Final Warning: Your Google AdWords account has multiple violations

[jasondinner]

Has anyone else in here gotten this message?

How did you handle this? Is your account still up and running?

Dear advertiser,

We are writing to let you know that your Google AdWords account is at risk of being suspended due to multiple violations related to our Advertising Policies, including the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines. Below is a list of example display URLs of the sites in violation of these policies. Please check the existing ads in your account to ensure that they comply with these policies. Please be aware that this is your final warning, and any additional violations of our Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines will lead to immediate account suspension.

Customer ID: XXX-XXX-XXXX

staticsite.com
staticsite.com
staticsite.com

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 poor quality landing pages that do not comply with our Advertising Policies, including the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines, we reserve the right to take 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. Further, advertisers are prohibited from promoting certain types of sites, which include, but are not limited to:
* Data collection sites that imply delivery of free items, etc., in order to collect private information
* Arbitrage sites without relevant and original content that are designed for the purpose of showing ads
* Affiliate sites without relevant and original content that are designed to drive traffic to another site with a different domain
* "Get-rich quick" sites that make unrealistic promises
* Sites that are deceptive
* Sites that distribute malware or spyware
* Extremely misleading/unverifiable or inaccurate claims

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 multiple sites that merited poor landing page quality evaluations. Advertisers that have a history of promoting poor quality landing pages are subject to account-level disabling.

Pausing or deleting an ad or ad group that advertises a site will not affect or improve the site's landing page quality. The only way to improve poor landing page quality is to correct the site according to our Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines; after you have done this, please contact Google AdWords support by replying to this email so that we can re-evaluate your site's landing page quality. Once a site's landing page quality has markedly improved based on these guidelines, ads associated with the site should also see an improvement in Quality Score as it relates to landing page quality.

You can review our Advertising Policies, including our Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines, by visiting: AdWords Help and Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines - AdWords Help.

In addition, our FAQ about Disabled Accounts 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 center, you can contact support by replying to this email.


Sincerely,

The Google AdWords team

[Lucid]

Well, at least now advertisers cannot complain that Google doesn't tell give you enough information. You are being told which site(s) are in violation. The complaint before was that Google wouldn't tell you or, would simply suspend or ban your account without prior warning. Not that I would know, I or my clients have never got such a message.

I assume you want to continue advertising on Google, now and in the future. You will therefore have to fix the problem(s).

[actionplanbiz]

wow you got a warning? lot of people were not so lucky in getting one.

[4morereferrals]

Is it even possible to comply with these as an affiliate?

Landing pages advertised via AdWords must have relevant, original content, and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted. Further, advertisers are prohibited from promoting certain types of sites, which include, but are not limited to:
* Data collection sites that imply delivery of free items, etc., in order to collect private information
* Arbitrage sites without relevant and original content that are designed for the purpose of showing ads
* Affiliate sites without relevant and original content that are designed to drive traffic to another site with a different domain
* "Get-rich quick" sites that make unrealistic promises
* Sites that are deceptive
* Sites that distribute malware or spyware
* Extremely misleading/unverifiable or inaccurate claims

[John Wood]

I received similar message several months back but the emails were going to an old email address that I didn't check too often and I missed them until after they disabled my adwords account so I would take this seriously and try and resolve it if you can.

I don't believe they gave me the actual site though which was in violation but I would have to go back and check to be sure.

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Is it even possible to comply with these as an affiliate?

yes it is, as outlined you just need to follow guidelines, the op is very lucky getting this message, many people did not.

[jasondinner]

Thanks All for replying.

While I do appreciate the warning, they don't actually tell you what they want.

I run traffic to static 1 page html landing pages with relevant content and good keywords...even the privacy, disclaimer, and contact links in navigation.

But I'm thinking maybe they want more than just a 1 page site so their users
can have a better experience.

All of my campaigns are pretty much the same style site, and most of them are
still running with quality scores between 5 out of 10 and 7 out of 10 with some
being as high as 10 out of 10.

Only these 3 campaigns got slapped down to 1 out of 10 for most keywords.

And I deleted one of the campaigns over a month ago!!

Maybe they are considering my pages "bridge pages"?

They weren't being very specific. They only said I was not following their vague guidelines.

It's frustrating because I am seeing amazing ROI with what I've been doing
and I'm not the only one doing it this way either. I've seen a lot worse than
what I'm doing.

But I'm getting the warning and everyone else gets to run their crappier campaigns.

UGH!!!!

[jasondinner]

Sooo...

Has anyone else gotten this message? And if you did, what did you do to get them off your back?

- Jason

[Lucid]

Jason, you want them "off your back", fix the sites in question. What they want - or rather what they don't want - is right there in the guidelines. So take a good long look at each site and fix it.

I'm surprised that one of the campaigns mentioned was deleted a month ago. However, take a look at it, it can offer clues. But my guess is that like most affiliate marketers, you have a bridge page.

[tryinhere]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Jason, you want them "off your back", fix the sites in question. What they want - or rather what they don't want - is right there in the guidelines. So take a good long look at each site and fix it.

I'm surprised that one of the campaigns mentioned was deleted a month ago. However, take a look at it, it can offer clues. But my guess is that like most affiliate marketers, you have a bridge page.

Lucid / Jason From memory and i may be very wrong so i will need to do a double check on this, but for example if you pause a add / keyword but then delete the campaign the underlying add / key stays in paused mode.

As above i will need to double check this but from memory i am sure i accidentally done this once where i deleted a campaign with paused sections / from memory i needed to go into the deleted campaign and still un pause / delete the offenders ?

Or again i may have had to much coffee and been dreaming but worth checking ?

[jasondinner]

Originally Posted by Lucid

Jason, you want them "off your back", fix the sites in question. What they want - or rather what they don't want - is right there in the guidelines. So take a good long look at each site and fix it.

I'm surprised that one of the campaigns mentioned was deleted a month ago. However, take a look at it, it can offer clues. But my guess is that like most affiliate marketers, you have a bridge page.

I build the same page pretty much for every campaign I run.

A one page static site with relevant information about the product being promoted
and a call to action to get them to the site of the product being promoted.

Keywords are good, h1 tags are good, have all the legal stuff, page is much better
than other sites I see in campaigns for same products...

...only thing I can think of is I need more pages on the site.

If I do a static page as my landing page, but then link to a wordpress blog
with more content/pages on it, would that be acceptable?

Or should I just bite the bullet, cut my ROI in half, and just run the entire
thing, even my landing page, on a wordpress blog?

Thanks for all of the help you all have given me so far.

- Jason

[IM Headlines]

I didn't get it yet, but I probably will soon enough. Google is
getting harder & harder to work with every day. I don't use adwords
that much anymore. There are plenty of other good PPC networks
out there.

[Lucid]

> a call to action to get them to the site of the product being promoted.

To me, that's the problem right there. Stop thinking that your site "looks good" visually, has good keywords (important to be relevant yes but that's not what this is about), H1 tags or legal stuff. Google doesn't care about that stuff or the platform it runs on.

You have a bridge page.

[Underground SEO]

You were quite lucky to get a warning! Many don't

[FrankBowman]

Originally Posted by actionplanbiz

wow you got a warning? lot of people were not so lucky in getting one.

You got that right!!!

[FrankBowman]

Originally Posted by Lucid

> a call to action to get them to the site of the product being promoted.

To me, that's the problem right there. Stop thinking that your site "looks good" visually, has good keywords (important to be relevant yes but that's not what this is about), H1 tags or legal stuff. Google doesn't care about that stuff or the platform it runs on.

You have a bridge page.

Of course its a bridge page. Google makes you create bridge pages.

Crap, when I use Yahoo sponsored search I rarely use an LP. I promote products that have high converting sales pages and just direct link.

Google just doesn't want to deal with affiliates any more.

I mean, what do they want, a landing page linked to a blog, linking to a Web2.0 prop back to another LP and then to the sales page.....?

Its ridiculous.

Have you followed Google's Earnings the last few quarters? All their efforts with phones and non search products are not making them ANY money, and their advertising revenue is starting to grow at a much slower pace.

Time for Larry and Serge to start selling more shares, nothing lasts forever, and that includes Google's search dominance as well as their current TOS, I suspect. In the end the powers that be at Google are responsible to their shareholders, so if that means that have to loosen up at some point in the future to keep their earning growing at a better pace they will.

Time heals all wounds and kills all kings.

[lmtech]

I've also had this warning, I stopped all campaigns and went through each one checking policy compliance.... then gave up and went to bidvitiser, it probably won't be long before they send me the warning too.

[Lucid]

> Google makes you create bridge pages.

First time I heard someone say Google MAKES you create bridge pages.

Here's what Google doesn't like. A user does a search and clicks on an ad. The user likes what he sees (the AM does a good selling job) and decides to make a purchase. There may be a button saying "buy now". However, instead of an order page, he gets another sales page. He now has to figure out where/how he can buy this product. He, like myself, may be frustrated by being sold to again (I'm sold! I don't want a sales page). That to Google (and me and many others) is a bad user experience.

If you are going to be an affiliate and sell something, when the prospect is ready to buy, take him to the order page. You've done your job and that's what your visitor wants and expects. The other way of course is to link directly from your ad to the merchant's sale page.

Google has no problems with affiliates. They want affiliates that do things in a way that provides a good user experience.

[spartanic]

Wow, they actually warn you? One of my Adwords accounts got suspended last fall with zero warnings.

Anyway, your static page definitely sounds like a bridge page. You should put a blog on it and update it regulary with fresh content. Also Google probably notices that you have no quality links pointing to your site so you should probably write a few ezine articles and publish them. Also you should have a resource page that points to high quality sites, dot org sites, etc.

[downloadvyp]

i hope i will never get that message.be careful from now on

[jasondinner]

Originally Posted by Lucid

> Google makes you create bridge pages.

First time I heard someone say Google MAKES you create bridge pages.

Here's what Google doesn't like. A user does a search and clicks on an ad. The user likes what he sees (the AM does a good selling job) and decides to make a purchase. There may be a button saying "buy now". However, instead of an order page, he gets another sales page. He now has to figure out where/how he can buy this product. He, like myself, may be frustrated by being sold to again (I'm sold! I don't want a sales page). That to Google (and me and many others) is a bad user experience.

If you are going to be an affiliate and sell something, when the prospect is ready to buy, take him to the order page. You've done your job and that's what your visitor wants and expects. The other way of course is to link directly from your ad to the merchant's sale page.

Google has no problems with affiliates. They want affiliates that do things in a way that provides a good user experience.

My calls to action on my "landing pages" don't ever tell them to buy. It tells them to "get the full story" or "get all the details," etc.

In other words, "get more information"

Never BUY NOW in my call to action on any of my landing pages.

So they basically want me to create a landing page with several other pages to distract my visitor from getting to the final destination they were originally searching for?

How does that make for a good user experience?

My pages are designed to give them enough useful info to make a decision to either click over to the site they were seeking more information about from one of my links or close my page and go somewhere else.

I don't see how this is such a problem.

I feel my pages are giving the user the experience they are seeking, or at least something close to it.

- Jason

[vikramd]

Originally Posted by 4morereferrals

Is it even possible to comply with these as an affiliate?

Yeah - you can comply. You just have to run more polished sites IMO, read the fine print and do some homework on what they want.

Yahoo is not as restrictive however - and I get decent results there. It's worth it IMO. Nothing converts like a good PPC campaign.

Users who intentionally click on ads are in "buy mode".

[Lucid]

Originally Posted by jasondinner

My calls to action on my "landing pages" don't ever tell them to buy. It tells them to "get the full story" or "get all the details," etc.

Which you direct to the merchant's page repeating what you've just told your visitor. What you are basically doing is like when I go to a store (could be buying for a car, computer, whatever). I listen to the sales pitch from the salesman. I'm sold. I say "OK, I'm convinced. I'm buying it". The salesman then says great, now I'll turn you over to this other salesman that gives a similar sales pitch. I just told you I want to buy, not listen to another pitch. Just take me to the checkout.

Why give them more information when you gave them the information they wanted? If you do it this way, why not send your clicks directly to the merchant site which you are forcing them to read anyway?

>> So they basically want me to create a landing page with several other pages to distract my visitor from getting to the final destination they were originally searching for?

That's not at all what I said or what Google says. In fact, quite the contrary. The more clicks you put between what they are searching for and the final action (buy the product), the more people you will lose along the way. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

[rvrabel2002]

JAson, sent you a pm.

[Groovystar]

Call me naive {I'm a forum manager not a salesperson} but why would you want to use Adwords to drive traffic to an affiliate page instead of just the site where you actually sell the product? Seems pointless to make people jump through hoops especially if the actual page is where they buy the product.

[Henrick1980]

The key is to advertise/sell genuine products, don't deceive people with stupid products/claims/pyramid schemes and you should be ok. Simple really.

[Ilya Feynberg]

Originally Posted by FrankBowman

Of course its a bridge page. Google makes you create bridge pages.

Crap, when I use Yahoo sponsored search I rarely use an LP. I promote products that have high converting sales pages and just direct link.

Google just doesn't want to deal with affiliates any more.

I mean, what do they want, a landing page linked to a blog, linking to a Web2.0 prop back to another LP and then to the sales page.....?

Its ridiculous.

Have you followed Google's Earnings the last few quarters? All their efforts with phones and non search products are not making them ANY money, and their advertising revenue is starting to grow at a much slower pace.

Time for Larry and Serge to start selling more shares, nothing lasts forever, and that includes Google's search dominance as well as their current TOS, I suspect. In the end the powers that be at Google are responsible to their shareholders, so if that means that have to loosen up at some point in the future to keep their earning growing at a better pace they will.

Time heals all wounds and kills all kings.

Now this post...I like

I shall be there when they fall off their high chair. Only to be replaced I'm sure, but none the less...I shall throw a party...

[deu12000]

I've gotten that email as well as several warnings before getting that one. The difference is I actually do sell products that aren't allowed on Adwords. I stopped selling the items through Adwords although every few months I'll try to sneak a campaign in over the weekends (because the conversions are amazing). I haven't been banned yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if one day they lay the ban hammer down.

[simpleonline1234]

Sounds like the method that you are using u are using in all your sites...so....read up on the Adword TOS...Google is picky about tricking folks or advertising your ads so something you are doing is causing every site to be in violation....

[Talar]

Originally Posted by Lucid

> Google makes you create bridge pages.

...
Here's what Google doesn't like. A user does a search and clicks on an ad. The user likes what he sees (the AM does a good selling job) and decides to make a purchase. There may be a button saying "buy now". However, instead of an order page, he gets another sales page. He now has to figure out where/how he can buy this product. He, like myself, may be frustrated by being sold to again (I'm sold! I don't want a sales page). That to Google (and me and many others) is a bad user experience. ...

If you are going to be an affiliate and sell something, when the prospect is ready to buy, take him to the order page. ...

Amen, Lucid, and thanks for explaining it clearly. It's not only a 'bad experience' in Google's eyes, it's a bad experience to me and millions of other users. If your AdWords ad caught my eye and I clicked on it, then the site I land on _better_ have a buy now button above the fold that takes me to the final checkout/pay page.

I can't count now, over the years, how many times I have been led to a page for something I am interested in at least trying _now_ and been led, instead to another long-winded long sales page that puts me to sleep. Abandoned sale, tight then and there.

So vendors won't allow linking direct to their order page, but many will. I don't work with anyone whop won't allow direct linking ... I want my visitors to be able to buy, then and there ... bridge pages are just a nuisance put up for the convenience of the AM only, and I (and many others) just won't play.

[mshockey]

Everyone seems to be saying that bridge pages are bad and just send them to the sales page and you won't have a problem. Well, I got the message today and I only direct link.

If you ask me, Google is trying too hard to control the user experience. They're as busy as they can be banning sites that provide relevance to keywords entered. I mean if someone types in "acai free trial" or "Join Wealthy Affiliate" or "Sign up To Get Paid For Surveys" or "Get Free Coupons" or "Get Free Insurance Quote" are they actually looking for content. Google Thinks so. I mean companies spend millions designing and testing their landing pages only to have Google tell me that they're poor quality, irrelevant, and no content.

My big question is if their was such a problem, why did they approve my ads, and campaigns. Why not send a first message.

Sorry if I seem upset or offended anyone. Just scratching my head at their methodology.

[WareTime]

Originally Posted by jasondinner

Keywords are good, h1 tags are good, have all the legal stuff, page is much better
than other sites I see in campaigns for same products...

- Jason

Keywords and h1's tell us nothing about if the page is useful to readers or not. Your getting caught up in your on page seo and google could probably not care less about that. They want something useful for the person that arrives at your page and not a quick "this page is about x, now click this link here and go by x"

[tribros]

Here is one point that concerns me.

Data collection sites that offer free items, etc., in order to collect private information

Does that mean it's the end of squeeze page on adwords?

Also,

Can you share your experience? What steps did you take?

[JamesHicks]

I got banned straight away, no warning, nothing. In fact I had not even used my Adwords account 6 months prior to receiving the 'You have been banned' email from Google, tried emailing & phoning. The final response I got from someone was basically 'Don't contact us again'

Seems there is no second chance, the only way is to open another account with different credentials PLUS a new MAC address (just change your network card).

All I did was test a squeeze page for 7 days...eeekkkk

[lukemeister]

Man, yeah you're lucky they're giving you a warning. I got banned a while back, and now I've managed to get the same site that I'm pretty sure got me banned on the first page of Google for the same keywords in the natural rankings, and Google doesn't seem to have a problem with that. Weird. They basically forced me to figure out a way to get traffic from them without spending any money with them, which I now appreciate.

If I were you, I'd just go through the guidelines they mention and then see what doesn't seem to match up with your sites and fix it, that's probably about all the better you'll be able to do since their support doesn't really help at all.

[Sir Victor]

Originally Posted by JamesHicks

I got banned straight away, no warning, nothing. In fact I had not even used my Adwords account 6 months prior to receiving the 'You have been banned' email from Google, tried emailing & phoning. The final response I got from someone was basically 'Don't contact us again'

Seems there is no second chance, the only way is to open another account with different credentials PLUS a new MAC address (just change your network card).

All I did was test a squeeze page for 7 days...eeekkkk

Just wondering how Google can actually get your MAC address. It is a hardware address and is not routable. You may be getting confused with the IP address. Changing your NIC will not change you IP address.

[Sir Victor]

I get sick and tired of great companies that become so monopolistic that they feel they can be a law unto themselves. If you were to compare your affiliate business to a travel agency that advertised in the newspaper, it is hard to understand what the big deal is that Google are making about bridge sites.

Let's say you were promoting cheap airfares by airline x. You would place an ad in the paper that said something like "cheap airfares" call 9999 9999 or visit. The user would then be sold a product that is actually provided by a 3rd party. The newspaper doesn't have a problem with it...why do Gurgle?

I run many EPN sites an received this email today for three of them. I am driving traffic to eBay. If the users didn't have a "good experience", why are they clicking on the products and buying them? If they were really pissed off, I wouldn't have bounce rates of around 20%, would I?

[sree94]

Originally Posted by Groovystar

Call me naive {I'm a forum manager not a salesperson} but why would you want to use Adwords to drive traffic to an affiliate page instead of just the site where you actually sell the product? Seems pointless to make people jump through hoops especially if the actual page is where they buy the product.

The answer is simple

Often, when people Google something they are thinking of buying, they're looking for validation that it actually works and does what it claims. And they often want to hear from someone who has used it (or claims to have used it

So what I do is, push them to a page that describes the product and how it worked for me, and then send them to the merchant site

[BasilInc.]

I got one of those letters and fixed my landing page so it was more of a review landing page. So far so good.

[tryinhere]

a collection of information posted on the forum and other places over time, some things that may help, at a guess only.

Website example

ü home (example website) (links to latest site updates)
ü required > about us
p suggested > articles
p suggested > blogs
ü required > contact us
p optional > FAQ (keywords) (link to adgroups)
ü required > privacy
p optional > resources
ü required > site map
p optional > store
ü required > terms

General terms

It is important if unsure to check the general advertising terms before starting your online marketing campaign, as some general sites, products and or services like gambling, adult related material or miracle cures for example may have display restrictions applied.

Landing page quality

Landing pages advertised via adwords must have relevant, original content, and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted. Further, advertisers are prohibited from promoting certain types of sites, which include, but are not limited to.~

ûAds or sites that promote Google money tree and or promote a misrepresented affiliation with Google.

ûAffiliate sites without relevant and original content that are designed to drive traffic to another site with a different domain.

ûArbitrage sites without relevant and original content that are designed for the purpose of showing ads.

ûData collection sites that imply delivery of free items, etc., in order to collect private information. This would include shady re-bill type sites.

ûData collection sites that offer free items, etc., in order to collect private information.

ûExtremely misleading/unverifiable or inaccurate claims.

û"Get-rich quick" sites that make unrealistic promises.

ûMalware sites that install software on a visitor's computer.

ûPoor comparison shopping or travel sites whose primary purpose is to send users to other shopping/travel comparison sites, rather than to provide useful content or additional search functionality.

ûSites that are deceptive.

ûSites that distribute malware or spyware.

ûSites that charge for "free" software.

ûSites that charge users or collect personal information in exchange for a product that is never delivered.

ûSites that charge users for information that makes unrealistic promises of financial or personal gain.

ûSites that trick users into paying for fake or poor-quality content.

Relevant and Original Content

Relevance and originality are two characteristics that define high-quality site content. Here are some pointers on creating content that meets these standards.

Relevance

üUsers should easily be able to find what your ad promises.

üLink to the page on your site that provides the most useful information about the product or service in your ad. For instance, direct users to the page where they can buy the advertised product, rather than to a page with a description of several products.

Originality

üFeature unique content that can't be found on another site. This guideline is particularly applicable to resellers whose site is identical or highly similar to another reseller's or the parent company's site, and to affiliates that use the following types of pages.

ûBridge pages: Pages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company.This would include skinny affiliate sites or old one page style land pages.

ûMirror pages: Pages that replicate the look and feel of a parent site; your site should not mirror (be similar or nearly identical in appearance to) your parent company's site or any other advertiser's site. This would include masked domain names.

üProvide substantial information. If your ad does link to a page consisting mostly of ads or general search results (such as a directory or catalogue page), provide additional, unique content.

ûIt's especially important to feature original content because AdWords won't show multiple ads directing to identical or similar landing pages at the same time.

Transparency

In order to build trust with users, your site should be explicit in three primary areas: the nature of your business, how your site interacts with a visitor's computer and how you intend to use a visitor's personal information, if you request it. Here are tips on maximising your site's transparency.

Your business information

üOpenly share information about your business. Clearly define what your business is or does.

üHonour the deals and offers that you promote in your ad.

üDeliver products and services as promised.

üOnly charge users for the products and services that they order and successfully receive.

üDistinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content.

Your site's interaction with a visitor's computer

pAvoid altering users' browser behaviour or settings (such as back button functionality or browser window size) without first getting their permission.

p If your site automatically installs software, be upfront about the installation and allow for easy removal. Refer to Google's Software Principles for more guidelines

Visitors personal information

p Unless necessary for the product or service that you're offering don't request personal information.

p If you do request personal information, provide a privacy policy that discloses how the information will be used.

p Give options to limit the use of a user's personal information, such as the ability to opt out of receiving newsletters.

p Allow users to access your site's content without requiring them to register. Or, provide a preview of what users will get by registering.

Navigability

The key to turning visitors into customers is making it easy for users to find what they're looking for. Here's how.

üProvide a short and easy path for users to purchase or receive the product or offer in your ad.

p Avoid excessive use of pop-ups, pop-unders and other obtrusive elements throughout your site.

ûpop-ups, pop-unders that open in a new page and other obtrusive elements are not accepted on an adwords landing page.

üMake sure that your landing page loads quickly.

Ad prep Check list

þ-pýLanding site setup
þ-pýLanding page / zone structure
þ-pýGeneral terms
þ-pýLanding page quality
þ-pýRelevance
þ-pýOriginality
þ-pýTransparency
þ-pýyour business information
þ-pýyour site's interaction with a visitor's computer
þ-pýVisitors personal information
þ-pýNavigability

These are only suggestions based upon findings over time, please double chech your own sources for accurate up to date information.

[Bruce NewMedia]

G is a real pistol....(it's true, most people don't even get a warning from what I've heard)

One thing I've found useful is to search in Google for the main KW phrases you're buying in Adwords. Note the ads that come up, closely. Now, make screen caps of their sites and sales pages etc if it helps. Study closely the sites of those that have been running adwords for a long time.

What you're looking for is a specific format that G must be deeming acceptable.

The problem is you may find that what Google likes is a page that doesn't sell. But at least you may know better what they're OK with. ...whether you can make that work is another story.
_____
Bruce

[webdango]

I don't see how this is such a problem.

I feel my pages are giving the user the experience they are seeking, or at least something close to it.

There's the crux - Google could care less what you think. I was banned from Google after years of running the exact same kind of sites you're doing and making good money at it.

The problem I have is with Google making decisions about what is and is not a good user experience. You know who should define that? The USER, not Google.

I compare it to this: I call up my local paper and tell them I want to run an ad for my Widget store. Do they send an inspector out to my store to make sure it meets their quality standards? No! They take my money and run the ad.

If the ad makes me money, I buy more ads, If it doesn't I go out of business. I'ts called Free Market.

But Google, in its hubris, has decided they are going to take that power away from users.

Google should limit itself to relevance and legality and stop worrying about trying to mandate a quality standard. Quality will take care of itself over time becasue poor quality sitesd won't make money and will fade away.

[GG Johnson]

I just got banned last week. It was real quick. I just started a new account and three days later I'm banned.
I ran three campaigns with two ad groups each. The first one I activated ran a vendors landing page and was high quality. Then I got fancy and edited the ad group 2 in that campaign to land on my review page of that product so I could test the difference. That same day I added the two campaigns to see what happened with landing pages on my home page/blog/reviews and and a landing page on the review page for another affiliate program I was running. Bam, I got banned. Worse yet, I'm new to all this. They banned me for running a bridge page and not having relevant or original content. If I hadn't been fancy and changed anything or added the other two campaigns I probably would have been fine.
Oh well, I'll just use the other ppc options out there and stick with sending them to vendors landing pages while I fix up my website.

[theoneinventor]

webdango,

Google does generally seem to be very controlling. I think we can all agree that the free market is pretty BA, that in mind attempting to control the user experience inside of a Google search is well within Google's rights whether or not we like it/ think it actually improves user experience.

Big G says,
"


As part of our commitment to making AdWords as effective an advertising program as possible, we've outlined some site design guidelines to better serve our users, advertisers, and publishers. We've found that when our advertisers' sites reflect these guidelines, two important things happen:

• The money you spend on AdWords ads is more likely to result in paying customers.
• Users develop a trust in the positive experience provided after clicking on AdWords ads (and this turns in to additional targeted leads for you)."

The second bullet is the one of concern if forcing advertisers to conform to their standards improves searcher confidence(read ctr) then in the end Google may end up making more money by restricting advertisers.
Thoughts?

-Andrew

[Agoge Warrior]

Originally Posted by brucerby

G is a real pistol....(it's true, most people don't even get a warning from what I've heard)

One thing I've found useful is to search in Google for the main KW phrases you're buying in Adwords. Note the ads that come up, closely. Now, make screen caps of their sites and sales pages etc if it helps. Study closely the sites of those that have been running adwords for a long time.

What you're looking for is a specific format that G must be deeming acceptable.

The problem is you may find that what Google likes is a page that doesn't sell. But at least you may know better what they're OK with. ...whether you can make that work is another story.
_____
Bruce

And I was one of those who didn't get a warning. Just woke up one morning with the Google nasty gram in my Inbox. No if ands of buts. But the great thing, is there are so many more avenues to pursue in IM.

[clansullivan]

I don't think the problem necessarily has anything to do with a bridge page. I just got the same message on my page with a big fat BUY NOW link on it.

This page has been successful for years - now all of the sudden there is something they don't like about it. Can't figure it out.

[nmarketing]

My ads just stopped running. No letter or ban yet. I had an ad running for about a week and was making conversions then the ad stopped getting imps. I have been trying now for another week to get the site in order to their terms. Kinda wished I knew this before the July terms update. I just spent money I could have used elsewhere in to AW but can't get my ads cleared to run on working campaigns. Speaking of, this is a cam-PAIGN in the arse.

This was a major blow to the aff marketing and cpa promoters but G does what they want. It's their site and they run it how they want us to use it.

[zaner67]

Does anyone know if Google ever "un-suspends" an account. Here is the message I got yesterday. I'm not really sure what I did besides use a tracking link.
No warnings before this:

It has come to our attention that your Google AdWords account does not
comply with our terms of service and advertising policies. You have
submitted ads that violated our AdWords or Landing Page and Site policies
in this or a related account. As a result, your account has been
suspended, and your ads will no longer run on Google.

Any help would be great.

[sarafina]

^No, they don't. Most people have to resort to trying to get a new account (by masking their complete identity) or just working with different traffic sources.

[Aaron J Curtis]

Originally Posted by zaner67

Does anyone know if Google ever "un-suspends" an account. Here is the message I got yesterday. I'm not really sure what I did besides use a tracking link.
No warnings before this:

It has come to our attention that your Google AdWords account does not
comply with our terms of service and advertising policies. You have
submitted ads that violated our AdWords or Landing Page and Site policies
in this or a related account. As a result, your account has been
suspended, and your ads will no longer run on Google.

Any help would be great.

I highly doubt it, just yesterday they sent me the fierce "final warning" blah blah blah and blah email (and again blah blah blah), they previously spent 3 months or more tempting me to adwords by sending me coupons via post.

So in great IM tradition I put up a Squeeze page for an email course also offering a couple of bonuses, but I put it in its own folder with legal doc's so it would be separate from my Main site which runs adsense ads. But unfortunetly they still see it as just another page from my main site (damn it).
I'm still trying to decide on what to do next, maybe a dedicated subdomain might be the way to go(more damn work on something I already completed). Or maybe I should just ask for a refund and go with another ppc company.

I've never before come across a company that persecutes it's paying clients and makes unfounded accusations'.