Nasty letter from Google. What the heck?

[Dena Gottlieb]

I received a notification from Google today that they have disabled my adwords account due to violation of their terms and poor quality of landing pages or something.

Here's the thing - I HAVEN'T ADVERTISED IN TWO YEARS and even when I did I only had one campaign going for about a month and when my budget finished so did my advertising. (And I wasn't advertising anything unethical - I promise).

Any recommendations about how to rectify this?
TIA


Here's the text of the letter:

Dear advertiser,

We are writing to let you know that your Google AdWords account has been disabled due to one or more serious violations of our advertising policies related to Landing Page and Site Quality. As a result, your ads will no longer run through the Google AdWords system and we are unable to accept advertising from you in the future. Please note that future accounts that you open will also be disabled.

As part of our commitment to making the AdWords experience safe and effective for our users and our advertisers, we routinely review the landing pages that our advertisers promote through our search and content networks. If we find that an advertiser has submitted a landing page that egregiously violates our policies, we reserve the right to take immediate account-level action.

Landing pages advertised via AdWords must have relevant, original content, and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted. Furthermore, advertising certain types of sites will lead to immediate account disabling. These types of sites include, but are not limited to:
• Sites that charge users or collect personal information in exchange for a product that is never delivered
• Sites that charge for "free" software
• Sites that trick users into paying for fake or poor-quality content
• Sites that charge users for information that makes unrealistic promises of financial or personal gain
• Sites that install malware software on a visitor's computer
Please note that this action is related to sites that have recently been advertised through your account. In a review of your account history, we found that your account had submitted a least one site that egregiously violated our advertising policies. Although you may have removed these sites since our latest review, advertisers that have a history of promoting these types of sites are still subject to account-level disabling.

You can review our Advertising Policies, including our Landing Page and Site Quality guidelines, by visiting: AdWords Help
You may also review the complete AdWords Terms & Conditions here: https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/tsandcsfinder
In addition, our FAQ about Account Disablings can be found here: https://adwords.google.com/support/a...&answer=164786
If you have additional questions or concerns not addressed by our policies or Help Centre, you can contact support by replying to this email.

Yours sincerely,

The Google AdWords Team


Google Inc. | 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway | Mountain View, CA 94043

© 2009 Google Inc. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc.

[tryinhere]

there seems a lot of this happening today ? there was another post nearly with the same story. i really can not understand why G is slamming so many people surley just not allowing any unwanted ads to run would have been better ?

[Dena Gottlieb]

I'm not even doing any advertising!!!!! And they made sure to tell me that they will never allow me to advertise with them again! Sheesh!

[secretjustin]

Well I like what they've said, "don't mess with us, because you're going to get your *** fried!"

Perhaps your campaign was still "active" even though it was not being funded.

Just send them a letter, call them, or show up at HQ, and let them know.

[Dena Gottlieb]

I replied to their letter but why am I skeptical about anyone actually reading my reply?

[Amfire]

They should reply to you. But very unlikely favorable reply.

check it out,

http://searchengineland.com/google-a...-process-29997

Originally Posted by Dena Gottlieb

I replied to their letter but why am I skeptical about anyone actually reading my reply?

[Pheasant_5]

I've just receive the same letter.

It's a shame Google couldn't have sent a warning letter about facing a potential ban, because I didn't even realize I was seriously breaking any of their rules. My landing pages looked a lot like the other ones that had been running for a long time in my niche.

If anyone has any advice about how to get adwords re-enabled that would be great...

[tryinhere]

Amfire has some good info in his link, this quote was a new one for me

you can make the appropriate changes to your site or delete all ads that point to the low quality sites. Paused ads will still accrue violations against them.

Pause is a non option and i wonder if some people may have had sites on pause ?

It does also state each email there is a email to open a line of appeal

banned advertisers can reply to the email to start the “appeals process.” Every reply should get a response from a dedicated Google representative.

[Dena Gottlieb]

what I don't understand is that I haven't advertised in years!

[STKING]

I can;t believe that Google sent a hard copy letter. they are an internet company, why wouldn't they warn you on email or something. That is ironic.

[spero123]

They've sent so many and it's easier for them to email people.

[Dena Gottlieb]

They didn't send a hardcopy letter. THey sent me an email!

[warrich]

you need some time , and check your website where you are wrong and which policy u have broken of google adwords

[getsmartt]

Yep, got mine the other day, and like you I have not had an active campaign in a while. Seems they are over zealous here recently, but whatever, they are not the only fish in the sea, and like I said I haven't even had an active campaign in a while....

So basically they can bite my a** and I will take my business elsewhere

[bazzais]

Its happened to loads of people recently.

Most people who have been banned are affiliates, which google are trying to squeeze out of the equation, specially if your a thin affiliate or just use bridge links straight to merchants with affiliate networks. It seems like their quality score has not gone far enough in pushing thin sites out and they are now trying to clean up their PPC ads by pushing people completely off the program.

I am in no way referring that any banned was a thin affiliate as it could be due to a number of reasons however if you have an affiliate site and want to use adwords its best to have it looking professional with contact details, privacy policy's and disclaimers etc

Ta

Barry

[Black Hat Cat]

[quote=Dena Gottlieb;1397837]

Here's the thing - I HAVEN'T ADVERTISED IN TWO YEARS and even when I did I only had one campaign going for about a month and when my budget finished so did my advertising. (And I wasn't advertising anything unethical - I promise).

Any recommendations about how to rectify this?
TIA

What is there to rectify? For all intents and purposes, your account was closed two years ago....by you. Not getting why you're sweating the loss of something you aren't even using.

[Dena Gottlieb]

I'm sweating it because I am putting up a new website where I want to sell a physical product and I will need/want to do some paid advertising for the traffic, I think. I just don't want this avenue closed off to me.

I would love to hear about the other options out there...

[kbs]

Here's a very simple solution. Hire Kate D from here to do your low competition high search volume keyword research for you. Next go to scriptlance.com and find a programmer named TopRankings and have them to the SEO work for you as they usually charge about $150.00.

Let's say you have 50 keywords that get an average of 200 searches daily that's 10000 total daily searches for your terms. Now since you've wisely outsourced t a relliable SEO expert you'll rank on the first page and get some decent traffic.

Problem solved.

[GuerrillaIM]

Originally Posted by STKING

I can;t believe that Google sent a hard copy letter. they are an internet company, why wouldn't they warn you on email or something. That is ironic.

Google sent me a digital picture frame through the post last xmas.