try actually posting something of substance to bring the thread back to where you want it to be. Stop whining. :-)
Just like to tell Google that Smith and Wesson IS NOT a guy named Smith making a cooking oil.
On the sponsered link to the right of the 1st search page (on the phrase, Smith and Wesson) you will see an ebay ad. On that landing page is ebay selling knives and waa laa -- guns. On page 9 of ebay results you will see two actual photos of GUNS and yes the guns are called guns.
Searching under firarms I checked out result number 5 on the sponsed links to the right...yep guns again.
incredibill said
"Go to Google and searching on GUN or GUNS and it pulls up ZERO ads so that's apparently banned 100% and you said they advertised "guns" and they don't."
And on the word guns... guns for sale, gallery of guns, etc. Magazine AND gun sales.
Ann
[edited by: ann at 3:49 am (utc) on July 1, 2005]
incredibill said
"Go to Google and searching on GUN or GUNS and it pulls up ZERO ads so that's apparently banned 100% and you said they advertised "guns" and they don't."
And on the word guns... guns for sale, gallery of guns, etc. Magazine AND gun sales.
Ann
I am a Libertarian as well. It's capitalism, and it works.
However, methinks your issues are a bit more socialistic.
Ann
What were we on about? Oh yeah, guns and Adsense. Want to advertise your bb guns with Google? They'll take your money and smile at you while doing it. Want to help someone advertise their bb guns by showing their ads on your own site that's all about bb guns and nuttin' else? No, Google can't have that. I mean, come on, what kind of crazy thinking is that? If I was a bb gun AW advertiser, it would piss me off royally to have Google pull the plug on my ads on publisher sites that were pulling in visitors that were perfectly targeted for my products. And why? Because Google has some kind of politically correct bug up its collective butt over the word "guns." They should move G-Plex to Texas and stop being mamby pambies. Yeeeeee haw!
The epitome of hypocrisy.
Family friendly publishers but not family friendly SE...makes sense, NOT.
Ann
Want to help someone advertise their bb guns by showing their ads on your own site that's all about bb guns and nuttin' else?
If I was a bb gun AW advertiser, it would piss me off royally to have Google pull the plug on my ads on publisher sites that were pulling in visitors that were perfectly targeted for my products.
I'm all for sloppy Capitalism
I think in this exact case it is stupid of Google . All sides lose. You lose money, Google loses money, advertisers lose sells, your site visitors don't get to see the high qualty targeted ads that adsense provided.
With more Ph.Ds than some colleges, surely G can make automatic semantic
distinctions between the above, and weapons merchants, hate groups etc. -Larry
Your philanthropy is touching... wanting to help the advertiser and all
I see the art of subtle sarcasm is lost on some. You must have gone to public schools. ;)
And it bothers you that Google's doesn't accept that (real) advertisers' perceptions coincide exactly with your own?
Could you try to make logical sense? I hate wasting my time. The advertisers in question ARE the bb gun and related advertisers. If you were one of them and you signed up for the content network, would G's decision to take your ads off of sites that deal exclusively with bb guns and are sending you highly targeted visitors make you happy? Please, try to THINK before posting.
So you'll rely on the market deciding when Google revises its stand on gun sites?
Of course I will, Einstein. What choice do I have? Are all your forum posts this vapid? Or are you just another in a LONG line of knee-jerk Google cheerleaders who wants the rest of us to go along and never question? How original.
What about nail guns, dart guns, BB guns, glue guns, staple guns, the guy who
'guns his engine' too much, the Guns of Navarrone (movie), "guns or butter",
naval history (10" 12" 14" guns), army artillery (nothing but guns)
The Google rep I exchanged about 20 emails with told me that, yes, those types of sites would indeed be banned from showing AS ads if/when discovered.
Here's another interesting point about Google's hypocrisy on this score...
They obviously allow air gun advertisers to sign up for the content network. I showed ads from probably 25 different companies in the industry for months before G pulled the plug. Does that strike you as stange? I enjoyed the money while it lasted, of course, but shouldn't G be stopping such advertisers from signing up to the content network to begin with? Seem pretty obvious.
Could you try to make logical sense?
As for the "subtle sarcasm", I'll leave the reader to decide whether your original comment in the middle of a rant was in the vein of that rant or was intended as sarcasm ;)
I don't care how long you've been here. That has zero bearing on the quality or intent of your posts, obviously.
You clearly want me to stop complaining, much the same as some others who have chimed in. That's fine. I believe I have a legitimate issue about Google's hypocrisy on this front. There's an easy solution. Ignore it and post elsewhere. Telling me, essentially, over and over again to pipe down serves no purpose.
Tell me WHY you disagree and we'll have a basis for discussion. Simply attacking the motivation and nitpicking without adding anything new to the substantive aspects is mental masturbation. That's fun sometimes, but not all the time.
Swebbie, you've been given a rational explanation. You can choose to ignore it if you wish, but ranting about Google's "hypocrisy" isn't going to change the reality of the situation.
Tell me WHY you disagree and we'll have a basis for discussion
FWIW, I do agree with you completely on
It's easy to see Google as having the best interests of its users at heart, but it's time to take off those naive blinders. They're a public co. now, answering to shareholders primarily.
And, as larryhatch pointed out, Google's expertise in semantics could be put to good use here. But allowing gun ads on content they control while disallowing it on content they don't control sounds to me like good business sense rather than hypocrisy. You, sir, haven't proved otherwise.
You have YET to make even ONE substantial post in this thread - only continued attacks on me as a whiner. I'll ask again, and if you refuse to actually answer again, I'll chalk you up as just another in a long line of folks who like to puff their chests and blow hot air.
WHY do you think I'm wrong? It's a simple question. C'mon, step up and swing at a pitch. Go down swinging, not looking. You disappoint.
Google allows AW advertisers in this industry to choose the content network. Google's rep told me in no uncertain terms that anything to do with the word "guns" or its variations on other sites using AS gets axed when discovered by them. Even products wholly unrelated to actual bullet-firing guns, like pneumatic air guns.
Your mission, should you accept it odddude, is to explain in RATIONAL terms, how those two positions are anything but a sign of cognitive dissonance on G's part. Should you fail in your mission, life will go on, but I'll think you're a blowhard, which I'm sure will devastate you. :-)
puff their chests and blow hot air
