ARGH!!! GET A LIFE GOOGLE!!!

[JonathanBoettcher]

The following took place about 2 minutes ago, and this was the best and first place I thought of venting, so here goes:

Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. Please hold a moment while we route your chat to a specialist who will help you with your question: "I've lost all action on my account since Sept. 24th!!! Please advise why my account seems to have been cutoff! ". Alex J. has received your message and will be right with you.

(Jonathan waits about 10 minutes)

Alex J.: Hi Jonathan, sorry for the trouble but it has come to our attention that your Google AdWords account does not comply with our terms of service and advertising policies. You have repeatedly submitted ads that violated our landing page policies in this or a related account. As a result, your account has been suspended, and your ads will no longer run on Google.
Alex J.: As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate advertisements for any reason. To view our Terms and Conditions, please visit https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder
Alex J.: We appreciate your cooperation. Unfortunately, this is a final decision and you will not be able to advertiser with Google in the future.
Thank you for contacting Google AdWords. Your chat session has ended. Click To Print

That's it. I logged into my account this AM to check it for the past few days, and was surprised to find it had seemingly died. I contacted Google and was given this response, no chance to reply.

Anyone else had this, and what did you do about it? I never received any emails from Google or anything else stating I was walking a fine line or anything like that.. just 'boom' you're gone!

[thegamecat]

Don't **** with the big G.

[JonathanBoettcher]

Kinda hard when they don't even tell you what you're doing wrong... you'd think that since I've had an active account for over 6 years that would have given them opportunity to do so..

[Mike Hersh]

Google are doing whatever they want.

I wish someone was big enough to knock them out!

I guess that will not happen soon...

Mike G

Google has other things on their mind ... Sorry for your trouble Jonathan, I know that does not help but at least it could help bear some of the weight by having someone tell you they are sorry ...

James

[JonathanBoettcher]

Originally Posted by TheRichJerksNet

Google has other things on their mind ... Sorry for your trouble Jonathan, I know that does not help but at least it could help bear some of the weight by having someone tell you they are sorry ...

James

Haha, thanks James, the sentiment is appreciated.

I've heard YSM and MSN are talking of joining forces... which may prove to create a player that is actually strong enough to take on Google directly.

On a different note - is there anything stopping me from creating a new account under a different name?

[bgmacaw]

Who Ya Gonna Call? Trust Busters

[JonathanBoettcher]

Originally Posted by bgmacaw

Who Ya Gonna Call? Trust Busters

Something makes me wonder whether I could find a sympathetic ear over there...

[DAS_Matt]

Google will give you the smackdown without even thinking twice about it. They are a fickle mistress.

[Clyde Dennis]

Just use a different card and keep moving.

[JonathanBoettcher]

Oh, to add to my previous comment about YSM and MSN... I've had to deal with Yahoo Search Marketing on a few occasions regarding different things and I've always found them EXTREMELY helpful.

Personal, direct response to emails either via email or by phone, the direct email of a rep who can help you... these guys take customer service seriously and should be given an award IMO.

Then again, maybe that's what NORMAL companies do, and I've just become so jaded over the years by stories from Big G.

[LB]

Did you have a lot of ads that were flagged for violation that had to be resubmitted? Did you have a lot of low quality scores?

I'm not defending G, just wondering what specifically might have caused this.

[JonathanBoettcher]

No, that's the crazy part.. Most of my quality scores were 7+. I had the odd add smacked down, changed it, and everything was copacetic.

[LB]

Looks like you're not alone: New rule? Quality Violations => Adwords ban

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher

Something makes me wonder whether I could find a sympathetic ear over there...

Given that you don't appear to be a US citizen probably not. However, it's likely that Google's all out war on affiliate marketing will land them in US Federal court sooner or later.

[JonathanBoettcher]

Amazing... I've had this account since 2004 and they just kill it. Anyone ever done that to any of their long term customers?

I think Big G watches things from a legal perspective... but I also suspect they don't really care about affiliate marketers too much. Much as we don't like to think so, we're a small part of the industry, really. The big corporations spending 2-300k per month are the real customers. Apparently.

[vagabondette]

Same thing happened to me. My pages were all 8/9 quality and then one day they were all 1 and my campaign stopped running.

[JonathanBoettcher]

Originally Posted by vagabondette

Same thing happened to me. My pages were all 8/9 quality and then one day they were all 1 and my campaign stopped running.

so... what did you end up doing?

[LB]

Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher

Amazing... I've had this account since 2004 and they just kill it. Anyone ever done that to any of their long term customers?

I think Big G watches things from a legal perspective... but I also suspect they don't really care about affiliate marketers too much. Much as we don't like to think so, we're a small part of the industry, really. The big corporations spending 2-300k per month are the real customers. Apparently.

I know for a fact that they've slapped people spending 7 figures annually. All campaigns going to 1/10.

I myself have sent millions of clicks through adwords and have dealt with the same crap.

[carlos123]

Sorry to hear of what happened to you Jonathan. To have one's entire life, if they are relying on Google income to make ends meet, cannot be a very easy thing to endure.

I believe under Google's own policies if your original account was a personal one you can create a new one for a company as long as the address and name on the account (which in the new one would be your company's name) are different.

Just look under Google's help for how to change the name and address on the account. It's in there somewhere.

Even if you did that I would definitely suggest that you use a different address at the very least. It is unfortunate that your name is not a very common one.

Seeing as my name is like John Smith they would not be able to associate me to an old account as readily as they could with you.

You may also be able to partner up with someone else if not against Google TOS and share the income from their account by agreement with them.

Anyway way you look at it though you are going to be hit financially.

The other thing this shows is that no matter how long we have been with Google ALWAYS, ALWAYS have an exit strategy in place. I plan on taking a big percentage of whatever money I make from Adsense and diversify as quickly as I can. Into other forms of internet marketing. I even have a software product of my own that I have been working on but which I have not had enough time to really develop.

Again...my condolenses on the death of your Adsense account.

Carlos

[JonathanBoettcher]

Thanks Carlos... it was Adwords actually, but yes, I'm also using YSM and MSN, so it isn't a complete loss. More of a tick-off really.

A little off topic, but somehow relevant is this great article I found:
http://www.associateprograms.com/art...-make-you-pay/

[vagabondette]

Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher

so... what did you end up doing?

I gave them the virtual middle finger and moved onto projects that were fed primarily through organic search rather than paid.

[keenstyle1]

Bro,

I did PPC & SEO for the biggest adult toy online stores about 4 years ago. When my landing pages showed images they didn't like, they would start that same routine. Then I called them! I demanded an exclusive representative for our type of advertisements and I got his direct line and never had a problem with them after that.
But ya, they like to hide behind the chat, they're all a bunch of interns and college kids working in AdWords.

[Jamie Boyle]

Yeah Jonathan, I understand where you are coming from. People are getting warnings too but no suspension. How can you have a great landing page quality score then boom!!! your lowered to 1. You ask them what you did wrong and they say refer to policy. I've been with them for over 3 years and no problems. Then all of a sudden on Sept. 25th tons of people all across the internet get one of two messages, a warning or suspended.

What's sad to say is that we are never in control. Someone can take things away from us at any given time. We're paying to advertise and if you've been running the same campaign for years with no problems even nothing when quality score came out.

I do agree with you that Yahoo is great for help and so is MSN when it come to PPC. I know two of my campaigns are not running now, the others are fine but makes me wonder when or if i'm gonna get the Google slap and lowered to 1 at any second. Also I am worried like most to lose Adwords account. I'm shocked on what's going on really.

If people are paying money to advertise I think that should be all there is to it. On my two campaigns that are not running they told me to remove all content (if any) that violates google policy. I looked and there is none. Also I am not gonna change anything as I do get great organic search results so I'm just gonna forget those two campaigns all together I think and use MSN and Yahoo like I already am.

I wish Google will come out and clear things up better and have better customer service. That's one area they need to work on. Google may be the largest search engine on the internet today but improvements can be made in their support and customer service area. I've emailed them again so I will come back when I get more information from them.

So people who have affiliate sites or reviews can't use Adwords to advertise? Things need to be cleared up.

[chini]

Class action people! Theres heaps of people out there being suspended for no good reason. If you take the fuker to court, im sure many would have a good case, escpaiclly if they make a full time living using ppc traffic from google.

[Jamie Boyle]

Chini,

Your not far off there. There must be some protection for advertisers??? Why does Google have all the power?? Even if people have a couple sites that need to be fixed, does that give them the right to suspend your account on the other 30+ you may have going that are legit and follows all policies.

I went over to this link here that talks more about it New rule? Quality Violations => Adwords ban and there are some good points mentioned.

One person said there, what gives Google the right to tell me to change my website as they don't like the look. Your a customer, aren't customers always right? guess not.

If Google is making so much money they should have a customer care center set up just for this MAJOR issue going on right now. I mean one person lost 40% of his revenue over Google. I think this issue is way out of control. Bottom line Google wants and they've said it to me before is increase your bids. Sure, a way for them to make more money. I think they hate seeing people get low cost per click. It's just nuts on whats going on!

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by Jamie Boyle

One person said there, what gives Google the right to tell me to change my website as they don't like the look. Your a customer, aren't customers always right? guess not.

So any trick in the book right, because you are paying for the traffic. Sorry, it doesn't quite work that way. If you had a brick and mortar selling Nike running shoes and you marketed/sold them in a way that Nike felt hurt their image with the customers Nike would stop you from selling their shoes. Simple as that.

Furthermore any person participating in ad words gave them the right by agreeing to the terms and conditions.

This is heavy handed and G is not telling people enough on how to avoid the issue. I do take heart in the fact that it sounds like from the webmasterworld posts that it doesn't matter if you are spending $50 or $50 million, G is kicking your ass out just the same, so that tells me they are serious on the cleanup effort.

To be very honest we could do with a lot less affiliate sites. Most affiliate sites add NOTHING to the buying process. I could get the same info at the vendors site.

The duplicity as I see it is on one hand the whole buy direct cut out the middle man philosophy and on the other is affiliate marketing's ram yourself into the middle of the transaction no matter how much of an ass you need to be to get your cut.

There is a simple way around this. Develop your own, non get rich quick product and sell it with adwords. Google will love you.

[Jamie Boyle]

Originally Posted by WareTime

So any trick in the book right, because you are paying for the traffic. Sorry, it doesn't quite work that way. If you had a brick and mortar selling Nike running shoes and you marketed/sold them in a way that Nike felt hurt their image with the customers Nike would stop you from selling their shoes. Simple as that.

I know what you mean by that comment and totally agree with thas aspect. I didn't mean it the way you said, "So any trick in the book right". I think you knew where I was coming from.

Anyways I received an email from Google and they upgraded it to go to their Google Adwords specialists and mine was wrongfully evaluated. My two campaigns that were affected are now back on. So I do abide by the rules and it is fixed.

Here is a quote from Google:

Hello Jamie,

I appreciate your patience during the review process. I've confirmed that
your website was not correctly evaluated by our system, and we've fixed
this error.

So others may have had the same issue so I would advise people that were affected by this to look into it further. Computers are not always right! Period.

I'm glad that my issue is resolved and I wish you all that may have been affected as long as you abide by the rules that your issue gets resolved soon too.

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by Jamie Boyle

I know what you mean by that comment and totally agree with thas aspect. I didn't mean it the way you said, "So any trick in the book right". I think you knew where I was coming from.

I did understand you, but said what I did more to make a point to what I feel is a large contingent of people that do think that because they are paying Google they should have it their way.

Sounds like your adwords situation is in hand and from the email, I would believe a lot of other people may be in the same boat, so there will probably be a collective sigh of relief in the next few days.

Check your mailbox.

[JonathanBoettcher]

Great to hear you're back online Jamie - I'm going to look into my situation a bit more and see if someone can review my account as well.

[Jamie Boyle]

Originally Posted by WareTime

I did understand you, but said what I did more to make a point to what I feel is a large contingent of people that do think that because they are paying Google they should have it their way.

Sounds like your adwords situation is in hand and from the email, I would believe a lot of other people may be in the same boat, so there will probably be a collective sigh of relief in the next few days.

Check your mailbox.

Yeah my adowrds account is fine and I'm glad, a sigh of relief for sure. What I think to is people may be getting the emails to if they request a review or proof that they are doing something wrong.

Who knows maybe its deliberate so that people know that Google means business. Put a little scare in people then they will think twice about creating new campaigns and making sure they abide all the rules and policies.

I'm happy and hope many others get a sigh of relief like I did.

[Jamie Boyle]

Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher

Great to hear you're back online Jamie - I'm going to look into my situation a bit more and see if someone can review my account as well.

Thanks Johnathan! I'm happy about it. What I would do is rquest a review of your account and tell them to show you what you did wrong, give me an example by showing a webpage where its against policy. I told them that everything is in check with terms and conditions and a review was done and mine was good. and an error was made.

Maybe you'll get lucky yourself and have your Adword account up and running again. I wish you best of luck.

[Christian Fox]

I have heard they are even banning for 'past actions'...

[apollocreed]

Originally Posted by JonathanBoettcher

Amazing... I've had this account since 2004 and they just kill it. Anyone ever done that to any of their long term customers?

I think Big G watches things from a legal perspective... but I also suspect they don't really care about affiliate marketers too much. Much as we don't like to think so, we're a small part of the industry, really. The big corporations spending 2-300k per month are the real customers. Apparently.

Google could not care less even if you spent $100K per month.

I know for a fact that they shut such accounts down too. $100K to us seems huge but to GG its just a drop in the ocean.

Apollo