Google is Stupid - AdWords Continues to Lose Good Customers

[arizonadude]

Well, I got the final notice email today even though I never got a 1st one, but that is besides the point.

I've had my Google account since 2003 and have ran ads for brick and mortar business as well as affiliate sites. All my affiliates sites are original content that actually are helpful to the visitor.

So, the email lists sites that I no longer run ads to and haven't for a long time but they want me to fix the landing pages to those sites even though I don't run ads to them to comply with their landing page quality score.

Are you kidding me? If I'm not running an ad to the page and not landing anybody to it with Adwords, why the hell do I need to comply with the LPQ score?

I actually started putting my ad dollars elsewhere a while back and went from spending over several hundred a day to less than 10 so losing the account is no big deal but the arrogance that they display is just truly astounding.

I know of another person they cancelled the account for a site he spent less than 2 dollars worth of ads for over 3 years ago and actually did not renew the domain several years ago. According to the brains at Google that does not matter, unless he can change that landing page even though the domain is free to anyone to register, he's out. Again, are you kidding me Google.

The arrogance that comes out of the Plex is really leaving a stench among many people.

It's funny, I used to be a loyal Google follower now I root for the day their stock tanks and they completely implode because the brainiacs in the plex are simply put too smart for their own good.

[Green_Grass]

The problem with Google LPQ team is lack of clear guiudelines with them. They seem to take decisions based on 'guesses' / qualitative 'feel' . I don't know..

In a mail to me they said that 'deleted' ads are no longer taken into LPQ scores..but they may change their understanding or 'rules' any time..

[Green_Grass]

One of my sites 'passed' the LPQ review last month.. This month it has been given QS 1. Totally discretionary.

It is an informational site with affiliate links blended in. I though that was OK last month, this month I get the QS 1.

No consistency.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

The consistency is them getting paid, fix that.

[jecasc]

So, the email lists sites that I no longer run ads to and haven't for a long time but they want me to fix the landing pages to those sites even though I don't run ads to them to comply with their landing page quality score.

Have you checked if you really have deleted the ads? Maybe you just did pause them and that's what caused the email?

[arizonadude]

Have you checked if you really have deleted the ads? Maybe you just did pause them and that's what caused the email?

Ads were deleted long ago. I've always paid close to attention to the ads I have running and rarely pause an ad. I either run it or delete it.

The email was caused because some of the sites have affiliate offers on them and even though they provide unique and helpful content to my visitors, it's pretty clear Google does not want affiliates advertising with Adwords.

I could pull the affiliate offers as else someone said, but then what would I need to run ads for at that point?

I'm not in business just to hand money over to Google.

[globglob77]

Google has reached it's peak in 2009. There is something very very big coming from the microsoft/yahoo alliance. There must be a reason why they wait and wait to roll it out. Imagine this: MS/yahoo get a headline "Bing is as good as google" this would cut 30% of revenue from google and 50-60% of googles shareprice.

[Hugene]

I am not an AdWord user or knowledged-of. But I find this story hard to believe. Why would Google care about your old ads? These guys are professional data-miners, if anything they can tell which sites you advertse to and which you don't.

To me, this sounds like a software glitch (if it is true). You didn't even get a 1st warning right?

So just spell out your concerns in an email and send it to them.

[CainIV]

Google has peaked, and over time other channels and possibly search engines will step in, armed with the information of how they went wrong. Adwords customer service is simply atrocious.

For all the glory at Google, they develop fewer new innovations than many companies 1/100 000th of their size.

What goes up must come down.

[J_RaD]

adwords is like gmail, if you delete it it isn't deleted. You have to change your view to only active and paused or whatever to get all of your old crust deleted campaigns out of your view.

goog really doesn't let you delete anything from it servers and uses your past against you.

[Edge]

Google is Stupid - AdWords Continues to Lose Good Customers

Considering that Google's revenues are principally from advertisers - I'm not sure Google's all that "stupid".

[arizonadude]

Considering that Google's revenues are principally from advertisers - I'm not sure Google's all that "stupid".

Somebody changed my title. It was "Google is Stupid".

And they are stupid for sending me emails telling me to fix landing page quality for pages that I stopped running ads to over a year ago.

Their adwords algo is stupid and so are the costumer service reps that respond to you with canned responses.

Yup, I'd say their stupid and flush with cash. That's the worse kind of stupid there is.

[MrHard]

Entertaining thread, but it's obvious if you have an account that's inactive and you get an email to fix it,

it's simply an automatically generated email because you never closed the account completely. Does this qualify as stupid, I guess.

[flashdash]

My first post - Hello everyone!

Who was around when Overture.com was the big ad daddy? I mean before they were acquired by Yahoo! and their short lived success vanished in the thin air.

I was managing a site back in 2001-2003 and the owner was spending around £10K. Not a lot now, but it was a lot of money back then for a online business run from a home office. I remember the owner on the phone begging Overture to prevent them from terminating his account for not understanding what his site is about, but they didn't care. Well, at least then you could talk to humans.

Google want you to spend a lot of money on their "service" and minimize cost to absolute minimum by having you talk to the algo.

Question of time before they will be history. It's a fact of web.

[Symbios]

I wouldn't put much faith in either Bing or Yahoo, both have stitched us up in one way or the other in the past.

Doesn't anyone remember when MSN were using pushing us all to join Looksmart and then all of a sudden everyone was told they have to pay per click.

If either of those companies gain the same percentage of the market I dare say similar or worse could happen, some say that communication from Goog is poor, I'd have to disagree after having an issue with ads not displaying I recived a reply within 2 days outlining what the issue was and what needed to be done.

[netmeg]

People have always predicted Google's (and AdWord's) demise. Never happens though.

[arizonadude]

People have always predicted Google's (and AdWord's) demise. Never happens though.

Yes, I don't think Google is going anywhere, but I do think their dominance in the industry will eventually be diminished to where they only get 50% or less of the market.

[MrHard]

I don't think Google will survive. I see bigger fishes in the water then Google. Namely the companies that make the hardware you use to access the internet. They will eventually find a way to get around the legal hurdles to making people go where they want them to, and then Google will die. I see Google as just sitting in a loophole which can't last.

[Dave_Davis]

The problem with Google LPQ team is lack of clear guiudelines with them. They seem to take decisions based on 'guesses' / qualitative 'feel' . I don't know..

In a mail to me they said that 'deleted' ads are no longer taken into LPQ scores..but they may change their understanding or 'rules' any time..

I completely agree green_grass. I spend a lot of time on the official AdWords help forum and the volume of questions relating to this is astonishing. I wish Google would just be flat out clear on where it stands.

The problem is that because it's not explicitly against any Google TOS, a lot of webmasters spend a LOT of time and a LOT of money developing sites monetized in a large part by affiliate ads. Then Google gives them the boot. In a lot of cases it's clear to see why. However, there are also many cases where it's not.

I also agree that those who have not been dinged yet, will be.

As for the OP, this happened one of our accounts about a year ago. We couldn't change the LP because we let the domain expire, someone reg'ed it and then parked it. Nothing we could do. In fact, we had to close that account completely.

[MrFewkes]

Is there an "anti-google" website anywhere for webmasters and site owners?

Somewhere maybe which asks every website owner to put a link to bing or yahoo on it?

Theres nothing illegal in doing that sort of thing. If only every site owner would start linking (or at least showing a logo) to bing or yahoo that would eventually hurt google.

Its a horrible state of affairs online these days - depending on one engine to survive.

Is it really that hard for us all to put a bing or yahoo logo on our sites?

[Acrill]

"Is it really that hard for us all to put a bing or yahoo logo on our sites? "

You really want to give them large amounts of free advertising? Do you think they will treat you better than Google in the long run?

[arizonadude]

Well, looks like stupid is stupid does is the new Google motto.

My ads stopped displaying yesterday so I’m sure the termination is just around the corner.

Eventually, it will be real funny when Google is not so high and mighty and starts wondering why nobody supports them anymore.

I’ve made it my personal quest to turn as many people from Google as I can by saying whatever I need to say whether it’s true or not. I deal with a lot people daily and they never question what I tell them when it comes to search engines.

To date, I’ve converted at least 40 people and an entire Junior High to using another search engine other than Google. It always starts small and snowballs and I know I’m not the only one doing this.

Google can stick it where the sun don’t shine.

[J_RaD]

I’ve made it my personal quest to turn as many people from Google as I can by saying whatever I need to say

been in your shoes and I feel your pain! down with goog

[tracking90]

It think its funny that they don't want to work with affiliates anymore but they run their own affiliate program through google comparison mortgage rate ads. It's the exact same thing. I wonder if google is going to send a final notice to it's self for violating its own rules.

[PayMePerClick]

For me, it seems most sites getting banned (mostly affiliate sites) are web pollution; Crowding the internet space and making it harder for people to find what they really want. You can rant all you want but most people don't know or care about Google advertising and certainly don't know or care about any issues the advertisers have, and they'll all continue to use Google to find everything they need. Google is great. Can someone tell me why I'd NEED their site that got banned?

[arizonadude]

For me, it seems most sites getting banned (mostly affiliate sites) are web pollution; Crowding the internet space and making it harder for people to find what they really want. You can rant all you want but most people don't know or care about Google advertising and certainly don't know or care about any issues the advertisers have, and they'll all continue to use Google to find everything they need. Google is great. Can someone tell me why I'd NEED their site that got banned?

Better yet, why don't tell us all whey we would need your site?

[PayMePerClick]

Work with multiple clients and they all have services/products going DIRECTLY to consumers. No middle men. No shady marketing practices. It's simple and never feels like we're gaming the system. Frankly, it's safe. If someone searches for us I don't want them going to who knows how many other sites that are trying to push our services for the sole reason of making money off of costs per click.

[PayMePerClick]

Also, I've worked with small consumer goods, car groups, hospitality, and other sectors. All of which, again, not affiliate sites but the brand's home marketing directly to the consumer. What about you guys? No need for specific names, but what are you promoting?

[arizonadude]

I also work with clients that produce actual products and I also have sites that if you stripped the affiliate links away, then the site would be a solid information site and stand on it's own and actually provide more information about the products than the manufacturer's sites.

I fully agree there are bad affiliate sites out there, but there are also very good affiliate sites that in many cases are better than the manufacturer site because a lot of them are nothing but a large shopping cart with no real information about the products.

In either case, it doesn't matter anymore since I got the termination letter the other day.

The day will come when Google will wish they didn't kick out paying customers.

[Digmen1]

I am only an amatuer when it comes to Adwords.
I find it very hard to understand and cannot afford to pay a professional to help me out.

But I find their user interface very clunky and unfriendly.

And I think the figures they are suggesting that I pay to get on the front page (in the Keywords Status Column) to be getting higher every week.

There is no way I (or most people can pay 60 cents or $1.50 for a click!)

THAT IS JUST MADNESS to pay that much for a click - not a sale.

And they are so stupid that they don't throw my ad up on Page 2 (when they could) and make some money from me that way.

[GetReal]

Personally, I use Bing exclusively now, not as a statement against Google and all their manipulation, but I think Bing is better. I hope the rest of the Interest world follows suit. As far as Google is concern, their distain over affiliate sites is purely financial. Their desire to cut the middle man out is because they want to become the middle man (i.e. search for mortgage loans and see what comparative , affiliate site they now run¡K talk about hypocritical¡K). And finally, anyone worry about the drop in Google share price this week? ƒº