At this point I feel that this is a story that needs to be told as it happens to online publishers everyday. Google happily uses your website for its ads for a long time. There is never the slightest hint that there's trouble. Then one day you are informed that your account has been disabled to "protect our advertisers."
They offer an appeal but likely they stick to their decision without any elaboration. Google justifies this by arguing that to do so would compromise their detection process. So as you can imagine, I was a little shell shocked this weekend which is why I was not my normal prolific self. I will continue to write going forward. After all, this website is not only about the money.
Nevertheless, if it's true that Man does not live by bread alone, it's still true that man lives by bread. Obviously, I was hoping to make something out of my blog. While I will continue to write prolifically no matter what, I was obviously disappointed that I didn't know now how I can monetize it.
However, it's said that one door closes another opens. I just go an offer for my blog to be syndicated on an online newspaper. We'll see how this goes but they are offering me a decent deal.
I know I'm not the first to go through this. I am therefore willing to speculate publicly about why I may have been dropped for two reasons.
1.) It might be helpful for other publishers who have been here or may be here in the near future, God Forbid.
2). Quite honestly, I'm hoping someone may have some insight that could help me and other publishers reading find a way to deal with this situation. Whether they know of other ad platforms that provide in any way comparable benefits to Adsense-from my experience there isn't anything comparable but perhaps someone out there knows something about some which are.
Or maybe they know a little bit more about why I may have been banned. Or maybe they even know how I might-or others in this situation-get reinstated.
I will now offer some theories as to why Adsense did this:
1). I will admit that I have purchased targeted traffic from time to time. Is this a breach of Google's TOS? I honestly don't know. I don't see why it should be, and from reading what Google says, it's ambiguous. They don't seem to be explicitly saying it's illegal-according to their TOS-but they do suggest that much of it may not be trustworthy-ie, "bots", etc.
In speaking to the company that I have purchased the traffic from they assured me that it's all human and perfectly legitimate. Here is an email I received from them:
"Just to make it clearer, our traffic sends redirected visitors to your website. They will not interact with your website or ads unless it is compelling. This in line with Adsense policies which prohibit pay-to-click traffic or incentivized-to-click traffic as our traffic is none of that. Adsense does not have any policy against artificial traffic since their PPC program also drives artificial traffic."
"We have serviced more than 6,000 clients with 100Mil visitors delivered by now. About half of our clients are Adsense customers and until now - not a single one has had their account jeopardized in any way from using our services."
"The reason why our traffic helps to generate revenue for Adsense customers is that the visitors coming in usually do 1 of 2 things: click the back button, or click on something familiar. If your website is set up like a Google SERP with white background, blue text and ads placed top and right - visitors may be inclined to click on the ads out of familiarity."
I can't say to find this claim that I'm the first customer in 6000 clients to lose my account. I also have a hard time believing this-publishers are losing their accounts all the time and giving no reason for it. Of course, they didn't quite claim that no one has lost their account just that they haven't lost it because of their product.
At the end of the day, I don't think Google treats its publishers very fairly. And it actually increases the likelihood of noncompliance with it's TOS by no being more clear. I don't buy this idea that they can't tell anyone why they have had their account closed.
It essentially leaves you in the lurch. Are these targeted traffic products legitimate or not? Google should e clear. If they are not legal, then they shouldn't even exist as publishers are then paying for a product that is illegal and will actually cause them to lose their accounts.
3). Also I-like many Twitter account holders-saw my account hacked recently. While I changed all my passwords, I wonder if my blog my have been hacked as well.
So those are my theories. It may have been some combination of these reasons or maybe there was another reason or reasons in addition to or solely because for why my account was disabled. Whatever the case, Google is not being fair. Now, no doubt they're size may make them impervious to being held accountable. In the Internet ad revenue game they are Goliath.Everyone wants to use them because they quite honestly are the best out there-again I don't know if any other ad platform compares to them.
So for now at least they may well be untouchable. However, it's at least something that needs to be discussed. At the end of the day, most companies end up regretting taking customers for granted, even if way down the line.
Of course, you can ask questions over at Google-but I sometimes feel that no one wants to say anything to antagonize Adsense there. The attitude seems to be when you put up a question in the chat room is 'well if you weren't doing something wrong you wouldn't be banned.'
In my question yesterday I did ask readers not to simply have "holier than thou" responses that did little to help me or others who have been here. This clearly irked a little bit:
"Well, you can think that the responses we might give here are "holier than though" but you are quite aware of the risks of paying for traffic and the challenges of using social media to promote your sites (and the fact that there were problems there even with Facebook might suggest that they don't provide the best environment for advertisers."
"But I'll take your question at face value -- can anyone here help you have your account restored after you've appealed and the appeal has been denied. The answer is, in a practical, short-term, sense "no". Since I started monitoring these forums describing a recovering from account disabling/appeal denied about four years ago, I an count the number of exceptions on one hand (I am one of them) and the examples are not replicable."
1. In one case, AdWord advertisers directly contacted Google asking for the account to be restored so they could post targetted ads on the formerly disabled site.
2. In one or two cases, Australian publishers were able to have local regulators rule against Google, and their accounts were restored (after some publicity.)
3. In one case, a prominent blogger was able to attract the attention of Matt Cutts, who got staff to review and recommend a revision.
4. I survived a brief disabling after a sabotage attack on my account because of my answers to the person's questions on this forum. He didn't like the response, and tried to take me down to his level. Big fail. I got my account restored (and TC status arose shortly after.)
"That said, I can tell you the one valid way for someone with a disabled account to return after the appeal has been denied, because, again, I experienced a variation of it. If you have had a disabled account, you can under certain circumstances control a business which may be eligible for a new AdSense account. This business must have its own tax identification, postal mailing address, website, legal business status, and everything must be totally distinctive from the disabled previous account. I believe this solution only makes sense when you are properly structured as a business, and a proper business would never be built primarily on AdSense revenue -- you should generate most of your revenue from directly sold advertising to a diversity of clients, and use other networks as well."
"Some publishers try shortcuts to this solution and fail, because if the bots sense any association or linkage with the disabled account, the new account will be closed. Most importantly, disabled publishers often have trouble changing their behaviour -- and your posting suggests you won't -- buying traffic and building your traffic on dodgy social media relationships probably is asking for trouble, no matter how you phrase it."
"My advice: Forget trying to "return" to AdSense and build a viable business where you sell your advertising directly to real advertisers. When you achieve that success, you could possibly reapply under the business structure. Don't rush it. There, practically, is no fast and easy way back into the program. Simply imagine how you would have succeeded before AdSense existed a decade ago -- and go for it, if you are serious."
So if we're to believe him, there are only 4 known cases of Adsense reversing itself-and he's one of the four. This sounds as believable as me being the only person out of 6000 publishers to have their account disabled. So it sounds like the only thing that can save you if the equivalent of a phone call from the Governor. Are there any Governors reading this-or any reading this who have friends who are Governors?
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