I’m writing this blog as a warning to everyone using Google Adwords.
The people who “run” adwords are Nazis with no feeling for human beings. If you make a mistake, there is no warning system and no appeals process.
3 weeks ago I set up a campaign promoting a page on my blog in Adwords.
When I wrote the ad it got flagged for a trademark violation (which is super common in Adwords) so I “requested an exception”.
The next day my account didn’t have any impressions in it.
I contacted google to see what was wrong with my account.
6 days later I heard back from them saying that my account was suspended.
Here’s the email I got back:
Hello John,
Thank you for your patience. I’ve consulted your account with our
specialist team and it has come to our attention that your Google AdWords
account does not comply with our terms of service and advertising
policies. You have repeatedly submitted ads that violated our copyright
policies in a related account. As a result, your account has been
suspended and your ads will no longer run on Google.As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to
terminate advertisements for any reason. To view our Terms and Conditions,
please visit https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder.We appreciate your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Michael C.
The Google AdWords Team
Needless to say I was shocked.
At first I thought this must be a temporary suspension, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I mean…I hadn’t done anything to hurt Google. I hadn’t done anything that I knew of that violated any of their rules. I used their own process to “request” an exception. I didn’t demand anything. I didn’t do anything malicious. My account was in good standing.
In my mind, this must just be temporary…after all, I had been spending over $20,000/month on Adwords (which, obviously isn’t a lot of money to Google, but 2 days prior I had gotten an email saying “since you’re one of our top advertisers, we’re now offering you phone support.”).
I was wrong.
I contacted them through both live chat and phone (Google phone number: 1-866-2google) and was assured that the suspension wasn’t temporary and wasn’t an accident. It was permanent.
I was also told that the “specialist” team had made the decision and they assured me there was nothing they could do about it, and that there was nobody else I could talk to.
Apparently Google has some magical “specialist” team that doesn’t have to answer to customers, and acts as an excuse for the people who do answer to customers so they can just say “I’m sorry, I know this must be frustrating, but I can assure you there’s nothing anyone can do. The specialist team made this decision and their decisions are final….no, there’s no way you can speak to them….no, there’s no way you can contact them or make any explanations to them….no, there’s no way to appeal their decision, their decisions are final.”
So then of course I started flipping out. This is how I make a living, and I was just told that because I made a simple, honest mistake, I’m not allowed to ever show any ads on google again ever for any reason…forever…permanently.
A simple mistake for which I received no warning, and there is no way to appeal the process.
Murderers don’t get that kind of treatment.
Rapists don’t get treated like that.
(yes, yes, I understand that google is a business and they can do anything they want…blah, blah, blah. Whatever happened to “Don’t be evil”? I’ll tell you, It went out the door on August 19, 2004 just like wall street said it would.)
So, I started trying to contact someone. Surely there must be a way to contact the specialist team and explain to them that this was an honest mistake.
I wrote a very nice email explaining my situation and sent it to a few email addresses inside google that I thought might get some attention (one of them, btw, is matt@google.com. You might want to try it too…although it didn’t get me anywhere).
The email I got back was:
Hello John,
Thank you for your email. I understand your concern regarding the
suspension of your account. However, as mentioned in our previous email,
your Google AdWords account has been suspended due to multiple Copyright
disapprovals. We are unable to revoke your account suspension, and we will
not accept advertisements from you in the future.Please note that our support team is unable to help you with this issue,
and we ask that you do not contact them about this matter. If you need
more information about our content policy guidelines, please visit
https://adwords.google.com/select/contentpolicy.html.
…
…
standard google email garbage
…
…
We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising
available.Sincerely,
Saman
The Google AdWords Team
I thought the “look forward to providing” part was funny.
I then tried to contact 2 different people inside of google directly through linkedin, both of whom declined the invitation to be introduced (not surprised).
At this point, I’ve given up on trying to get my account re-instated. They don’t care that I’m a human who made a mistake. They’re not going to repeal their decision (how could they possibly have been wrong in the first place…right?)
I don’t have an adwords account now. It has been a good 3 weeks of becoming more intimately accustomed to the way yahoo and msn do their ppc. They’ve made a LOT of improvements.
In the end, this will probably end up being a blessing to me. It’s an excuse to start everything from the beginning. New business. New address. New name. New credit card. New websites. New computer. New IP address.
Again, I’m writing this as a warning!. Please don’t rely solely on Google for your online advertising (fortunately I hadn’t…and I had other streams of income). If you do, you might make a mistake someday and find that you’ve been slammed to the floor and kicked while you are down, like I was.
Please feel free to blog about this and spread the word. More people need to know that they’re not allowed to “request an exception”.
@James – I wrote the post about keyword research after I was suspended from Adwords.
Right now all the other keyword research tools stink. I still use the google tool, even though it’s quality seems to be going downhill recently, just like all the other keyword research tools. The last few days they haven’t been showing search volume in their tool. Oh well.
Just as a follow-up, yes, I got a new account. I did all the things I mentioned in my post.
And, Yes, I have moved away from PPC somewhat. I still do it, because it is the single most effective way of bringing traffic to your website that I know of, but I am also concentrating on learning other traffic strategies.
John
Here's how to get a new account:
1. Get a new credit card (call up Amex, give them a new name (someone you know…or just a made up one…they don't care, and get another card on your account)
2. Get a new address (change the billing address on the new amex card to a PO box)
3. Get a new IP address. I use a windows virtual server with remote desktop access from 1 and 1.
4. Don't ever login to your new account from anywhere but that remote server. Don't login to any other google services from that remote server.
I don't think you need to get a new website or a new business (I did both, but don't think it mattered). I am now promoting my old site with the new account and don't have any problems.
John
4. Don’t ever login to your new account from anywhere but that remote server. Don’t login to any other google services from that remote server.
question 1: the reason to not login to your new account from anywhere but the remote server is to prevent from accidentally logging in from a ip that was used by a banned account?
question 2: Why can’t you login to any other google services from that remote server? Do you mean any other google services that were associated with the banned account? What if I was managing client’s adwords using the banned ip, can i login to their adwords later with the remote server after I get the virtual server?
@john:
question 1: yes, you’re right.
question 2: yes, I mean other services that were associated. I think you’ll be fine logging into clients accounts…but I don’t know this for sure, I haven’t done it.
thanks for the response Jonas!
hi there, I would use http://doovpn.com/, this solution to change the IP address works great for me. I got banned from Google as well last year, with my new IP address they were not able to link the old banned account with my new one.
i spent 2 days setting up my adwords info in account then .. added funds .. waited and got SUSPENDED … what is going on? is there anyway to speak to an actually Google person?
Wow, this is scary. I was just hacked and got my site off the black list luckily. I get 100% of my business from adwords advertising… I know it was a bad business model but it worked until now. I'm just a guy who illustrates for a living who Google doesn't give a crap about. I genuinely hate Google and am very disappointed in their policies.
Hi everyone,I feel for you all about what google is doing.I had three accounts with google but I was only useing one at the time of my suspention about landing page issues.They gave me three warnings.Each time I go back and think I have them fix,but after the third time I got suspended.I been with adwords three years but never use there adwords much,except for the last campaine I was useing a lot.I could have read there TOS some time but I'm not much of a reader of that stuff.I just always agree to it.I did not have website makeing me very much,so I figure I go to yahoo,msn,facebook and more to something new to work on and stay with them.Its a funny thiing that they still let me with the adsense program. I'm sure if you change a few things you can fine around this and get a adwords account going again.There are always tricks in doing this
What the f*** is wrong with google ?
My account has been suspended by adwords and I did not recieved any reason from google . They keep on sending an auto mail , no specific reason provided .
Their is no way where I can prove the identity of my company . I am learning new things , the companies that are registered and genuine are not allowed to do business in google but those companies who are not registered and they don't have any policies on their websites and even they are doing frauds are very well running their business on google .
Is their any human in Google who can provide me the reason of my account suspension .
One or the other day when my patience will break I ll file a case against google for allowing the frauds to run business and stopping genuine to grow.
This should solve your problem. Worth every penny. Seems like nothing compared to how much I've lost not running with AdWords.