An update on account disabling

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Those reading this forum over the past month will no doubt be aware that the subject of account disabling has spent a fair amount of time at the top of the page, in two very active threads. Without editorializing, I recognize that most posts have been quite critical - while a smaller number have been rather supportive of the intent.

Given this substantial level of forum activity, and by way of being more clear as to why the disabling of accounts is occurring, I have been asked by my colleagues at Google to post the message below:

In keeping with our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, we spend a tremendous amount of time and effort monitoring the quality of our search and ad results. As we've stated many times before, Google's primary focus is on delivering the best possible search experience to our end users. To help further this goal, we work with our advertisers in a number of different ways to help them design and run the best ads possible.

Unfortunately, some online advertisers continue to promote services and websites that do not help, and in some cases could harm, our users. For instance, these advertisers may offer free services that bait users into accepting hidden fees. Or these advertisers may attempt to deliver malware to unsuspecting web citizens. Regardless of the practice, these types of campaigns do not benefit our users and we therefore take steps to enforce our policies [adwords.google.com] and prevent such advertisers from running ads through our systems.

Over the last decade Google has implemented a number of systems and processes to identify and disable ads that direct users to these offending websites. However, the ad disabling procedures have resulted in ongoingback and forth between us and these questionable advertisers as they try to outsmart our systems and processes. Therefore, we're being stricter with advertisers who deliver a bad user experience by permanently disabling AdWords accounts that engage in prohibited behavior.

Recently we began implementing this new account disabling. As a result, many advertisers who provide a poor user experience and have previously had their ads disabled will now have their accounts disabled.

We take our user, advertiser and publisher experiences very seriously, and remain dedicated to delivering only the highest quality advertising results to our users. We believe this new process of permanently disabling accounts will markedly improve the overall experience of our users, advertisers and publishers.

AWA

[La_Valette]

No, you missed my point. The work involved for Google is only in figuring out which sites it doesn't like. That work has to be expended in both cases - whether it's banning or doing min bid slaps.

Once it does that, it can then just slap the $100 min bids as I described. It could also ban the entire accounts as you said, but that would be unnecessary and wouldn't save it any work at all.

(Apart from all that, fairness is not a concept to be sneezed at. It's probably long-term-good for Google business-wise if its system is perceived as fair by advertisers, and not capricious.)

[netmeg]

I think most advertisers (who never heard of WebmasterWorld) probably perceive them as pretty fair.

I don't miss your point. I just don't agree with your reasoning.

[Green_Grass]

OK I have an interesting update.

Recently received the dreaded mail saying I had multiple landing page violations and this was final warning etc etc..

I had received a QS 1 on some campaigns relating to three sites and had put the campaings (three sites) in pause mode.

The mail said clearly that paused ads also violated the landing page guidelines. The LPQ team had reviewed same and found the sites unacceptable.

So the first thing I did , was DELETE all the campaings with QS 1 on the keywords without any delay and wrote back saying that I had deleted all suspect campaigns and would be grateful if I was not banned for life. I did mention that my e comm site was also QS 1 which did seem a little odd..

Surprise.. surprise.. the LPQ team wrote back with a detailed explanation as to WHY the three sites were given a QS 1 ! Was I surprised at this major upgrade in their communications skills.

Now comes the interesting stuff.

It seems almost any site with adSense on landing page is immediatley suspect and is categorized as MFA.. yes.. they actually called it MFA.. I did point out the argument reg.. unique content etc.. but it seems that the LPQ team has total DISCRETION w.r.t. what is MFA and what is not.. They can decide what is OK and what is not..

I write this because two additional sites, I advertise having affilaite links and also adSense in some landing pages is perfectly OK as per LPQ team as it has unique content.. but the others don't.. ( totally discretionary)

My e comm site was also marked MFA because I had put some adlinks at the bottom of the landing page. I removed those adlinks and resubmitted the site for a review and viola.. the QS 1 has been reversed. Unfortunately I had deleted all campaigns relating to this site so I have lost all history.. ( so all those in favour of putting some ads on their ecomm sites better rethink.. if they want to use adWords. ( They might not pass the LPQ review..but then they may pass .. it is discretionary)


So intersting conclusions from this interraction..

They gave me a chance to respond.. They told me categorically I can advertise my sites, if I remove all the ads.. ( I said no thanks). I deleted the campaigns instead. Relying on organics.

I got my ecomm site back on line..

I thnk I saved my account by DELETING all suspect campaings.

I responded very very fast.. in matter of an hour or so on receiving the dreaded email..


Very fast and very intelligent, logical interraction with the LPQ team. ( may not have agreed with their logic but understand their point) So maybe their is still hope for all those wrongly banned.

Keep hoping..

Cheers..

[La_Valette]

Green_Grass: that is certainly good to know.

Hopefully this treatment will also extend to going back and reviewing the appeals of accounts which have already been wrongly (or unnecessarily) banned during the period Sep-Dec 2009... so far that doesn't seem to have happened, but we will wait and see. I personally have faith that Google will do the right thing eventually.

[arieng]

Green_Grass - Not sure if you had interest in retrieving them, but you can retrieve deleted campaigns and not lose that historical data. I'm sure there are multipe ways, but I know that from within AdWords Editor you can select to see deleted campaigns, which can be be reactivated. Your historical data will not be lost.

[smallcompany]

I thnk I saved my account by DELETING all suspect campaings.

Deleting campaigns that have been hit by low QS do not remove bad points that an account has received.
Final warning seems to be what it says: An advertiser has been found "guilty" (for multiple violations), so one more violation and BAM, no account. Delete action does nothing. I believe that Google even explains that in very clear way (that delete action does not work, but only if site gets fixed).
In other words, your account would be doing fine until one violation (whatever that is).

So, bad points may be removed if sites get changed so Google accepts them (back) by lifting low QS. That's what is really good because then you have some space, and you don't feel like having a gun pointing onto your forehead.

[Green_Grass]

Well, the email did say that the deleted campaigns will not be reviewed for LPQ problems.

They are willing to take back my sites , if I remove all ads. I don't want to do that as I am happy with the organics. So I can't really get back in their good books that a way..

And yes..the final warning stands, They will ban me if I submit any other site which gets a QS 1. So this is effectively the end of adWords for any new sites/campiagns. Got to work with what is approved now.

The only saving garce is the approval of the ecomm site. But I leave that for the future as I have enough organic traffic here.

[trinorthlighting]

Green Grass,

Google got rid of the junk, so now they can concentrate on the accounts that are actually in good standing. If you really think about it, buying ad words ads and pointing them to ad sense or affiliate ad's is really an MFA anyways (In loose terms).

This is how Google looks at things:

On the ad sense side: True publishers have advertisements or affiliate advertisements on their WebPages and have natural traffic come to their sites and click on the ads. If you look at large advertising accounts (Drudge/NY Times/CNN, etc....) you never see them advertise on ad words to generate traffic and revenue do you? That is the difference and that is what Google wants on the ad sense publisher side.

On the ad words side: Most users do not want to Google something and be served a page full of advertisements or affiliate links and I am sure you do not want to see advertisements when you Google something as well. So on the ad words side Google wants the advertisements to be pointed to Goods or services that people find useful and not to pages with advertisements on it.

Your account, you actually had some legit goods you were selling so Google gave you some flexibility and communicated with you. It is great to hear some good solid information and fortunately your account was borderline, but worthy enough to work with you on and you responded to them that you wanted to work with them.

What many of these banned accounts fail to recognize is that they ingnored previous warnings from Google (Which you did not do) or were selling shady products or services, violating Ad words TOS or simply just MFA's in some way shape or form. I have yet to see a banned account that did not deserve to be banned and if you look over at the Google ad words forums you will see links to banned websites and people asking why. Once you start looking at the websites you will understand why Google made the move they did. You will also see people are having a tough time with new accounts as well. Google is reviewing new accounts real good and banning people before they can even get advertisements off the ground because they know that most of the banned advertisers will change their names a bit and try to get right back in.

I would venture to say once you remove the ad sense, your organic rankings might increase because I am sure the algo takes a look at ad sense pages a little bit harder to weed out some spam and assigns some scoring points to ad sense pages.

[Green_Grass]

trinorth..here is an old adsense blog post which is enlightening.

[adsense.blogspot.com...]

As I said before, it is discretionary whether content on the landing page is unique enough for ads to be placed alongside or not. The subjective judgement is made on the basis of unknown parameters. I may also clarify that the LPQ team has no problems with two of my sites which have affiliate links in the content and also ads.

I am ofcourse glad that I seemed to have escaped banning currently. But the final warning thing is effectively a dampener for using adWords in the future for new businesses (for me) as the axe can fall any time.

[trinorthlighting]

Agreed, but there is a fine line there and you have to be really careful to follow TOS for both programs or risk getting banned for both programs.

[GetReal]

Maybe Google should run healthcare in the US, you get sick, Google send you a warning e-mail not to do that, you get sick a second time and Google bans you from receiving healthcare....

[bryson]

Maybe Google should run healthcare in the US, you get sick, Google send you a warning e-mail not to do that, you get sick a second time and Google bans you from receiving healthcare....

Some people didn't get a warning email - just a ban email.

[GetReal]

Better yet, you get sick, and Google cancels your healthcare insurance.

[ppc_newbie]

THX for the new information.

Still not enough transparency to move me out of this group though.

AdWords Users Paralyzed [webmasterworld.com]

I was hoping that when AWA got back he could maybe be able to give us some kind of update so we could proceed forward.

[toddb]

"AdWords Users Paralyzed" that thread was mine and is now locked. I should have updated that we got out of review and are continuing as normal. Still afraid to do much but the account is on.

[trinorthlighting]

If you look on the adwords boards at Google, you will also see people are having a tough time with new accounts. Google is reviewing new accounts real good because they know that most of the banned advertisers will change their names a bit and try to get right back in.

I would not be afraid to advertise, read the adwords TOS and understand them, if you have questions give examples and ask questions over at Google on the adwords forum and hear the answers right from Google employees in most cases.

[google.com...]