Has Google Changed its Tune?

[LIndaB]

I can remember several years ago when Adsense arbitrage was all the rage. But eventually Google started slapping Adwords accounts and dumping Adsense publishers for doing it.

But lo and behold, today I get a letter from Google Adsense telling me "Thanks for using Adsense on your site. Here's $100 from Google to help promote it." Enclosed was an Adwords gift card for $100. So suddenly they are encouraging Adsense publishers to advertise their sites on Adwords? Yikes! This is the old arbitrage game all over again.

What is going on with Google? Does their right hand know what their left hand is doing? Is it any wonder webmasters are confused when they make a big stink about one thing to the point of banning accounts, then a few years later give you money to do it?

[paulgl]

They have always allowed it. Adwords accounts get canned
because of other things. And the coupon does not need to
be used on an adsense site. Besides, adsense and adwords
together just does not make economic sense anymore.

Paul

[joetheseo]

Originally Posted by LIndaB

I can remember several years ago when Adsense arbitrage was all the rage. But eventually Google started slapping Adwords accounts and dumping Adsense publishers for doing it.

But lo and behold, today I get a letter from Google Adsense telling me "Thanks for using Adsense on your site. Here's $100 from Google to help promote it." Enclosed was an Adwords gift card for $100. So suddenly they are encouraging Adsense publishers to advertise their sites on Adwords? Yikes! This is the old arbitrage game all over again.

What is going on with Google? Does their right hand know what their left hand is doing? Is it any wonder webmasters are confused when they make a big stink about one thing to the point of banning accounts, then a few years later give you money to do it?

Google accounts get canned for Copywrite stuff or other illegal reasons. People will tell stories all day but the truth is that Google is rarely at fault.

People are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a day right now on Adwords every single day...

[paulgl]

Nobody here works for google.
(okay a little off topic)
I am amazed by how many truly do not read what google
itself publishes. They are very open. Very open.
They make everything readily available. In fact, they
want to help you. That's why they publish help guides.
They cannot spell out everything in their TOS. You have
to use logic and reasoning when reading them. Any attempt
to try and circumvent them is bad. In fact, google itself
says many times, because they don't spell out something
in detail in no way means you can make an assumption.
They will say something like don't use a bridge page for adwords.
But they don't specifically spell out everything, so someone
thinks okay, I'll make a semi-bridge page. (just an example)
For adsense, "May not place misleading labels above Google ad units
– for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”"
Okay, so I'll label them "More Favorite Sites."
Then wonder why google gets upset.

Back on track.
But it is okay to run adsense in adwords. Just it does not make
sense. This has not been touted for 4+ years. I think what google
said was something about not using paid traffic. But "paid traffic" is not
using adwords in this case. Adwords is a different "paid" traffic.
The difference is paid ads as opposed to paid visits.

Paul

[epiloser]

I also think an issue with arbitrage was that many people pointed adword ads at low quality adsense sites. It should be ok if the adsense site actually has value for the person who clicked on the adwords ad.