Google Adsense RollerCoaster

Saturday August 16, 2008 · 1374 views · 3 comments

The High
A few weeks back I decided to bite the bullet and throw more advertising onto mp3Salad. I always enjoyed the fact that the site was mostly advertising free, it gave the site a more "open" spirit in that it wasn't just being used as a capital vehicle. Advertising at times can totally ruin a good service, I didn't want that to happen with mp3Salad.

However, the flip side of me thought about the potential that I could be making in regards to it's popularity, at one point I was getting over 500,000 pages views a month! I figured I would be stupid in not trying to monetize that in some way, even if it were in a small somewhat invasive way. So that's what I did, I decided to place Google ads on two more areas of the site, the homepage and beneath the search form. Both additions blended well with the site and in no way took away from the service. This was great, and so was the increase I was seeing in my Adsense account.

I wasn't making enough to quit my day job, but it was providing enough of a passive income to prepay my hosting for several months and cover my domain registration costs. This was working out great, Google had sent me a few checks, I was happy. However as quick as it started, it almost ended.

The Low
As of Friday of last week (Aug. 8th) Google disabled my Adsense account, barring me from ever receiving another dime from them as a publisher of their advertisement....wtf?!?!? Late that day I signed into my account to check on earnings and ended up with a message telling me that my account was disabled and that I could visit their worthless faq for more details. What a load of crap, what did I do to cause this extreme action from Google?

Looking high and low, I eventually found an address to contact them at, adsense-support@google.com (mind you it wasn't on their site) and sent a short message asking if they could please tell me why my account was disabled so that I would have a starting point to correct the issue. I never received an email from them stating the reason for their action...

Almost a week went by with no word from them, figuring that I was another victim of the 500lb virtual Gorilla, I pretty much gave up asking why. Then on Thursday Morning I received the following from Google,

from	   Google AdSense 
to	   xxxxxx@gmail.com
date	   Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 4:48 AM
subject	   Re: [#318201890] Appeal Form Submitted
mailed-by  trakken.google.com
signed-by  google.com

Hello,

Thanks for providing us with additional information. However, after thoroughly reviewing your account data and taking your feedback into consideration, we've re-confirmed that your account poses a significant risk to our advertisers. For this reason, we're unable to reinstate your account. Thank you for your understanding.

As a reminder, if you have any questions about your account or the actions we've taken, please do not reply to this email. You can find more information by visiting
https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

I would like to point out that I never sent them any information, nor did I ever have a good understanding of why my account was disabled. This was obviously a canned response, one in which that makes be believe they never did review my account. To further that, later in the day I received another communication from them,

from	   Google AdSense 
to	   xxxxxx@gmail.com
date	   Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 11:34 AM
subject	   [#320666136] Google AdSense Account Reinstated
mailed-by  trakken.google.com
signed-by  google.com
Hello,

As you know, Google treats instances of invalid click activity very seriously. We have reviewed your circumstances and have reinstated your account, effective immediately. However, there will be a delay before ads start running on your website. It may take up to 48 hours before all of our servers are informed of the change.

We appreciate your patience, and apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions, please feel free to respond to this email.

For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your account in good standing by visiting our Help Center at
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Wtf?!? Although I'm grateful that my account was re-instated, I'm a little pissed that they put me through this ordeal without any explanation whatsoever, I also lost on a weeks worth of adverting revenue to boot. I guess it just goes to show you that the Almighty Hand of Google can come swiftly, without warning or reasoning.

web

Comments

Posted by GoogleHasAGodComplex on Nov 16, 2009 at 1:43 AM

Maybe next time you will not click on your own ads?

Google knows all and cares nothing about anyone.
Posted by Justin on Dec 05, 2009 at 1:32 PM

Thanks for helpful advice, it has about as much assumption and truth to it as Google's reasoning for temporarily disabling my account. I've never clicked on any of my own ads.
Posted by Rob on Sep 29, 2011 at 8:05 AM

Ah, so the quick increase in clicks triggered their "invalid click activity" alarms. Sucks that you lost a week, but glad they eventually got it sorted.

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