Have any of you received a message like this ever from Google:
“It has come to our attention that despite multiple disapprovals, you have repeatedly submitted ads that violate our Editorial Guidelines and content policies.
Please consider this notice a final warning. If you submit these ads again or continue to run ads that violate our policies, we will be unable to run any of your AdWords ads in the future.”
I received this message after I recently uploaded a new campaign. Now this campaign was promoting a legitimate (big) company with a 100% legal service. Someone at Google got confused and by mistake took my ads as promoting something illegal. So ALL of my ads where dissapproved and I received the above scary message!
When I contact Google about this they basically gave me the middle finger in their reply. They basically said yeah you’re not promoting anything illegal BUT you have a bridge page so screw you anyways (I was actually testing the market with this page before I built out a full blown site).
So now I’m working with my affiliate managers to try to get my site whitelisted. My team is going to beef up our site with content and hopefully it will pass muster with Google.
Here’s the thing…
You need to tread softly with Google, they’ve been banning affiliate Adwords accounts left and right recently.
A good friend of mine lost a 6 figure income because Google shut his account down. Google claimed one of his sites had spyware – which was TOTALLY bogus. He was just promoting Clickbank ebooks.
He tried to work with Google to resolve the issue to no avail.
SCARY STUFF!
If Google doesn’t like your sites or what you’re promoting and shuts down your account down you’re screwed.
There’s NOTHING you can do.
Carefully read Google guidelines and try to stay in the straight in narrow as much as possible.
And make sure your landing page has substantial content or links to other pages on your site that have value added content. Google is cracking down on bridge pages like nobody elses business, and yes, I’ve heard of affiliates who have had their accounts shut down over having bridge pages.
God forbid you actually have to do some work to make money. Who knew?!?!
I think it’s great news, there are those that work hard to produce sites with great content on them and their hard work deserves reward.
Plus it means there is going to be a lot less competition as well considering probably a good chunk of the pages are bridge pages anyways.
That’s definitely a scary scenario, and more reason for you to build a real sustainable business rather than rely on PPC affiliate marketing to provide short temporary bursts of income. Sure, it’s lucrative for now but relying on and yet at the same time going against the goals and visions of a multi-billion dollar company called Google doesn’t really appeal to me.
When goes G for the users and not the other way round? This is getting more and more scary since they can kick us like they want.
This type of thing is only going to get worse. Google does not like affiliate marketing & they want it off their system. If the entire purpose of your site(s) is to promote an affiliate offer…you’ll eventually get banned. I think the affiliate space is going to be a very different place a year from now.
Hi Gyuntae,
You’ve got it! That’s the biggest lesson to learn from this : Don’t build a business dependent on Google. I currenlty working on building businesses that don’t depend on Google – that’s piece of mind.
Sincerely,
Amit
Yes, I must say that in regards to the financial and business relationship with G they stand by their T&Cs firmly. Unfortunately it’s do by their rules or seek alternate partners. Because G’s tools are so easy to integrate in our businesses, many people use them solely and when it’s time to negotiate we get frustrated because G stands firm and we have become completely dependent on them.
“It has come to our attention that despite multiple disapprovals, you have repeatedly submitted ads that violate our Editorial Guidelines and content policies.”
Did you really submit it multiple times? If not, that’s scary.
Amit,
Smart idea, building a brand is the best thing you can do. I was thinking the other night you should start investing into real estate; therefore, you have other things that are bringing in life time income. And no one can touch your real estate as long as you pay your property taxes.
You remember this becuase I talked with you, but about 6 months ago our site was ranking for keywords as website design, web design, internet marketing, search engine marketing, and etc.
I was pulling in heavy sales and paying nothing out. Well one day I woke up and boom our site was gone out of the SERP’s it hurt bad which granted I had a brand and client retention, but when our site got smacked it took a lot from me.
Guess what though? I got 20 times better at what I do. I decided to launch a bunch of affiliate sites and let them build over time through SEO. I am now building affiliate sites through PPC I have one profiting still trying to get the other ones profiting (testing, testing, and testing), but at least I know there is way more channels out there for my business and company.
Never put all your eggs in one basket
. I think a lot of people learn that the hard way.
Hi Justin,
No, actually I submitted it only ONCE!
-Amit
It’s funny because Google says that don’t allow bridge pages but at the same time says affiliate using bridge pages should adhere to landing content guidelines.
Feature unique content that can’t be found on another site. This guideline is particularly applicable to affiliates that use the following types of pages:
* Bridge pages: Pages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=guidelines.cs&topic=9271&subtopic=9280
niche-affiliate-marketing.com
Gagan