My business is basically gone, and I just quit my job

[cypherslock]

Why would you put all your eggs in Adwords? I've used Adwords in the past but it is not my sole method of traffic. Articles....blog feeders.....squidoo.....hubpages....squeeze pages. That being said, DON'T give up!

[ronr]

As the old saying goes..."Don't throw the baby out with the bath water"

You have a good converting process. Just add another step to keep google happy.

If it's not too late, I agree with the advice of keeping everything but changing your landing page to a squeeze page (with good content of course so it gets a good quality score) and building a list and making sales with autoresponder messages about your offers. It will probably reduce your conversions at first but it shouldn't totally kill your sales totally and time they could even improve because of your list building.

I also like the other idea of creating your own product. You've already found a hungry market and know how to sell to them. So feed them your own product and you can earn a lot more money and continue to use adwords while you diversify.

Ron

[sree94]

Well, my employer took me back

I am very disappointed because I really had made big plans for my life that were based on me being able to make my own hours. Also, I work the graveyard shift at my job, and I'm tired all the time, so I was really looking forward to getting to sleep like a normal human. But if I was worrying all the time about money coming in, I wouldn't get any sleep anyway

I am determined to come up with at least 2 other income streams that *I* control before quitting my job

[GeorgR.]

I have been making about 3 times more with IM than my job

you already did a BIG step, obviously you're not an IM dummy, you made/make big money with adwords!

What holds you back doing the same on other ad/PPC networks?

Relying on Google is bad!

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by sree94

Well, my employer took me back

I am very disappointed because I really had made big plans for my life that were based on me being able to make my own hours. Also, I work the graveyard shift at my job, and I'm tired all the time, so I was really looking forward to getting to sleep like a normal human. But if I was worrying all the time about money coming in, I wouldn't get any sleep anyway

I am determined to come up with at least 2 other income streams that *I* control before quitting my job

disappointed ? are you feeling OK, most people talk about doing the walk but never do, you stood up and danced the tango, you should be feeling very proud

[Monika Mundell]

Originally Posted by Lilach

Well, firstly you have a business. And the biggest mistake people make in business is "putting all their eggs in one basket".

I can attest to that statement... argh... it damn well hurts like hell when you find yourself at the wrong end of the (busyness) because you totally sucked at protecting your asset (business) from the dreaded "no show," or "no action."

I've had to learn the hard way myself and would advise anyone not currently diversifying their business to do so ASAP.

Having said this, it's the best education I could have ever dreamed off and in hindsight it was a blessing in disguise.

Monika

[sree94]

Originally Posted by GeorgR.

you already did a BIG step, obviously you're not an IM dummy, you made/make big money with adwords!

What holds you back doing the same on other ad/PPC networks?

Relying on Google is bad!

On Google, I can make up to 50 sales a day. On Yahoo or MSN, 2 to 3 TOPS

THAT is why I rely on Google adwords

[Danny Cutts]

Hello,

Thats sucks!

I learnt the hard way a while ago and have learnt NEVER!!! build a business on the back of another business it can only end badly.

Dont get me wrong make money from ebay and from amazon and adsense but dont build a whole business around just one system...

Good luck fella but dont get stresses it wont help

Danny

[entrepenerd]

Sorry to see you going back to the JOB, but understandable. You had big cajones to turn in the resignation in the first place, so big props for that. Just be sure to NOT let this turn you off of IM or slow you down. If anything, let that taste of freedom further motivate you to build the income streams even faster.

Definitely try to diversify your traffic if possible. But, don't get completely turned off on Google. There are tons of people out there making fat cash off of Google Adwords solely. As I mentioned earlier, you should definitely be using PPC to drive people to an email capture. That way you can always tap that list for more money in the future. That's a huge safety net, and may be all the safety net you need.

Another thing to consider for affiliate offers promoted through Adwords is a multi-page pre-sell. That way you can send people to a landing page that has a really high quality score and no affiliate links. Andre Chaperon is huge on this. You'll have to do a fantastic job with creating the pre-sell to really keep your conversions up, but it can easily satisfy Google's demands for good content in order to sell affiliate products.

Check out Andre's Affiliate Bully free case study here: How To Promote ClickBank Products | Free ClickBank Guide

NOTE: I have no affiliation with Andre whatsoever (other than being a customer) and the link above is not an affiliate link.

Be sure to pay close attention to the Landing Pages link. It will show you 2 important things. Build a high-quality landing page that Google likes on a real site that Google likes, and do it while building a list. If you continue to follow Andre, you'll also learn a lot about the multi-page pre-sell that he uses and it really goes directly with what Google is looking for and if done correctly can really be a high converter.

Good luck! Hope this helps!

PS: Even though the link above talks about Clickbank. The concept can be used on promoting any product whether through Clickbank or any other network. It also works for CPA promotion.

[Jude.A]

Originally Posted by Wide

I'm completly confused now.
Banned for promoting an affiliate product? Isnt this what most people do on adwords?

I thought i was the only confused one here.

[DrGUID]

Yes eggs and baskets spring to mind here.

I am trying to get 20 different money making schemes going. I am up to No. 11.

My main scheme (selling my own software) has been torpedoed due to recession or something, and I am learning the importance of eggs and baskets. Diversify, diversify, diversify!

[macchiavelli]

Google is ass...I hate them with a passion.
I had my own website earning $3000 a day spending only $300 a day...ccraazzzy ROI!!!
Then just 1 day BOOOMM 0 impressions..........Sent them an email and after 4 weeks they hit me back with the dreaded TERMINATION email.

I was like what the kcuf....tried to open another account, wouldnt let me.
Its strange because I wasnt advertising illegal stuff at all!
Man that b.s made me want to cry.

Bounced back though...I got allot of eggs in allot of baskets!
Dont depend on google, way too much traffic out there for them to be playing with our money like that!

[ChrisChoiSEO]

It's sad that they're shutting down legitimate marketers because of a few bad affiliates in their system.

[SimonHarrison]

I know you can't show your URL's but here's my interpretation of your situation.

Almost every site on the internet makes money through some version of "affiliate " marketing.

That includes almost every major news outlet, all of which Google has love for.

Every advert you see on a site is either an affiliate model or a paid model.

Either way it's taking revenue for promoting a product.

Google isn't anti advertising etc.

What Google is really hating and you can expect this to get worse is a gazillion little mini sites all targeting a few long tails, cluttering up the SERPS and containing about 10 pages of content with the obligatory privacy, T&C etc and that's it.

They hate it because they feel it's a manipulation of their results and the sites don't add much value .

This isn't always true but Google just throws paint at a wall rather than brushes carefully when it comes to the hammer.

I love the model, and I've actually put good content on to my sites, but even some of those have fallen foul.

I'm actually now moving fully away from the model because I think Google is going to become more and more stringent.

I'm now building two huge sites, complete with forums, blogs people can add to themselves, hundreds of articles, tools relevent to the niche, social elements and so forth.

Now within many of the articles on the site I have links to affiliate products.

When it's within the context of a site like that - you're safe.

[ArtFlipper]

I'm just having a hard time believing this story...

[JamesAggie]

Why not try the content network where quality score is a less of an issue or so I've heard from Andre Chaperon.

[Palusko]

It's already said and done, but like others said, you did it before, you'll make it again. I am surprised you decided to go back to work, especially since you had 6-months of savings which you could have used (after all, these are the situations why the savings are recommended to have before quitting job). Good luck to you, hope you will post a little update from time to time. Good luck

[larryburr]

I am sure you can find a way around this issue. The key is to not give up. You have made money so you can continue to do it. Just find another approach. Good luck!

[SEOPoints]

Originally Posted by sree94

I am determined to come up with at least 2 other income streams that *I* control before quitting my job

Believe it or not, I bought your WSO from WAY back in the day... about getting from 0 to around 800 to 1000 a month. It helped me a LOT. Seriously, it was really inspirational and practical, too. So this is my way of helping you out...

There's a company called Rebrand Software that produces a bunch of software that you can private label with your own name and stuff like that. They've got stuff that does the SAME basic stuff as RegCure and Registry Easy and they even have an anti-Spywre/Adware type product that's kind of like NoAdware.

If you do a quick search in Google, you'll see a link for the company's website. It's only like $350-$400 for each software piece, and you can basically sell it directly to the people you've got coming to your site(s). This MIGHT get Adwords to lay off and let you keep making sales since it would be your OWN product.

Do you think this might do the trick?

I would have sent this as a PM but I don't have 50 posts. Hope this helps you out man, it's a tough situation you've just described.

[Ti]

Am I the only one here who is confused by Google banning you because you are an affiliate website?

Google's own policy quite clearly states that you can advertise affiliate websites. Google's own policy states:

Affiliates and resellers are welcome to advertise with AdWords

So why would they ban you and say it was because you were advertising an affiliate site?

Isn't this a huge red flag to anybody else?

[numba8]

hmmm, the scenario you described is scary. I'd suggest calling Google because the industry would be dead if people weren't allowed to promote affiliate links on their own websites and then promote those websites through adwords. So it sounds like Google might have made a mistake, or maybe you haven't described everything well enough.

Either way, don't give up on IM. The only thing standing between you and success is persistence. The whole industry is based on trial and error. Keep trying! =p

[Hanz]

Originally Posted by Ti

Am I the only one here who is confused by Google banning you because you are an affiliate website?

Google's own policy quite clearly states that you can advertise affiliate websites. Google's own policy states:



So why would they ban you and say it was because you were advertising an affiliate site?

Isn't this a huge red flag to anybody else?

Hmmm, the OP said "I got an email saying my pages are in violation because they have affiliate URL's on them."
I'm also confused.

[cashcow]

Am I the only one here who is confused by Google banning you because you are an affiliate website?

Yes, I find this disturbing that Google would do this.

But, I am thinking it probably has more to do with the actual structure of the page than the fact that affiliate links were there?

Hard telling not knowing what the pages looked like.

[Dennis Gaskill]

I don't use Adwords for traffic so this comment might be worthless . . . but were you linking directly to the affiliate on your page, or linking to a redirect page on your site?

What if you did this...

Put an "index, no follow" meta tag on the page you're sending traffic to, link to a redirect page in another directory with a "no index, no follow" meta tag on it, and use a robots.txt file to keep the search spiders out of the directory with the redirect pages.

Would G still see the affiliate link that way?

[Ti]

The point is that it does not matter if Google sees it as an affiliate link. Using adwords to promote affiliate pages is perfectly acceptable according to Google's own policy.

This is why the OP's post is so concerning. The way I see it, one of three things is happening here:

1) OP is not telling us the whole truth
2) The Google person who banned him has made a big mistake because Google's policy does allow affiliate websites
3) Google is in the middle of changing their policy and for some unknown reason has not updated their documentation to state affiliate advertising is unacceptable.


We need to get to the bottom of which of those 3 things (or otherwise) it is.

[oneplusone]

Originally Posted by entrepenerd

I'd really take to heart what's being said about email list building here.

Before you give up altogether and head back to a JOB. Try sending your PPC traffic to a lead capture page. You just need to make sure it's quality score friendly, but this time it won't have any affiliate links on it, so Google can't complain about that. If you're dangling the right carrot, you can snare a pretty high percentage of sign-ups. And, with the right auto-responder series, you can quickly convert even "desperate" prospects into customers. Not only that, but you'll have built a list that you can continue to promote offers to when you find something that they might be interested in.

You can also send the visitor that signs-up directly to the vendor page after they've completed the sign-up form. Google won't see this because they won't sign up after the form. All they care about is what page the clicker is going to land on.

I ran a little experiment a while back in a small desperate niche and was able to build a list of several hundred subscribers in a just a few days for little cost with PPC traffic only.

It's worth a shot.

Good luck

If you want to get banned from Adwords quickly this is one of the quickest ways, send everyone straight to a lead capture page.

A huge percentage of the bans in recent weeks have been for people running these types of pages, they call them data collection sites.

Eben Pagan got rid of his capture page straight away in the dating niche when the rule came into effect a few months ago:

Double Your Dating

If you watch the video you will see towards the end of the video he asks viewers to enter their name and e-mail address below, BUT there isn't any place to do so because he removed it mindful of the new Adwords rules banning squeeze pages.

He isn't stupid, he knows if he left it on he was running the risk of a ban.

There are still some sites on Adwords which go straight to a squeeze page (data collection page), but how long they will last is anyones guess.

Squeeze Pages/Lead Capture/Data Collection sites or whatever you want to call them are NOT allowed on Adwords anymore.

With regards to the original posters issue, perhaps there was a lack of clear declaration on his part that he was an affiliate of the websites he was promoting on the page.

[Marc White]

My heart certainly goes out to you...and for your courage to keep on the path...a suggestion in effectively planning the what-if's would be to create a simple "cash flow from what source" spread sheet by week for the next 3-4 months. put your assumptions down as well for the master template...and then do a best case and worst case senario. be conservative, as u know things most always take a bit longer than we think! blessings to you...

[Terry Matthews]

Are your affiliate links cloaked, out of curiosity?

[MRomeo09]

If you live in US, it's no big deal to create an LLC or multiple and use different companies to do business with. Should cost you around $200-400 to setup a different company. Then setup different hosting, etc. You should never just have one Adwords account, when it is so simple to create more than one.

My offline business makes more than half of the business from adwords, and even still I have a backup plan. I have a complete different LLC, different hosting, different accounts, and the whole ball of wax all setup just in case. And I do absolutely nothing that is against terms. Which was really helpful when one of my accounts got hacked, and had to transfer almost everything over to a completely different bank account, took me just a few hours and I was ready to go.

HTH,

Marcos

[Ti]

Originally Posted by oneplusone

Squeeze Pages/Lead Capture/Data Collection sites or whatever you want to call them are NOT allowed on Adwords anymore.

Could you please link to where Google says this is not allowed? I do not see it anywhere. All I see is Google stating that adwords for affiliate sites is perfectly ok.

We still do not know why he was banned by Google. All the information so far in this post points to either Google breaking their own policy or that the OP is not telling the whole truth.

[LetsGoViral]

Originally Posted by sree94

So for months now, I have been making about 3 times more with IM than my job, which I really don't like and has awful hours. I put aside 6 months of savings to live off, and decided to put in my notice and do IM full time

Then Tuesday, Google dropped the hammer

They have not outright banned me yet from Adwords, but I have been getting that dreaded "system delay" message for almost 2 straight days now. And I got an email saying my pages are in violation because they have affiliate URL's on them. Unreal

I am going to do everything I can to get around the ban and get a new account, but it is clear to me now that Adwords is not a viable long term business strategy. And this is something I knew, but I got blinded by the potential for the good life

A part of me wants to still give it a shot full time, but someone once said you shouldn't quit a job until you have steady, converting traffic. So it looks like I am going to have to lie and convince my bosses that I can't truly see myself leaving this job

What a nightmare

Why would you leave your job? You should be thankful of having a job in this economy. It's a privilege. Furthermore, you could have worked on your internet ventures in your free time. That's what I would do in your place.

And relying on Adwords alone is not safe.

[Mohammad Afaq]

Never put all your eggs in one basket and always concentrate on list building.

Now, I think you need to move on to PPV and stuff.

[jmarketing]

You may have the hit nail on the head. That is what I was thinking. His lead capture page should just grab the names/emails then he should send them to the affiliate page from there. I hope he reads this.

There is always away to get around things.

[WarriorJ]

Originally Posted by MikeHumphreys

I'm not an attorney nor do I play in real life but it seems to me that you need to diversify your traffic sources. Relying on only one traffic source is playing with fire... eventually you will get burned.

Spend 1-2 weeks and get multiple traffic sources going to your sites. It would also be a good idea to use a link cloaker to cover your affiliate links, especially to prevent people from hi-jacking your affiliate commissions (i.e. replacing your Clickbank ID in a Clickbank URL with their own Clickbank ID)

If you're doing testing on your sites, then do NOT use Google's tool on your affiliate pages. Otherwise, you are basically announcing the URLs to Google and saying "please ban these pages for me"

This is good advice to take note of

[sree94]

After doing some digging, I have found that others have in my niche have had the same thing happen to them. Google is basically targeting downloadable software products because of all the scams out there. You know, the fake spyware removers that say "your computer is infected, you'd better buy ___ or else"

Instead of looking at products on a case-by-case basis, they are just throwing a blanket ban on many advertisers. Oh sure, there are people still advertising, but it's probably only a matter of time before the same thing happens to them. Even the main site for Driver Detective was slapped

But again, the official reason I got from Google was that I was in trouble for this:

o The sites were disabled because these URLs are: Affiliate sites.

[chickenlittle]

There are still some sites on Adwords which go straight to a squeeze page (data collection page), but how long they will last is anyones guess.

Squeeze Pages/Lead Capture/Data Collection sites or whatever you want to call them are NOT allowed on Adwords anymore.

Ouch! Does this apply to the product owner's site as well?

I was planning to use squeeze page -> sales page, and use PPC for my upcoming product ...

Can anyone comment on this?

[sree94]

Originally Posted by Terry Matthews

Are your affiliate links cloaked, out of curiosity?

My links ARE cloaked

[Ti]

Originally Posted by sree94

But again, the official reason I got from Google was that I was in trouble for this:

o The sites were disabled because these URLs are: Affiliate sites.

Could you please contact Google and inform them that they fully allow Affiliate sites and to rescind ban? Even if you have removed the sites, I think this needs to be clarified, if not for you, but the community as a whole.

[rovad]

It's really sad. I have actually never tried paid advertising, the only thing I relied was SEO. Now, a lot of my 2.0 properties, articles and high ranking minisites got buried deep on the 5th 6th 10000000th pages of SERPS. So it's basically the same as you and I feel your pain.
The thing is that affiliate marketing is simply getting harder and harder to do these days.

I am also sort of dead in the water, all my 8 months hard work and sweat slowly got down now taking me to 1-2 sales per week which is plain MISERY. I had last sale 17 days ago - depressing.

I still love doing SEO, but I realize that the only real way left for us will be e-mail marketing - Google doesn't have authority on that! And the best part is it can be done without Google - forums, groups, blogs, Facebook profiles, fan pages and groups, Twitter and stuff like that.
That is the direction I am on now. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, keep your head up, this is business, and every business is a risk. And risk sometimes f***s you up :/.

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by Ti

Could you please contact Google and inform them that they fully allow Affiliate sites and to rescind ban? Even if you have removed the sites, I think this needs to be clarified, if not for you, but the community as a whole.

it is already posted that G accepts affiliates, the op has only posted a section out of context, the real problem is probably what he is promoting as it does not meet g terms over affiliate.

[Boris_yo]

Originally Posted by sdentrepreneur

That is one of MANY reasons why I don't like Affiliate Marketing and CPA Marketing.
There is so much money to be made online that doesn't involve both of those methods.
Good luck my friend, I hope it works out for you !!!

And what doesn't involve both of those methods?