BANNED ADSENSE ACCOUNT

That is what bloggers are telling me in early 2012. I blog almost everywhere and only recently tied my adsense account to my various blogs. Before that, I simply had adsense running on a few websites and I NEVER ever clicked on my own ads or encouraged others to do so. In fact, before this happened I wrote a Hub about why we should not click on our Adsense ads. I did not make much on my ads but I have made a considerable effort on the web by uploading unique content and making sure that I don't copy others. Someone has a theory as to why so many adsense accounts are getting banned. The theory is unique and something that every webmaster, software programmer and publisher ought to consider.

GOOGLE ADWORDS USERS (not adsense)

Many of the people who have had their adsense accounts banned are also adwords users. Why would people who use Google Adwords want to continue using the service if they have been banned from Google Adsense? Is the adwords and adsense team connected? Do they know that some of the people that they have banned are also Adwords clients?

Guess what? I am not going to give a single penny to Google ever again if I can help it. I am not going to support any of their software products. I will try to start using any other competitor. Of course I am just a drop in the ocean and Google losing my business won't affect anything but if millions of others do the same, then they might pay more attention to people like us. I am also going to recommend my contacts to stop using Google Adwords.

Facebook to win the hearts of web masters who have been banned from Adsense

A lot of people are now turning to Facebook advertising because they feel that they get better value. My guess is that millions upon millions of people are waiting for some enterprising company to come up with better solutions. It is not only Adsense users who are frustrated but Adwords customers too. As I sit on both fences I know what it costs to run Adword Campaigns. One person I know spends $250,000 per year on Adwords. I wonder how he would feel if this happened to his tiny adsense account? Since I get involved with both, I can understand why Google would want to protect their advertisers but I also see that Adsense seems to be unfair to poor publishers who have not made any decent amount of money with them. I will consult with my contacts and get people to invest in Facebook ads from now on. Who knows, I might find that I should of been doing this all along. If anyone has any information on return on investment for Facebook ads please let me know. The ROI on Adwords for people that I personally know seems to be terrible in any case. They are not getting the bang for their buck and they keep complaining that it gets more expensive every year. They are not getting the qualified leads that they want. I wonder why? Who is clicking those ads? Are the publishers themselves doing this or is someone trying to make fun of Google Adwords and their business? Why always blame the publishers? Why not investigate each case more thoroughly instead of getting some robot to send an email to people who are clearly innocent? I know I am mixing up Adsense and Adwords but aren't many of you users of both?

On the other hand, I have been running Google Adwords on another account that is not tied to my adsense account where I have spent several tens of thousands of dollars over the years. That account is in the name of a partner who has been using his credit card to pay the bills that come in every month. It is registered under his name and address and not mine. That means that I am a Google customer. I spend hundreds of times more money on Google advertising than I make on Adsense. If I had known that Adsense was going to ban my account then I would NEVER of joined it. What really annoys me about Google is that I have hardly made any money with adsense on my personal account but now I have been banned and I feel like I am being accused like a criminal.

I am really pissed off because I only added adsense to my blogs as an afterthought. I never really made any kind of real money and I have no idea how this happened except what appears in my login panel for Adsense.

This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not
accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting blah blah

The problem I have with Google adsense is that I was never given any warnings. They have the power to shut off your account at any time and for any reason, even unjust reasons. I can only wonder why these things happened. There is no way for me to investigate the actual causes. All I can do is speculate. Here are my speculations.

Some group is attacking genuine adsense accounts by having computer programs click on ads. I recently wrote an article about a group called "Anonymous" which only proves that there are groups of hackers on the internet who are able to disrupt normal internet operation. I am not blaming Anonymous for losing my adsense account but simply using them to show my readers that it is very easy for secret groups to focus their attention on websites (and even users) and to bring them down. These groups know that adsense is automated and that human beings cannot review every single case. They know that there are users who like Google and Adsense but they could be attacking genuine users/writers on a massive scale in order to make them anti-Google. Well, it seems to have worked in my case so well done Google! If the theory I am proposing above has any truth in it, then people at Google Adsense ought to get worried because it means that there is a serious vulnerability in the system and the publishers are not in error. It means that the Google Adsense system is not working as it should be. Do you know that when people like me complain about these things are actually helping companies like Google? This means I still have some inkling of faith in them but it is definitely fizzling out fast. I remember something similar to this happening to me several years ago with a website that I was registered with. I used to make money on that website but one day someone apparently hacked the site (they thought it was me) and inflated the earnings in my account. I got banned from the website but I immediately protested. At first I was ignored but after I starting posting facts and figures from third party statistics they re-instated my account. That company never admitted that they might of had an internal problem but I know that I was instrumental in starting an investigation in their company. People like me (people who complain) are very important to these companies. I am complaining right now and the reason I am complaining here is because I cannot complain to a Google robot sending me automated messages.

Even if I did have access to google employees, I do not have the time to dispute this matter any more because I am too upset. I am proud of who I am and I don't want to waste my time trying to prove my innocence. As I said earlier - I cannot even contact Google Adsense because I get email replies from a robot and not a real person. I can understand why robots are used to answer us because of the inability to provide individual services to every publisher but in these cases I believe robots should NEVER be used, especially if the robots have been talking to the biggest google fans and telling them "Your account is banned!" and the reason is blah blah .. but we won't tell you where and when, so you will have to live with it and we cannot solve the problem. The way I perceive the message is "You are BANNED and you can do nothing about it, even if you are the most honest person in the world!" So tough luck buddie!

Come on Google! This really sucks! It sucks so much that I have taken the time on a Sunday afternoon to write about it without pay. Do you really want to make more people annoyed with your services? These are the kinds of things which will drive people away from you to support applications like Facebook. I actually used to hate Facebook but where else can someone go to earn money? Actually, you can't really earn money on Facebook like you do with Google Adsense but I am sure that all of that will change one day and probably after the successful Facebook IPO. Investors will pour billions of dollars into Facebook, pump it up and expect more money from various forms of business models. One of the models could be similar to that of Google Adsense. That is what millions of people are waiting for. They are also waiting for Facebook to come out with a browser to compete with Google Chrome and also Facebook Email to compete with Gmail. Why shouldn't Facebook do these things considering they are being attacked on their own turf with a desperate Google+ which seems so mechanical, forced and non-orgainic. I am also thinking about spending more time on Facebook. Facebook seems to give people warnings before they ban accounts. I was given a warning by Facebook about adding too many people and I stopped. I respect Facebook for at least letting me know what is wrong. I wonder why Google cannot follow in Facebook's footsteps on this one? Maybe Google want to be like Facebook and if that is so, then they should invest more money into understanding what internet users expect from a social network. Facebook is in my good books because of Google. Isn't it strange that Google is making Facebook more popular?

I have now decided to ban google adsense and google adwords from all business that I am involved in. Why? Because I don't like being accused of doing something wrong. I am a law abiding citizen and even though my adsense account was not worth very much, my reputation as an honest person is. Google have really made a mistake. I know I only speak for myself and I am just a drop in the ocean but I am sure that I am not the only one who hopes that companies other than Google will succeed in their own space and make Google less important than ever. I am looking to work with companies who really practice what they preach i.e. to "Do no evil " and not just those who pay lip service to that motto.

Facebook and Twitter are not happy with Google at the moment and I think that we are going to see new applications coming from them. It is very possible for those two companies to provide something superior to Google Adwords and Adsense but they need to make a browser for it to work. They need to make a browser that competes with Google Chrome. It looks like someone has already made a browser extension called "Do no Evil" which includes Facebook, Twitter and Myspace results and not just Google+. I wonder what is next? It could only be a browser! It could only be a FACEBOOK BROWSER VS GOOGLE CHROME.

If there is anything, any wisdom, any insight that I could give to a massive internet company who is thinking about it's future it would be "Take care of the young people" which is something that Facebook already know about. Most of the advertisers we see on the internet are older people with money but in one more generation that will change. All these young people who are using Facebook and Twitter will want to find ways to make money on the internet by the time they reach their twenties. That means that whatever happens now on the internet will affect the future of a large internet corporation in the next five years. Those corporations must tread carefully and not do things to make themselves unpopular. One of the things that will make a corporation unpopular is to ban young users for click fraud when they were not involved in it. This will make young people (especially programmers) want to produce their own adsense type applications. There are millions of people who could come up collectively with better systems. Wait for it .. it is coming, especially since these people are now being given the fuel and impetus to spend the time and effort in solving these types of problems, especially when your name/account is associated with "invalid activity".

Maybe they ought to think about getting their PR department in adsense to change the wording so it is easier to swallow. What is the meaning of "invalid activity?" Does it mean you are a fraud or a victim of fraud? Can you understand what this can do to someone? If you do, then get ready for a young generation to rise up in technology and take over the internet by producing something far superior. No doubt, young people will be underestimated but don't forget Google were once a bunch of young people who took over the net. They are older now and it is time for a new group of budding individuals to show their talents and skills. Of course we will still have to use Google products (I just embedded youtube videos) but most people who use Youtube don't make much money from it. Do you?

Most bloggers know that their adsense revenue has been declining since the Google Panda update that was released in early 2011. Now it is early 2012 and most of them have still not recovered from the tropical animal that was unleashed to avenge supposed poor quality websites. This means that bloggers have been living without their normal residual income for about 12 months. Some of those same bloggers now have their adsense accounts banned. Oh! If that is you, then you are probably going to be looking for other ways to make money. You certainly won't want to waste time trying to get your Google adsense account reinstated if the amount of money that you have been making is not worth the time and effort you have put into making the best websites and blogs you could possibly create. So, what are the alternatives? I think that it is not going to be one alternative that eats away at the giant adsense monster but most likely a birth of new independent advertising programs that support publisher's efforts. Slowly but surely as Google and Google adsense popularity decreases, we are likely to see a host of new companies exploiting the emotions of those who have been black marked and banned for no reason. These are exciting times in 2012 because anything could happen to anyone especially with the Facebook IPO going through and the new money that is going to be pumped into the company.

Something else I want to tell you about Google Adsense that is VERY frustrating. I now have to go through hundreds of web pages where the ads appear and delete them all and fix my website code. What a complete waste of time! What will I put in the blank spaces? Any suggestions? I would prefer an advertiser that gives me something better than spammy ads inviting people to date and marry Russian women, buy anti-aging cream and a whole bunch of other things that most people are not really interested in. I am finally convinced that Google Adsense is a complete waste of time and I really believe that I am not the only one who feels strongly about this. I expect to see more people comment here because you also feel the same way.