The email mentions that I have submitted several ads for landing pages that are considered to be of a poor quality and that the landingpage does not comply with the 'landing page and site quality guidelines'. I most remove the ads. Well, no problem.
The email also mentions that it is a final warning. It tells me if they find any ad in the future that is in violation with the site quality guidelines (the product itself is not the problem) they will immediately disqualify me from participating in the AdWords program. Now, that is a problem.
A bit strange? Also because I’m using Adwords more then 4 years and then I receive an automated email in English while I have a Dutch account.
Anyway, how can Adwords ban you for submitting sites that that seems to be in violation with the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines while there is not a tool where can check if an URL is ok to submit?
How can you be for 100% sure if a site is in violation with the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines before you submit the site? That is impossible right?
As mentioned, I’m using Adwords for myself and for other companies for over four years so I know how it works. The site I submitted yesterday is nothing different from many other sites I promote.
If Google would like to ban clients for this than they should offer a tool where you can check your website for Page and Site Quality Guidelines before you submit the site. If Google does not offer a tool like this then they should not ban clients.
[edited by: engine at 1:05 pm (utc) on Sep. 25, 2009]
[edit reason] user requested edit [/edit]
The silver lining is that the barrier to entry is now MUCH higher. Those who have been riding the wave and doing nothing up until now are in for a shock.
I firmly believe that the naturals will go this way in the next year or two too.
if they get it right and learn from this then they may well use that data to kick affiliates off the naturals?
Some affiliate sites actually provide a better experience than the actual product owner site. As long as the content is different and helpful, what is Google's problem. Yes, there is lot junk affiliate sites out there, but there are also a lot of good ones to.
If Google were able to apply their rules to "Brick and Mortar" business.Grocery shopping would take forever.
Even if you KNOW you need a loaf of bread and you KNOW what brand you want, Google isn't convinced that you are smart enough to make that decision on your own. Before being able to purchase your bread, you must first visit the local library would have have to read through multiple pages of information and watch a variety of videos on the topic to find a veiled reference of where bread could be purchased at.
Needless to say, this is hurting the bread sales at the store and so they decide to simply advertise that they have bread for sale.
The first sign of trouble here is that the grocery store isn't allowed to say what brand of bread they are selling. More problems erupt when the grocery store discovers they are only be allowed to carry one brand of bread. If there were more than one brand of bread for customers to choose from, this would be comparison shoping and Google would not allow the grocery store to advertise with them. Comparison shopping is not considered a pleasant user experience.
Come to think of it, the grocery store would never be allowed to advertise that they even have bread for sale. Since the grocery store didn't actually make the bread themselves they would be considered an "affiliate" since the store only keeps part of the proceeds of the sale of each loaf. Again this is done in order to make a more pleasant shopping experience for you.
It really doesn't matter though because the government would make the grocery store remove all references in the bread ad as to whether a person actually used or even like the bread.
I had local campaigns for offline companies, but BAM, my whole MCC got shot. And dealing with Adwords Support has been laughable at best. It would be safe to say I dislike Google more than any company in the world to be perfectly honest.
The thing I don't get, ADWORDSADVISOR, is that people have to make money in order to sustain spending $1+/click with you. You can't be so sensitive towards people monetizing your visitors.
And another thing, if you are so concerned with protecting your searchers, why don't you crackdown on all the "clients" promoting negative-option rebill offers? After all, its not like you don't have the money and infrastructure to do it.
Seriously... this Google ban has been giving me ulcers. And there is no re-course, I already know that. That's what's so upsetting about it. You can kick be down but I'll be back up! Just another thing I gotta deal with.
Unless Google decides to reach out to their advertisers a little more, I will never like them. I sincerely hope they lose all their market share, because their "V8 is a little too much car for them".
Google isn't bricks and mortar though and the analogy you used definitely does not apply
(MC's words attributed to SEO's and PR based link purchasing)
Who cares what MC says, he is just a prograganda mouthpiece put out there to lead SEO type astray and people eat up his every word.
you have to work with it
Green Energy is now a trademarked term and disallowed in an ad.
I think these greedy little bots are just carving out silos where there they perceive there is money to be made and just kicking everyone whose operating in that space in the teeth.
Oh yeah, I am doing just fine with Yahoo, just can't wait to see what happens.
It's like the mob used to say when they whacked somebody, it's just business.
Green Energy is a descriptive term or is in common usage. I would be surprized if it is tradmarked, and if it was, it would not survive a challenge.
Are you sure you didn't use a company name with green energy in it, which would be trademarked.
Just the words green energy ____ in that order in the headline.
energy green is ok.
Actually it caused me to write a better headline with energy at the end of the phrase.
So it actually backfired on them.
So it actually backfired on them.
Heh...Google didn't want you to use a term in the headline and you didn't. Instead you wrote a better ad. And this is "backfire"? Your logic escapes me sir. Could it be simply that your imagined conspiracy about silos was incorrect, and you rewriting the ad was what they wanted? Wait...come to think of it I think I do get your logic:
1. Make up conspiracy theory
2. When it doesn't add up with observed events, claim it "backfired on them"
3. Continue believeing
Yeah, I think that's pretty standard conspiracy theorist logic actually :)
Yes, it did backfire on them in a certain way.
Their lame attempt to get control of a silo that is going to be very lucrative in the near future didn't work. Actually the returns were so good with the enhanced headline I went from US/CA to full Global this morning and things look good.
An untended consequence that probably would have not happened unless they made that silly move.
Conspiracy theory? 20 free content advertisers disappearing out of my other niche at one time is not a theory, it is a quite certain reality.
Welcome to the New World Order!
And just how would they increase their profits by blocking advertisers for certain keywords? If profit was their only concern wouldn't they want 100s of advertisers driving up the cost per click? I'm not sure I'm following you, so please explain what you mean by "controlling a silo" and how that would increase their profits...
Green Energy, let's call that G pre-greed. They also operate in that area also (solar investments) and will look to have a large presence in that topic also.
Not everything is about cpc and the auction, there are larger trends and forces at work here but most people are oblivious to it.
Only people in the niches they are trying to control will realize what is happening.
operates with free content and wants to be the main player thus sucking down the ad revenue
Pls explain/elaborate. Your comments are so cryptic they can hardly be of any value to anyone, so please provide more detail.
We all know their sole purpose as a global profit taking search engine is to give the user a quality user experience - everyone knows that.
You cannot just make a blanket statement about g, based solely on your own 7 figure business experience of g's overall corporate tone and conduct.
They're business model doesn't reflect a narcissistic strategy to eradicate the little guy in order to provide fortune 500's with the business reach they need to eliminate all competition in all web and non based economic categories.
That's just conspiracy talk - g is out for the greater good, at whatever cost.
Listen, just because they take parts of the English language and deem it off limits to you, doesn't mean they're greedy. Simply put, control is the ultimate goal of g - greed is just a byproduct of the road to the destination.
How's that for a Conspiracy Theory, Stu....
g is out for the greater good, at whatever cost.
Seriously, WHAT?
Are they a charity now?
As a courtesy, please write your user name here, as your posts cannot go unread.
little spanking
Make that a few hundred thousand dollar spanking.
People laughed at me when I said there was going to be an armageddon in the housing market in 2006.
You guys can believe what you want.
"Talking to you is like talking to the dining room table."
- Barney Frank
What a spammer IS and what a spammer WAS are two different things.
Prior to google redefining what a spammer was (for the whole damn web), a legit review site, a good bridge page or just a simple content page made to promote another site were GOLDEN to g. They loved that stuff. They fed them traffic like it was Christmas morning.
They then decided they didn't like affiliate marketing, and LABELED affiliate pages or sites as search engine spam. As g does - they criminalized affiliates in a localized way.
An affiliate to adwords is almost like a criminal. They are treated like SH*T after a 7 figure relationship and are given the "don't try to tell us your not a spammer, we don't care what you say" treatment. Funny, affiliates are spammers, yet they provide an excellent user experience to the so called untameable beast - g's organic results(adsense ads needed of coarse).
Many so-called spammers have had g accounts since day 1. They had businesses helping others "make money online" and were financially dashed to pieces by a highly discriminatory business. Many that I know were "guilty by association" and shut down after 5 years and nearly 8 figures in adspend because they taught people how to make money using g.
DISCRIMINATION? Absolutely! Those who were banned by g for spamming don't have reps, if they did (like ebay, amazon, etc, priceline) a (real person who reasons) rep would have cleared them and retained their valuable accounts.
Any g reps are encouraged to chime in - I'm sure you could CUT and PASTE something informative for the forum directly below.
Then there's the 'make money online' thing - yeah, there were people who weren't scamming, but the recession meant there were a lot more broke people out there and that industry got flooded with scammers. A lot of these scammers used Google's name in their scams, and I don't know of any company that wouldn't try and protect their brand if they could do.
IMO, this isn't Google's fault, it's all the dipsh**ts, scammers, and spammers who latched onto these industries and had to force a response from Google. Google isn't smart enough to pick the all the good from the bad - they've obviously tried which is why you do still see affiliates on adwords, but let's be fair it was never gonna be perfect.
I feel sorry for you 1move as you sound like you're one of the good guys that caught in the crossfire, but it's good to hear from flanker that there are viable alternatives out there...
Put it this way - I always like to see the underdog get his piece. g's current model will insure that the little guy STAYS little. In baseball terms, (big money) NY Yankees win the WS every year. Why? The Yankees can buy their position, they have a rep at the table at FOX/ESPN and double the payroll of most teams.
In my opinion, the underdog has no chance of HUGE success in the online market place anymore because of companies like g.
G will give Jimmy the Painter 50 clicks a day. Big sites will get 5Mill. This is how they like it, and this is how g will keep it.
Call it g slamming, call it ranting, call it a bitterness - whatev, just recognize the difference between your experience with how this company values you NOW vs. how they will value you LATER as they continue this anti-social trend.
If Jimmy the Painter creates a good enough site & ads he can get a quality score of 10. Assuming his business model is profitable this will mean his usable budget will increase over time so that he may grow. If he plays his cards right he can build a business that can - in time - compete with the bigger companies. I don't really get what the problem is, are you complaining that random people can't jump on Adwords and immediately get as many clicks as mega companies? That's always going to be the case.
Google are trying to shut down advertisers that are ruining the experience for the average searcher. Many affiliate sites are doing just that, fake reviews and testimonials by multiple sites offering the same thing. Google's whole QS/CTR based model is a way to try to find signals that indicate good user experience. However, it's not perfect as ads can get a sky high CTR and still offer complete sh*t. So they're trying to get rid of the bad ones that still send positive signals and unfortunately people are getting caught in the middle. This sucks. But it doesn't mean that G is "holding down the little guy", I know plenty of people that have built very profitable companies using only their laptop faster than they would using any other advertising outlet.
Bottom line is, most affiliate site suck so I understand why they're trying to get rid of them. They've said for a long time that affiliate sites etc are in risk of being considered low quality, so with that regardless of the money you spend you're doing so knowing that they may shut you down eventually if you are in this category. They're going about it in questionable ways but their motive is certainly not to hold the little guy down (why would they then allow small mom and pop stores to outrank big sites through local search?). Google are trying to reach the little guys who can't afford buying TV and Radio ads but who can afford a few hundred bucks a month for clicks and then go from there. It's just crappy affiliate sites, ebooks, get rich quick, acai berry etc etc. they're trying to get rid of, and for good reason.
And to people like Khensu, I'd like to use the "dining room table" quote right back at you.
Conspiracy theory? 20 free content advertisers disappearing out of my other niche at one time
You are clearly confused about how facts and theories work, so allow me to break it down:
1. 20 free content advertisers disappearing = fact (assuming you did observe this)
2. These 20 advertsiers disappeared because G is trying to increase future profits in a particular "silo" = theory (of the conspiracy kind)
Now how do I unsubscribe from this thread :P
The argumemt I am making is simple.
google wields a big sword, and the "collateral damage" which they are producing in their so-call cleaning up the web is out of control and arbitrary.
They have too much power over a public domain. They are unaccountable to the public (customers) and disregard due diligence in terms of fair business practices.
I have no clue why you defend recklessness.
I am a "laptop business guy" you spoke of but I cannot understand your loyalty to a company that will toss you out soon as well.
When g bans you, please CUT and PASTE the canned response you get here________.
Not saying I'm above banning, in fact I've had experience with this in the past. Just saying that the talk that Google is trying hurt small businesses or that only large corporations have a chance is pretty ridiculous. We who are in the risk group for getting banned are there because we were trying to take the shortest route possible to making money (i.e. instead of building a business and focusing on quality and customer care, we looked for affiliate offers with the widest profit margin, the least competition and the least amount of work). Yes, some of the "get rich with Google" stuff completely works - you can make a ton of money doing very little work, and work in your underwear and blah blah. But somewhere along the way a lot of people in that group start acting like this is a *right*, like this is something Google owes us because we've gotten used to making that much money that easily. So there's talk of conspiracies and suing Google, but in the end we who are in the risk group are there because we were trying to game the system by cutting as many corners as possible. Maybe we weren't gaming the system outright, but we certainly can't honestly say that we were following the golden rule of Google to "keep the user is mind".
If your site is designed to make as much money as possible instead of offering as much value as possible to the costumers, well then Google has a right to shut you down. When they do, we can't really complain about it, because really, we shouldn't have made money that easily in the first place we we're just exploiting loop holes. It simply means that it's going to take more work than getting Xsitepro and uploading proreviews4u.info and buy cheap traffic. That's the reality most people face anyway, and I don't see how I or anyone else has a "right" to get money in this way just because it happened to work in the past.
I would not disagree with the content of what your trying get across - I would disagree with how you create categories for us and them.
WE and THEM are the same. I creates a small budget screen printing site for a client, it was blackballed. It got 20 clicks a day max. But it just wasn't good enough for g. I was good for his clients, his business and for the internet.
It was however, not good enough for g. WE (volume producing affilates) THEM (small local biz) were and will be treated like sh*t unless we have a rep over there.
