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Sacked by a Google algorithm

duckworksmagazine.com

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Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#111

Post by alanh »

I'm realt glad this story is getting told. Bumping up against Google's machine-enforced, unfair rules is easier to do honestly than you may think — and it's a terribly cold, hopeless, impersonal, recourseless, unfair experience. Imagine 1950s automatons running a bureaucracy. It's like that. «I'm-sorry-sir-my-programming-indicates-you-are-a-fraudulent-user.»

From TFA:

I also spent a lot of time on line finding out why people get thrown out of the Adsense scheme and discovered that Google has three sets of rules you can break:

1. The ones in the very long contract that I confess I did not read very carefully

2. The rules that they try to explain in their many pages of Questions and Answers and FAQs

3. The rules they do not tell you about because they are secret and deal with their algorithms

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#112

Post by alanh »

moose891 wrote: post #98
jdietrich wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: If a sailor buys a sailing book by entering Amazon via my website, I get a 5 per cent referral fee. If some-one spends $200 on a Kindle or a camera, [they] get their next three month s subscription for free. That's definitely abuse of Amazon's affiliate program and crosses the line from click-fraud-ish to full blown criminal fraud. Aside from being against the terms of their scheme, his clear intention is to in…

I don't see anything in Amazon's terms about what you call "full blown criminal fraud" and I would imagine it is actually encouraged by Amazon. Google is paying for clicks, whereas Amazon is only paying for actual sales. Amazon would benefit from that message being on every site on the internet. It's advertising for them and letting people know they can help their favorite sites adds an extra incentive to sway people…

Agreed, I see many sites even for big charities regularly saying "when you shop Amazon, do so from here." Amazon could stop that in a hurry. They don't.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#114

Post by patio11 »

alanh wrote: post #108
patio11 wrote: post #101

So, as an AdWords advertiser, here is my experience when someone gets "creative" with ways to encourage their audience to click on my ads: 1) I see a sudden spike in my daily spend and think "Yay, I'm going to get more customers!" 2) I go to Analytics and see a wave of people who spent seconds on the website and did not convert to the trial. 3) Google bills my credit card for hundreds of dollars. This has actually ha…

Don't be heartless. There are thousands of dollars being stolen from an honest cameraman and you don't think Google owes him one word from a real human? Honestly?

I'm the last guy in line to apologize for Google's attitude with regards to customer service, but to the extent my cynical blackened heart beats for anyone, it is the kayaking guy (et al) who paid those thousands of dollars and received no service in return for it. They have kids to put through school and Christmas presents to buy, too.

He got a real human to look into his account, incidentally, which I would have killed for a few times. They told him the breaks: you broke the rules, no, there is no second chance.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#115

Post by rbanffy »

Andrew_Quentin wrote: post #100
rbanffy wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, Google is not billing him for serving his videos.

Well of course they aren't. They are his videos. He is the one who should be billing google for serving his videos.

Why exactly would Google have to pay him? For the privilege of paying for the storage and bandwidth the videos he uploaded consume?

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#116

Post by kunley »

That guy is pretty immature with his complaints. He choose such risky way of getting the income by himself. He's had expectations bar too high and made few strategic mistakes.

He's also got quite luxurious problems like not being able to get decent money for his sailing hobby. Mr Dylan, looks like your 55 years didn't give you much insights on life, otherwise you wouldn't be complaining on the way you've chosen for yourself.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#117

Post by mycroftiv »

patio11 wrote: post #101

So, as an AdWords advertiser, here is my experience when someone gets "creative" with ways to encourage their audience to click on my ads: 1) I see a sudden spike in my daily spend and think "Yay, I'm going to get more customers!" 2) I go to Analytics and see a wave of people who spent seconds on the website and did not convert to the trial. 3) Google bills my credit card for hundreds of dollars. This has actually ha…

I believe the interesting issue here is not whether Mr. Winter was violating the terms of the agreement - but the manner in which violations are handled, and the absence of a meaningful "feedback loop" where users of the system could be warned and have the opportunity to modify their behavior to follow the rules.

I assume the underlying cause for this is that the AdWords program is as automated and algorithmic as possible. The less Google has to pay for human beings for time and effort to administer it, the better it works. The very nature of AdWords and why it has been such a successful product depends on the scaling properties of algorithms and server farms.

The old-fashioned traditional world based on human beings making decisions has a lot of give and take to it, with humans negotiating with each other about exactly what the rules mean and how to apply them. We are moving to a world where automated systems are responsible for monitoring and enforcing rules, and that involves a lot of tradeoffs. I understand the benefits to be gained - but its hard for fallible human beings to understand and follow complex rulesets enforced by merciless machines.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#118

Post by doki_pen »

rbanffy wrote: post #36
meterplech wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are completely right- I think the general feeling is that Google needs to do a better job of communicating that to content creators. This guy clearly didn't realize the extent of the damage, and said he would return adsense revenue from the website. They could fairly disable adsense on the website, but knocking the YouTube revenue just seems unnecessary after giving a very stern warning. People find it troubling…

I would suggest a "three strikes" approach. The program warns you (because it may not be your fault) then the program blocks you for, say, 30 days and then you are banned. Disclaimer: I was banned from AdSense too and I still don't know what happened. Since my site had very low traffic, I suspect even one well meaning fan could clickfraud me into nonexistence.

I think the biggest issue is they don't want a feedback loop where people can "test" the system and find ways to beat it.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#119

Post by Shorel »

Cut the middle man. I mean cut Google Adsense. What he was doing was paying a big cost of opportunity there.

If he has that vertical market of subscribers he should deal with the boat insurance providers or other suitable advertisers himself.

Let the 1c become 500c or a lot more.

Re: Sacked by a Google algorithm

#120

Post by dools »

I didn't see any way to comment on the story but someone should let this guy know he should certainly be able to delete his truck vids to stop Google profiting from his work since discontinuing his AdSense account.
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