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My company (user generated content, user profile pages) reached $10k/mo in 2010 with AdSense. As soon as we crossed that threshold, we started getting automated
by cft 7y ago
My company (user generated content, user profile pages) reached $10k/mo in 2010 with AdSense. As soon as we crossed that threshold, we started getting automated threats asking to check "all other pages" (we had about 20m user profile pages back then). Despite our best effort (keywords filters in Hungarian and Thai, heuristics), the account was banned when it was earning $17k/mo. Fortunately, my bootstrapped start-up had a freemium model, so I could keep the payroll and seemingly survived this blow (although as I now understand, the long term impact was very negative). I tried to appeal, only to get automated responses. Tried to approach AdSense team via contacts- a few emails, and they stopped responding. Finally , I found some AdSense employee patrolling webmasterworld.com - miraculously, he reinstated the account! We immediately reduced exposure to 5k/mo and sold the remaining inventory first with Exponential and then transitioned to header bidding with 4 different DSPs.
TL;DR Avoid like a plague!!
- thescribbblr 7y agoGoogle always do the same once you reach a decent amount they ban the account for some silly reasons.
- tmikaeld 7y agoWhy?
- thescribbblr 7y agoThey give you silly reason like fraud clicks or something like and cease your account.
- tmikaeld 7y agoYeah, but doesn't Google earn commission based on the revenue from adsense? It seems very odd that they ban accounts when they're also making money.
- thescribbblr 7y agoAlso, they cease your earned amount.
- tmikaeld 7y agoAh, so that's why, they simply rob people systematically.
- thescribbblr 7y agoAnd without any solid reason.
- justaguyhere 7y agoHow is this legal?
- tmikaeld 7y agoI'm guessing, since people/companies are isolated and don't even consider suing a big entity as Google, there's no one that's going to do anything. And the police/law certainly won't go after someone as large as Google. I'd guess that, if EU would take it on, they could bring them to justice, but they seem to only be after GDPR money currently.
- justaguyhere 7y agoCan't people band together and bring a class action lawsuit? Looks like there are enough people screwed over by Google for this to work, isn't it? Even if Google doesn't reinstate the Adsense accounts, they should at least not withhold the money these people already earned
- tmikaeld 7y agoYou'd need a driven lawyer to pick up the case and find all the people that want to use, I think it's as hard as finding needles in a haystack to be honest.
- sct202 7y agoSo many companies think that their automated processes are great, but then they block users from giving feedback on when it's wrong, so they never hear otherwise.