Live data from Hacker News

Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

innovationmedian.blogspot.com

21–30 of 30 posts

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#21
Questionable Decision #1

You went from something you paid for (Brightcove) to something free (Youtube).

Questionable Decision #2 You put all your eggs in one basket with a platform (Youtube) that's known to have horrible support AND act unilaterally in its own favor with totally automated systems.

You have somewhat low view counts. (Based on what's stated in the HN comments page, I'm too lazy to look) I'm not sure what you expected, but it looks like old media jumping on a new media bandwagon and expecting it all to just work.

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#22

Questionable Decision #1 You went from something you paid for (Brightcove) to something free (Youtube). Questionable Decision #2 You put all your eggs in one basket with a platform (Youtube) that's known to have horrible support AND act unilaterally in its own favor with totally automated systems. You have somewhat low view counts. (Based on what's stated in the HN comments page, I'm too lazy to look) I'm not sure wh…

Fair enough but fark adsense. I had my account locked out as well after getting click bombed. Horrible customer service/follow up.

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#23
post #19

How come we still haven't seen a YC company competing with Adsense/Adwords?

I'd love to see some competition, but it's a tough nut to crack. Yahoo gave it a try for a few years, but ended up shutting their offering down. Google has millions of paying advertisers, billions of page views and the ability to match them up in real time. All the while providing analytics to both sides. You're not going to beat them at efficiency. I get pitches from ad networks all the time, but they are almost nev…

Yahoo have just opened their offering up again, in partnership with Media.net.

I currently run ads through Media.net, and they're responsive and good to work with (so far). I'm quite excited by this new development.

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#24
post #13

That blog makes the same mistake that many blogs makes and has no links to the product, nor to whatever the hell it is their talking about. ( https://www.youtube.com/user/pe?feature=watch ) I'm guessing that's the channel. Their website ( http://www.pe.com/ ) The subscription link on the website, which takes you to this page: ( http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=pe ) There are 5 videos with viewershi…

This personal blog post is referring to one of the top 100 local newspapers in the country. You may not like advertising, but this paper is 130 years old and has won a Pulitzer prize. It's the paper of record for the Riverside community.

Why isn't it linked anywhere?

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#26
Man, I could write pages about how badly Google executes on AdSense customer service.

You'd think that for all of the smart people who work there they'd figure something out that makes sense and is fair for all involved.

I mean, without thinking too hard, things like:

- Probation periods starting at zero revenue and ramping-up based on various criteria

- No account cancellation but rather revenue throttling WITH good feedback for site/content owner to fix problems

- Paid account verification. I'm sure most of us would not mind paying a one time or annual $1,000 fee to be verified and have real customer service. If you have a real business this is nothing.

Think about the revenue throttling idea. You do something they don't approve of and your revenue is throttled down. Some feedback is provided. You make some changes. If they are adequate, revenue throttles back up. Conceptually simple.

One argument against this is that you could be teaching scammers how to work around the rules. Not so. You are teaching scammers to work within the rules. If Google is smart enough in guidance and feedback they stand to turn questionable sites into "law abiding" sites. Those who don't play by the rules get to host ads and make no revenue or nearly nothing. I think this would be a far better approach.

They also need a learning mode. I worked with someone who implemented AdSense and didn't really understand it all. He didn't really do anything violently bad. I don't remember the details, but the account got shut-down within a week. This was a case of an honest business person who probably doesn't have a single molecule of malice in his body that got treated like crap by Google for not knowing what they want. The problem is that you can't know what they want, not all of it.

There needs to be a "learning mode". Maybe the throttling period is exactly that. Make it a smoothly rising function that is driven by quality criteria that is communicated clearly and effectively. As long as you develop your site you get flags to guide you into compliance. This, to me at least, makes too much sense.

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#27
I run a moderately successful chat site , and have been utilizing Adsense for almost 5 years, with an average revenue of around $8000/month. For no apparent reason our site was removed from Adsense.. Apparently Google has recently purchased Meebo, and as a result have been shutting down and have added 'no chat sites' to their policy..

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#28
post #5

it's like the guy at the newspaper cannot read. google sent him a link to a list of issues, and he doesn't address them at all. if you look at the link, it was shut down for bad clicks, incitement to users to click, or similar. at the very least he could have said in the reply something like "we don't think we have people clicking on links, but if you could provide some IPs we might be able to track down someone at t…

Am I reading something different than you? Perhaps my reading comprehension is as poor as "the guy at the newspaper". The "list of issues" Google provides is a generic list of possible reasons. Essentially, "Thanks for choosing Google. Your account has been disabled. Here is a list of reasons we normally disable an account with no warning. You may or may not have directly or indirectly done any of the activities list…

Google tried this in NSW, and they had to reinstate the account and all th money owing. Helps to have. Strong regulator! http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20120206-meet-the-en...

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#29

Man, I could write pages about how badly Google executes on AdSense customer service. You'd think that for all of the smart people who work there they'd figure something out that makes sense and is fair for all involved. I mean, without thinking too hard, things like: - Probation periods starting at zero revenue and ramping-up based on various criteria - No account cancellation but rather revenue throttling WITH good…

Yes, yes, yes, this.

And the thing is, Google aren't losing free users or pennies with this crap. I know of one SINGLE case where Google's silly Adsense banning policies lost the Big G 6 figures a year - because they couldn't be bothered to have a human get in touch and just auto-banned. As I've mentioned elsewhere, they've dropped low 5 figures a year by disabling my Adsense account with no clear explanation why.

I really, really cannot see what the business case here is. Can anyone enlighten me?

Re: Our Adsense account was abruptly shut down

#30

It's most likely that "invalid clicks" have occurred. If you clicked a few times on your own ads, this is why. It could also be a competitor intentionally trying to take you down. They just simulate automated clicks from the same IP on your ads. In this case you would have no control, and Google would yet be justified in destroying your account because of the activity that your participation in their network is gener…

They pay net 30.
Post reply on HN