Debt Free or Bust

Banned from Google Adsense

I received an email from Google awhile back that my Adsense account is now disabled. Translation: banned. I’m just now getting around to writing about it because I couldn’t find sufficient alternatives until recently.

Here’s what they said:

While going through our records recently, we found that your Adsense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we’ve decided to disable your account.

Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the interests of both our advertisers and our other Adsense publishers. We realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.

The email has a link in it so you can contact Google and appeal their decision. On that link page they also tell you that they won’t tell you why your account is disabled. All they say is you have invalid click activity. More on that shortly. First,

What is Adsense?

Adsense is Google’s publisher income program. Publishers, like me, host ads for Google on our websites and blogs, and we get paid a small amount (think in terms of pennies) every time someone clicks on an ad on one of our pages.

Google gets the money to pay publishers from its AdWords program. Advertisers buy ads from Google AdWords and Google distributes the ads around its search engine results and publishers network so the world can see them, click on them and hopefully buy something from the advertiser. AdWords pays for Adsense.

Publishers have no control over what ads are placed on their pages. Publishers install the widget and Google analyzes the site and loads ads to it through the widget as it sees fit.

Here’s what Google says at the link they give you to appeal:

Why was my account disabled? Can you tell me more about the invalid click activity you detected?

Because we have a need to protect our proprietary detection system, we’re unable to provide our publishers with any information about their account activity, including any web pages, users, or third-party services that may have been involved.

As you may know, Google treats invalid click activity very seriously, analyzing all clicks and impressions to determine whether they fit a pattern of use that may artificially drive up an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. If we determine that an AdSense account may pose a risk to our AdWords advertisers, we may disable that account to protect our advertisers’ interests.

Lastly, please note that as outlined in our Terms and Conditions, Google will use its sole discretion when determining instances of invalid click activity (emphasis added).

Here’s what they say about appealing their decision:

Can my account be reinstated after being disabled for invalid click activity?

We’re always willing to work with you to resolve any issues you may have. If you feel that this decision was made in error, and if you can maintain in good faith that the invalid activity was not due to the actions or negligence of you or those for whom you are responsible, you may appeal the disabling of your account.

To do so, please contact us only through our online appeal form.

Once we receive your appeal, we’ll do our best to inform you quickly and will proceed with appropriate action as necessary. Please understand, however, that there is no guarantee that your account will be reinstated.

Please also bear in mind that once we’ve reached a decision on your appeal, further appeals may not be considered, and you may not receive any further communication from us.

And after you appeal:

My account was disabled and my appeal was denied. Is there any way I can rejoin the program? Can I open a new account?

We understand your concern about the actions taken against your account. Please know that our actions are the result of careful investigation by our team of dedicated specialists, taking into account the interests of our advertisers, publishers, and users. Though you may be disappointed with our decision, we are unable to reinstate your account.

Please also note that publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed any further participation in AdSense. For this reason, these publishers may not open new accounts.

Lastly, please bear in mind that Google does reserve the right to disable an account for any reason, including invalid click activity from any source (emphasis added).

In a nutshell, Google makes all the rules and will take its bat, ball and bases and go home if it doesn’t like playing with you.

Some people (not me) make several thousand dollars per month with Adsense. That means some people’s entire monthly income may rely on one revenue stream. That’s just about as bad as having a corporate job and being downsized.

Here’s the real kicker for me. I have never received a payment from Google Adsense because you have to earn a minimum $100 balance to get paid. My balance after 9 months of hosting ads on all of my blogs was a little over $50. They pay you mere cents per click and they’re making millions of dollars in advertising revenue. For a $50 balance to somehow endanger advertiser revenue they must be charging advertisers a lot per click.

Here’s another kicker. You can’t see the Google pay-per-click ads you host on your web pages unless you use Firefox and have the Adsense ad viewer add-on installed. Then you can view your ads, but they aren’t clickable. Your IP address is blocked to keep you from clicking on your ads to artificially drive up your earnings. I have no idea where invalid clicks came from because they sure didn’t come from me or anyone in my household.

I’ve corresponded with other bloggers and internet marketers I know, and many have come to the conclusion that it’s not a matter of IF you will be banned from Adsense, it’s a matter of WHEN.

More about Google’s empire:

Yes, Google has become an empire. Roughly 70% of all searches done on the internet daily around the world use Google. The other 30% is divided up among the remaining search engines, mostly Yahoo and MSN. In the area of internet marketing, your website’s position in the Google search results is very important if you want to grow traffic to your sites and increase sales. We all spend a lot of time trying to improve our pages’ positions in Google’s results. This effort is called SEO, for search engine optimization.

Google also has the authority to put your site into the Sandbox. That means for some reason, which you may never know, they will decide your site violates some rule they have and they take your website out of their search index. The Sandbox is where your URL goes until it gets put back into their index. Google may not tell you that they put your site in the Sandbox. You may have to discover it yourself. Once you know it’s out of the index you have to appeal their decision and ask very nicely what you need to do on your site to get it back into the index. This may take months and you won’t hear about any progress. All you can do is contact them and hope they’re considering your plea.

Google is becoming the monopoly of the internet like Bell Telephone used to have the monopoly on telephone service, except they couldn’t monitor your calls. Bell Telephone had a monopoly thanks to the U.S. government and lost it through deregulation. Actually, it’s probably more like the Microsoft empire. Microsoft is handed billions because they produce the most popular computer operating system, although it’s definitely not the best. If you don’t believe me, try using an Apple Macintosh for awhile and you won’t go back to Windows if you have any choice. Microsoft nearly has a monopoly on operating systems, but they can’t force you to buy computers with that operating system.

That’s where Google is different. They have a lot more power over your everyday internet use than you might realize. You may use their search engine, they may host one or more of your email accounts, you may use their Analytics or Google Docs services. They may host your blog (Blogger.com). They own YouTube and Feedburner, too.

Google is a monopoly because we, the internet users and content producers, are handing it to them on a silver platter. We the people are giving Google the power they now wield against us, especially we the internet publishers. Google gets us from a couple of directions. They control their search engine algorithms (and thus our placement in that engine’s results), they control the rules those algorithms use (and seem to change the rules regularly), and they control who has Adsense accounts and how much is made from them.

Unlike Ma Bell and Microsoft, they decide where you will be placed in search results or if you’ll remain in their index, and they monitor your account and decide if you can continue to make money using their program. Big brother is watching. They control everything, you have no control over anything, and they can knock you out at their whim and aren’t accountable to even tell you why. You can appeal, but again, they can ignore you if they want.

What if Google starts to censor what publishers write? Aren’t they already doing a little of that when they de-index a website or blog? De-indexing is equivalent to censorship. They don’t “burn the books”, they just lock small parts of the library so no one will discover what’s in those little cabinets. They use the excuse of spam in many cases, and I’m the first to admit spam is a real problem, but the truth is they may not like it when any website gains too much favor too quickly in their search engine rankings and will use their terms and conditions to slap anyone they choose.

Are we going to continue to hand Google this kind of totalitarian power and let them control the World Wide Web? Are we going to continue to gladly use their services and accept that we will be treated like dirt whenever they feel like slapping us around? I’m not sure we have that much of a choice given how much Google owns and runs on the web today.

Here’s what I’m doing:

I’m not appealing Google’s decision. They can take my Adsense account and shove it. I may not own the bat, ball or bases, but I can sure quit playing when I choose to.

There are other ways to place advertising on my blogs and I’m going to use them. I’ll write about them in another article.

What you can do to take Google down a notch:

• Use a different search engine more often: ask.com, yahoo.com and msn.com all work really well.
• Use a different service to host your email account or your blog. There are thousands of them available. I use private hosting for all my blogs on HostGator, and all my blogs use WordPress.org software, which is free.
• If you’re an advertiser, try using another medium than AdWords. Try Yahoo, AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, Technorati Engage, etc. or get your affiliates busier networking for you.
• If you’re a publisher, start branching out to other companies and methods for earning money from your websites or blogs. Don’t depend solely on Adsense because it could go away tomorrow. No more than 10% of your total income should be from a single source.
• Use a different site analysis software program. Yahoo offers one and so does Alexa. Again, branch out to other services. I still use Google Analytics because it’s free and it the most comprehensive, but it isn’t a real-time service so I use others to supplement that information.
• Quit worrying so much about your Google results position or your PageRank and concern yourself with producing quality content regularly. I know that’s nearly blasphemy in internet marketing, but why is 70% of the web better than the other 30%? It’s not. It’s just more popular. What is your Yahoo search results position? How about your MSN position? Ask.com position?
• Stop using Google as a verb. Google is the name of a company and is therefore a noun.

Let’s knock on Google’s door and ask them to play a little less often. Let’s quit giving Google all the toys so we’ll have some to play with when they decide to get pissy and kick us out of their game.

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Technorati Tags: Adsense, banned, Google, monopoly

January 31st, 2009 Posted by joubess | Earnings Updates, Resources | 3 comments