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
[webmasterworld.com...]
Note, even AWA gave the answer back then:
"The suspensions and final warnings that are referenced in this thread are due to account level actions taken against advertisers who've submitted multiple sites that violate our landing page quality guidelines. This is an existing policy to discourage repeat offenders by taking account level action. These final warnings and suspensions were only applied to sites with multiple violations which were manually reviewed to ensure that our policies were being applied correctly."
I hate to say it, This is not about Google being understaffed to look at appeals, Google already made a calculated decision on their part about multiple accounts and they have been looking at this for quite some time. I really doubt they will change their minds and I also doubt they will comment any further.
I am sure they have gotten rid of many bad apples with the actions they took but the point is that they also got some collateral damage along the way. They know that - they wouldn't have bothered with an appeals process if their process for disabling accounts was perfect - which I doubt it could ever be.
It is of course a disappointment that appeals emails have gone unanswered so far, at least for us and the other people posting here. In the writeup on Nick Fox's chat it is promised that in fact all emails would be replied to. One hopes this will happen very soon - and (more importantly) that wrongly disabled accounts will be reinstated.
I personally still have faith that Google will indeed put things right for advertisers that didn't deserve a ban, hopefully sooner rather than later of course.
These final warnings and suspensions were only applied to sites with multiple violations which were manually reviewed to ensure that our policies were being applied correctly."
And I have a bridge to sell you if you believed that one.
I personally still have faith that Google will indeed put things right for advertisers that didn't deserve a ban, hopefully sooner rather than later of course.
I've seen at least 10 sites that have had either their bans or 1/10 QS problems rescinded by Google - and that's just the ones who bothered to post back and let people know (on the Support forum).
I'll admit that I haven't yet seen any affiliates get their accounts back, but others who have been caught accidentally have been 'fixed' - e.g. I've seen quite a few computer repair sites that mention malware or spyware on their sites which got slapped - they replied saying they're genuine repair companies, asked for a manual review, and were re-instated
I've seen at least 10 sites that have had either their bans or 1/10 QS problems rescindedThere is a huge difference between getting a ban or getting a 1/10 QS. In the past some websites I promoted also got 1/10 over night. After emailing support they restored QS after a manual review. (still don't know if it stays on your track record)
However when you got the ban then support is not willing or able to help you. You might have a very small change in a manual review after a ban when you keep ignoring their copy/paste emails like "we have looked again..." and "don't contact us anymore and if you do we will not read your email..." .
These final warnings and suspensions were only applied to sites with multiple violations which were manually reviewed to ensure that our policies were being applied correctly."
they replied saying they're genuine repair companies, asked for a manual review, and were re-instated /
There's some potential disconnect between those two events. If a hand review was needed for the initial ban, as per Google, then why the need for a real hand review? My suspicion? Google's idea of a hand review isn't what ours might be.
If you were on that original list, there is not much you can do with Google because that decison was made a while back and the sites you were driving traffic to were studied in depth and the decision was made.
The review is only to check to see if you were on the original and well thought out list (In Google's Mind) of banned accounts to make sure the programmers did not make an error on turning off the wrong accounts.If you were on that original list, there is not much you can do with Google because that decison was made a while back and the sites you were driving traffic to were studied in depth and the decision was made.
How do you know all this stuff about Google's inner workings? You work for them? Or just making it up (my guess)?
"Well thought out" is not the same as "perfect" in my dictionary.
1. People who are committing some sort of fraud.
2. People with low quality sites.
Google has filed lawsuits on the fraud side because they needed to or they risked being sued themselves and those people are banned.
On the low quality side, Google has plenty of high quality advertisers they can depend on to make a nice living to shareholders. Google prides in name in "Trust" to the public. If there is something that is very low quality or borderline shady or questionable, Google does not need that type of income because their "trust" to the public could be tarnished.
As a Google shareholder myself, I say this is a good move to get some of the questionable stuff away from their company so they can continue to expand and build their "trust" with the public searchers in general. If Google ever lost the trust of the general public because they allowed fraud to go on or they start tolerating a lot of questionable types of advertisements displaying, they would lose their position in the market because users would stop trusting Google and move to another search engine that could produce trusted results and advertisements.
I am more than sure Microsoft and Yahoo will soon follow in Google's steps because it is the right thing to do for users and shareholders. People might not agree to what Google determines as "low quality", but that is Google's decision to make. If your quality score dropped, then you need to look at who you are representing and make a change if you want to continue to do business.
1. People who are committing some sort of fraud.2. People with low quality sites.
3. People banned incorrectly.
If your quality score dropped, then you need to look at who you are representing and make a change if you want to continue to do business.When your QS drops over night after four years having QS 7 or 8 for a specific website with high CTR, high conversion rate, spending half a million each year and even then it is already to late. At that moment you can change what you like or remove as many campaigns as you like, have contact with support etc. etc. Despite best efforts one month later you will get a ban.
Support told me that even asking and getting aproval from support for promoting a website is no guarantee for not getting a ban one week later after aproval because of low QS.
Considering the following
1. We are a software vendor, selling our own software. Not an affiliate.
2. The software itself is no problem (i.e. not a dialer, etc).
3. Adwords landing page is the "download" page, basic content: "Our software /name/ does /this and that/, click /here/ to download" (although the actual page is about 200 words).
4. I checked for possible site hacked/malware issues, nothing to the best of my effort. I also checked "Google Webmaster Tools / Labs / Malware" section just in case, and it says "no malware found".
5. I checked broken links and there are none.
6. I reviewed landing page guidelines and nothing is amiss that I can identify.
7. Just for reference, the account is about two months old, with a total spend of about $2K.
8. No emails arrived, so this is not a ban, just a QS slap.
It may be important to note that the whole Adwords thing is not critical for our income. Adwords is not a significant revenue source for us. Its good for keyword and wording tests but that's about it. I do not think we would mind the ban awfully.
So far, I considered three actions:
A. Create an MSN AdCenter account and have a look.
B. Send an email to Adwords support along the lines of "#*$!?" ("we have an account, QS 1/10 on all keywords, please have a look?").
C. Delete the entire campaign, craft a new landing page (on the same domain), and re-create the campaign again. However, we would probably have difficulty producing a significantly different landing page.
Probably, we'll go open an account with AdCenter, then email AdWords support, and then craft a new landing page if no positive reply arrives in a couple of weeks.
Now the question:
1. Maybe there is something that everybody with experience knows about, but that I overlooked?
2. Maybe there is a list of items that are thought to (possibly) cause QS slap, but are not listed in guidelines?
B. Send an email to Adwords support along the lines of "#*$!?" ("we have an account, QS 1/10 on all keywords, please have a look?").You should do that first.
C. Delete the entire campaign, craft a new landing page (on the same domain),You should not do that because then you re-submit the same domain again and you will get your first and last warning because you are re-submitting a low quality website.
Do you have two websites? So one for the software and one corporate website? And if you have two websites do you sell the software also on your corporate website? If this is the case then Google could see the software website as a bridge page (check guidelines on bridge pages).
I have gone through that section once again and no, it does not apply (unless there is some problem with the identification of such pages).
Google is slapping free trial software downloadsNow you mention it, three websites from different merchants I was promoting that got the 1/10 QS offered free trail downloads. Long shot but perhaps the used download mechanism makes Google QS algorithm think there is something wrong?
It's obviously Google's world, if they would only come out with very detailed T&C that explained exactly what they want and do not want, we could all go back to working on our business instead of blindly working around Google. If they could develop a Google feature where you could submit your landing page, and get exact feedback on the problems. Is that really too much to ask for?
Great postings by everyone throughout the last 6 weeks…....thanks to all that have contributed.
Happy New Years!…and hopefully a continuing relationship with Google…
GR
If we offer a "free" download, but later require a payment for it (as in typical shareware model), this is a "hidden fee" in some sense. The machine logic does not have a context, it does not understand that the evaluation page reads "the trial of the software is limited in /this and that aspects/". For the machine, it just looks like on one page we offer something "for free download", and the other page is "billing", and gotcha - we got a hidden fee trigger.
Free
If the "free" is really a problem, then a machine should not be doing it. There should be a manual review in order to confirm if "free" is a catch or not.
I understand the point about difference between "free download" and "free trial" though. It's big and I personally always felt stupid when seeing "Free Download" button which was just a download of 15 day trial.
I know some big brands that ask for credit card info for "free" trial which turns into automatic charge if you don't cancel it - kind of opt-out instead of opt-in.
I hate any opt-out scenarios.
GR
[ftc.gov...]
BTW, if people say they are out of the US and this does not apply, I would think twice. In Google's TOS it mentions that adwords agreement is covered under California law which these FTC rules apply.
To the advertisers who are out there who have been banned, think of it this way, you did great advertising something that violated new FTC guidelines and did well, what if you advertised something that was legit? Imagine the money you could make then. You all have the knowledge, now put it to use.
Every site I have seen that has been banned has violated the new FTC laws of disclosure.But the banning of accounts started a couple of months before the 1st of December when the new FTC laws of disclosure did go into effect.
One of the business models that has really been slapped hard (by both Google and the FTC) is the 'rebill' affiliate program - like for example, the acai berry stuff. The offer appears to be for a free trial, but in the very very fine print, or on another page, you find out you're going to be charged $67/month for eternity. Most people missed that, and there was an outcry.
It's not too much of a stretch to think that a free trial download deal (while perfectly legitimate) might APPEAR to be operating in a similar fashion, particularly if the actual pricing/payment info is in small print or on a different page. You might be able to recover with some changes in wording.
If it were I, I'd make sure my landing page AND my ad reflect exactly what I'm offering, in entirety. If my ad says Free Download, I'd change it to say Free 30 Day Trial. If I charge for the full license, I would include that on the landing page (and not in fine print).
We all know there have been a lot of scummy advertisers. And yea, they ruin it for the rest of us. We have to make every effort to distance ourselves from these profiles as much as possible. We may have to overcompensate for a time.
So basically your entire campaigns have to be able to withstand the "full body scan" similar to what we'll all have to do at airports.
Yea, it sucks. But it's the world we live in. Even if Google does change its policies (by choice or by force) it's not going to happen soon. And business must go on.
