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Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

hizook.com

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Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#71

Post by lucifer »

shiranaihito wrote: post #64
pg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it may not be a complete answer, it is encouraging that people from Google will reply on public forums. You'd never see an Apple employee posting on a thread about someone whose iPhone app had been sitting in the pipeline for months, or a Paypal employee posting on a thread about someone whose account had been summarily frozen.

I'd wager that he's offering to help not because Google is such a friendly and benevolent business entity, but because it's in the spirit of Hacker News (and ultimately, in Google's best interest to do so). The credibility of Don't Be Evil is taking a lot of hits these days. Some of us were never really convinced.

I fail to see how this is "evil". The evil one worries about in context of a company like Google is information privacy.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#72

Post by drp »

pg wrote: post #40
patio11 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As happy as I am that you're Google's unofficial ombudsman, Matt, you're a big billion dollar company who many of us are intensely reliant on for our businesses. There needs to be a support channel other than "make a PR issue for Google and Matt Cutts will swoop by to save the day". I had a big issue with AdWords earlier this month. Google made it all but impossible for me to reach anyone about it. Earlier this year,…

Though it may not be a complete answer, it is encouraging that people from Google will reply on public forums. You'd never see an Apple employee posting on a thread about someone whose iPhone app had been sitting in the pipeline for months, or a Paypal employee posting on a thread about someone whose account had been summarily frozen.

I'm not saying the poster is necessarily faking, but how should we know that someone who chose the name MattCutts is the Matt Cutts he claims to be? Do we assume he's not an impersonator because we like his answer? This comment is the very first activity on that account.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#73

Post by Alex3917 »

jacquesm wrote: post #67
MattCutts wrote: post #22

I'm happy to ask the right team at Google about this and point them to the post on hizook.com.

Hi Matt, No offense, but if it takes posting your gripes on HN to get customer support then something is very much broken. The simple fact that a multiple billion dollar company should depend on outside channels for its support cues is very sad imho. Maybe, instead of passing on messages like these pass the general message that Google tech support as perceived from the outside absolutely sucks. I'm not exactly a newb…

We're talking about a website that normally gets 100 page views per day. Are you saying that Google should hire thousands of full-time employees to service customers who each only account for ten or fifteen bucks worth of business a year?

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#74

Post by netsp »

MattCutts wrote: post #42
patio11 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As happy as I am that you're Google's unofficial ombudsman, Matt, you're a big billion dollar company who many of us are intensely reliant on for our businesses. There needs to be a support channel other than "make a PR issue for Google and Matt Cutts will swoop by to save the day". I had a big issue with AdWords earlier this month. Google made it all but impossible for me to reach anyone about it. Earlier this year,…

There is a support channel for appeals, and it sounds like hizook.com submitted an appeal via that channel earlier this week. My guess is that the Google team is already looking into it; I just wanted to let people know that I'd ask the relevant team from my side as well. Given the hundreds of millions of users, tens of millions of webmasters, and many advertisers and publishers that Google interacts with, it would b…

The point in the above comment is that adwords customers with large accounts pay such large amounts each month because

When you do get to speak to someone (via above hidden shoephone method) it's still like speaking to a clumsy CIA agent. In fact I spent most of this morning doing that. It seems very clear that the googlers on the other end of the shoe phone aren't allowed to disclose much. They allude. They read out the relevant policies to hint at what might be going on. [me]'Has a trademark complaint been made?' [Googler]'All I can say is that your ads have been manually disabled at some point last week?' [me]'Would it help if I got the trademark owner on the phone?' {Trademark owner has already told us that they don't know what is going on. Google has been impossible to get on the phone and answer emails extremely vaguely} [googler] 'reads some policy that hints at a recent complaint' [me] 'Can you email me the procedure for trademark exception.' [googler] 'Google it'

challenge Try & find the form you need to have filled in order to get approval to advertise using someone's trademark.

We are talking about customers that have spent hundreds of thousands with google over time. Google allows itself to unceremoniously damage their business as if they are doing something shady. They then make it impossible to contact them and when they are contacted, well they make phone companies look good.

Answering blog posts is great. Writing your blog is great. It isn't instead of normal customer support though.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#75

Post by netsp »

I remember a comment at some point by pg that customer service might be Google's Achilles heel. The evidence is accumulating. Any service that cannot be provided without it cannot be provided by Google and there is an opportunity to compete.

Judging by how keen people are to share google customer service frustrations at any opportunity, I think this is evidence.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#76

Post by netsp »

Alex3917 wrote: post #73
jacquesm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Matt, No offense, but if it takes posting your gripes on HN to get customer support then something is very much broken. The simple fact that a multiple billion dollar company should depend on outside channels for its support cues is very sad imho. Maybe, instead of passing on messages like these pass the general message that Google tech support as perceived from the outside absolutely sucks. I'm not exactly a newb…

We're talking about a website that normally gets 100 page views per day. Are you saying that Google should hire thousands of full-time employees to service customers who each only account for ten or fifteen bucks worth of business a year?

You can get just as bad with a $100,000 account.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#77

Post by igrekel »

Alex3917 wrote: post #73
jacquesm wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Matt, No offense, but if it takes posting your gripes on HN to get customer support then something is very much broken. The simple fact that a multiple billion dollar company should depend on outside channels for its support cues is very sad imho. Maybe, instead of passing on messages like these pass the general message that Google tech support as perceived from the outside absolutely sucks. I'm not exactly a newb…

We're talking about a website that normally gets 100 page views per day. Are you saying that Google should hire thousands of full-time employees to service customers who each only account for ten or fifteen bucks worth of business a year?

If one percent of them call once in a year, why not?

I can call a toll-free number about the 1 dollar pack of gum I bought. I don't get stellar interaction but it is still more than what we are talking about.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#78

Post by [deleted] »

gjm11 wrote: post #69
ahoyhere wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a support channel for appeals? Not hardly. As I mentioned in my anti-Google Checkout article on Slash7 (which you commented on), not only has Google attempted to steal money from me by closing my Checkout account, but my husband lost over $2,000 of Adsense money when his account was arbitrarily closed. He's the author of Scriptaculous - and the ads were on the Scriptaculous site - a totally innocent open sour…

If you really mean that they closed your husband's account and walked away with money they owed you, then this seems like exactly what the legal system is made for. (Though I'd expect them to settle rather than actually go to court, unless they think you're lying outright.)

[deleted]

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#79

Post by skolor »

olefoo wrote: post #25

Two points: 1. This is not a problem with Google's Customer Service, it is a problem with their vendor relations. When Google publishes ads on your site, you are selling that space to them. Google is your customer and isn't obligated to tell you a damn thing except that they don't want to buy from you anymore. 2. There is a market opportunity here for an ad network that is willing to find good sites dropped from Goog…

One thing I would like to point out: Going from 100 hits a day to over 10,000 hits a day does NOT look like regular traffic. If anything, it looks more like bot activity than anything, which is definitely against the ToS, and would be plenty reason to shut down your account.

I'm not in the position to do so, but if I ran an advertisements, and suddenly saw 100x the regular users hitting the site, I'd be pulling the ads.

Re: Make Frontpage of Slashdot, Reddit, Hacker News == Google Disables AdSense

#80

Post by dcurtis »

gjm11 wrote: post #69
ahoyhere wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a support channel for appeals? Not hardly. As I mentioned in my anti-Google Checkout article on Slash7 (which you commented on), not only has Google attempted to steal money from me by closing my Checkout account, but my husband lost over $2,000 of Adsense money when his account was arbitrarily closed. He's the author of Scriptaculous - and the ads were on the Scriptaculous site - a totally innocent open sour…

If you really mean that they closed your husband's account and walked away with money they owed you, then this seems like exactly what the legal system is made for. (Though I'd expect them to settle rather than actually go to court, unless they think you're lying outright.)

If your customers have to invoke the "legal system" to get around your incompetence, you've failed in every way that matters.
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