What's the general vibe on Google? (bad newbie experience)

[seeeker]

I am trying to understand the current view on Google from the perspective of PPC and affiliate marketing. As a newbie I have been learning about affiliate marketing and thought a good place to start and experiment would be PPC and Google.

I had an initially positive, then abruptly negative experience which has resulted in having my account suspended with no recourse or consideration from Google. I am pissed and confused.

Briefly this is what happened. I set up my first campaign with a small daily budget. I watched as the clicks slowly accumulated, and eventually had a sale. I was very excited so I quickly started another campaign with a different product.

The second product was in the online money making niche, basically on how to get rich. It was the first ranked (highest gravity score) for the category in Clickbank, so I thought it was popular and would surely result in some interest. To my discredit though, I did not thoroughly research the product site, or the product itself. I did not think it was necessary because it was so popular that it must be getting some exposure through Google already, so it's probably fine.

A few days after setting up the campaign I logged in and was alerted that my account had been "permanently suspended for repeated violations of Google's policies" (paraphrasing). No specific reason. I had no idea why, what violations, or even which campaign. Nothing. Just SUSPENDED.

I started a support ticket to enquire, and they said the site I was linking to fell short of their standards of ethical business practices or something. They offered no other help, and was only referred to their policy page.

I explained that it was a simple newbie mistake, or misunderstanding, and can they only terminate that campaing and not my entire account? Again the only response was basically "too bad," with another link to their policies.

I was like WTF????? That's it? Just like that, suspended.

After some research on other forums I learned I was not the only one to experience this, and people were disgruntled with Google.

So my question is, is there any "backlash" towards Google about these tyrannically strict and ruthless treatment of their customers?

Is Google PPC still effective or popular with affiliate marketing? Obviously people are still doing it and seeing success, but is there a trend moving away from this?

Sorry about the long post but thanks for reading!

[StoneWilson]

Well, you want to play the ball, you need to obey the rule. Many newbies are too confident to read Google Adsense TOS, and after their accounts get banned they start complaining, well, Google Adsense Team have to handle thousands of thoursands webmasters every single day, what kind of respond you're expecting?

[joe12joe]

It happened to me as well in the start. Well, someone made too many clicks on my ads intentionally to get my account suspended and they are very successful in it. I repeated try to contact Google about it but they never restored by account.

I was not pissed about the account suspension. I understand that they have to be strict in order to produce quality and they cannot compromise in it. But they must have an efficient system to deal with the issues like that. They must correspond to their customer and deal with value.

To be very honest, i have not seen many being successful with Google adsense. Sooner or later, they face these type of issues and unfortunately, there is no proper solution for it.

[seeeker]

I plan on playing by the rules of course, I guess I'm using this as a learning experience to get started, see what happens, learn from it, etc. I don't expect Adwords to produce a substantial return, it's just an experiment.

I do support Google's efforts to catalog only useful sites, but I was shocked (as a newbie) by the strict and punitive nature of the experience.

I mean do they really need to suspend your entire account? Couldn't they suspend just that campaign? Then they offer little to know explanation of why. I mean come on. There are better ways.

It's fine, I'm over it. I started a new account.

[marknel]

Though Google Adsense still rules,you can try tons of other advertising programs depending on your niche and demographics like Yahoo YPN,FeedBurner Ads and Adbrite .

[joe12joe]

Originally Posted by seeeker

I plan on playing by the rules of course, I guess I'm using this as a learning experience to get started, see what happens, learn from it, etc. I don't expect Adwords to produce a substantial return, it's just an experiment.

I do support Google's efforts to catalog only useful sites, but I was shocked (as a newbie) by the strict and punitive nature of the experience.

I mean do they really need to suspend your entire account? Couldn't they suspend just that campaign? Then they offer little to know explanation of why. I mean come on. There are better ways.

It's fine, I'm over it. I started a new account.

Google adwords are great to advertise, if you are trying to market your website. Its gives you the maximum possible ROI. Its just Google adsense that doesn't have any customer support. When it comes to advertise Google ads on your website to earn money.

[Peetr]

I can see Google’s point. The firm is pointing people to other sites through its ad service – and if those sites aren’t reputable people could blame Google.

Though I agree outright banning accounts is a bit overkill.

[mathewarnold272]

There is nothing incorrect with acquiring that original and unique content incorporated in your site given that you can enhance the capability of the website to create funds.

[AdamC]

Google is notoriously bad for support as it's mostly automated no-reply stuff.
I have had great success after sending them a legal notice

Google's hypocrisy is what finally drove me away.
In their TOS they clearly state that gambling sites, and links thereto, will result in account closure yet Google for casino and you will find they happily promote them.

You have to target Google for SEO for the simple fact it still controls 60%ish of the search market!