Suspended From Google Adwords
I’m writing this blog as a warning to everyone using Google Adwords.
The people who “run” adwords are Nazis with no feeling for human beings. If you make a mistake, there is no warning system and no appeals process.
3 weeks ago I set up a campaign promoting a page on my blog in Adwords.
When I wrote the ad it got flagged for a trademark violation (which is super common in Adwords) so I “requested an exception”.
The next day my account didn’t have any impressions in it.
I contacted google to see what was wrong with my account.
6 days later I heard back from them saying that my account was suspended.
Here’s the email I got back:
Hello John,
Thank you for your patience. I’ve consulted your account with our
specialist team and it has come to our attention that your Google AdWords
account does not comply with our terms of service and advertising
policies. You have repeatedly submitted ads that violated our copyright
policies in a related account. As a result, your account has been
suspended and your ads will no longer run on Google.As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to
terminate advertisements for any reason. To view our Terms and Conditions,
please visit https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder.We appreciate your cooperation.
Sincerely,
Michael C.
The Google AdWords Team
Needless to say I was shocked.
At first I thought this must be a temporary suspension, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I mean…I hadn’t done anything to hurt Google. I hadn’t done anything that I knew of that violated any of their rules. I used their own process to “request” an exception. I didn’t demand anything. I didn’t do anything malicious. My account was in good standing.
In my mind, this must just be temporary…after all, I had been spending over $20,000/month on Adwords (which, obviously isn’t a lot of money to Google, but 2 days prior I had gotten an email saying “since you’re one of our top advertisers, we’re now offering you phone support.”).
I was wrong.
I contacted them through both live chat and phone (Google phone number: 1-866-2google) and was assured that the suspension wasn’t temporary and wasn’t an accident. It was permanent.
I was also told that the “specialist” team had made the decision and they assured me there was nothing they could do about it, and that there was nobody else I could talk to.
Apparently Google has some magical “specialist” team that doesn’t have to answer to customers, and acts as an excuse for the people who do answer to customers so they can just say “I’m sorry, I know this must be frustrating, but I can assure you there’s nothing anyone can do. The specialist team made this decision and their decisions are final….no, there’s no way you can speak to them….no, there’s no way you can contact them or make any explanations to them….no, there’s no way to appeal their decision, their decisions are final.”
So then of course I started flipping out. This is how I make a living, and I was just told that because I made a simple, honest mistake, I’m not allowed to ever show any ads on google again ever for any reason…forever…permanently.
A simple mistake for which I received no warning, and there is no way to appeal the process.
Murderers don’t get that kind of treatment.
Rapists don’t get treated like that.
(yes, yes, I understand that google is a business and they can do anything they want…blah, blah, blah. Whatever happened to “Don’t be evil”? I’ll tell you, It went out the door on August 19, 2004 just like wall street said it would.)
So, I started trying to contact someone. Surely there must be a way to contact the specialist team and explain to them that this was an honest mistake.
I wrote a very nice email explaining my situation and sent it to a few email addresses inside google that I thought might get some attention (one of them, btw, is matt@google.com. You might want to try it too…although it didn’t get me anywhere).
The email I got back was:
Hello John,
Thank you for your email. I understand your concern regarding the
suspension of your account. However, as mentioned in our previous email,
your Google AdWords account has been suspended due to multiple Copyright
disapprovals. We are unable to revoke your account suspension, and we will
not accept advertisements from you in the future.Please note that our support team is unable to help you with this issue,
and we ask that you do not contact them about this matter. If you need
more information about our content policy guidelines, please visit
https://adwords.google.com/select/contentpolicy.html.
…
…
standard google email garbage
…
…
We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising
available.Sincerely,
Saman
The Google AdWords Team
I thought the “look forward to providing” part was funny.
I then tried to contact 2 different people inside of google directly through linkedin, both of whom declined the invitation to be introduced (not surprised).
At this point, I’ve given up on trying to get my account re-instated. They don’t care that I’m a human who made a mistake. They’re not going to repeal their decision (how could they possibly have been wrong in the first place…right?)
I don’t have an adwords account now. It has been a good 3 weeks of becoming more intimately accustomed to the way yahoo and msn do their ppc. They’ve made a LOT of improvements.
In the end, this will probably end up being a blessing to me. It’s an excuse to start everything from the beginning. New business. New address. New name. New credit card. New websites. New computer. New IP address.
Again, I’m writing this as a warning!. Please don’t rely solely on Google for your online advertising (fortunately I hadn’t…and I had other streams of income). If you do, you might make a mistake someday and find that you’ve been slammed to the floor and kicked while you are down, like I was.
Please feel free to blog about this and spread the word. More people need to know that they’re not allowed to “request an exception”.
Tags: adwords, adwords account, adwords suspended, adwords suspension, google, google adwords
January 17th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Sounds horrible, what exactly did you do wrong?
January 17th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
Hi John,
You are not alone! Offcourse you knew that but I just wanted to offer you a friendly assurance that others have been railroaded by google too.. I am lucky enought to have 1st page results for keywords they wouldn’t let me advertise using PPC so that gives me great satisfaction!! It is infuriating tho when, as was my case, 2 perfectly legit and healthy accounts get terminated due to a 3rd account violating their terms…
We can still make a great living without google adwords…
Best of luck
Andy
January 18th, 2008 at 8:37 am
This happened to me in 2006 (different circumstances, same outcome). Since adwords weren’t my bread-and-butter I considered it a blessing also, as I was spending too much time on it and should have been focusing on other parts of my business model.
But there is nothing you can do about it. Google says they “do no evil” but this is pretty rotten.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:41 am
If you are dealing with companies like adwords you MUST always follow their terms and conditions to the letter!
No trying to be smart or a wise guy, you seem to be that sort of person.
With you slagging other peoples products off I think what happened was inevitable.
I’m not saying your reviews are not correct, but pissing off your competitors saying their products are crap etc is never a clever idea if you want to survive in business, they will eventually retaliate, dog eat dog remember!
They may well have complained to adwords about your copyright violations to get revenge on you.
They only investigate trademark/copyright violations if there are complaints!
I run a successful 6 figure business in a non marketing niche, one thing I never do is attack my competitors - suicidal. I know some of them are selling crap, but I mind my own business.
January 18th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hi John,
Something similar happened to me a little over a year ago. I’m an Internet Marketer also. Sure seems like they are upsetting the wrong people.
I fixed it the same way you are going to– new cc, new url, new site, new everything and it worked.
Sorry to hear that you’re going through this. I know that gut-wrenching feeling. Just remember this–even the Roman empire fell eventually. Empires fall.
If Google keeps this up, they’ll eventually tick off too many IMs. IMs who make their business marketing to IMs. They really don’t want to do that.
I’m looking forward to meeting you in person in Dallas for the Leap Year Day conference!
Hey–how’s THAT for a name!
-Scott (the other Scott, the nada-Boulch)
January 20th, 2008 at 9:03 am
John,
Do you still endorse their key word tools?
Jim
January 21st, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Google has some good products, but in my opinion their customer support sucks. Although not as bad as your experience, I’ve had many bad experiences with Google myself.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:04 pm
@James - I wrote the post about keyword research after I was suspended from Adwords.
Right now all the other keyword research tools stink. I still use the google tool, even though it’s quality seems to be going downhill recently, just like all the other keyword research tools. The last few days they haven’t been showing search volume in their tool. Oh well.
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Hi John,
It’s a pain to redo all your ads, but a new CC, email and another $5.00 bill should get you back in. I did that to take advantage of a free $50 in clicks that was only good for new accounts.
Get one of those coupons(I could send you one) and your first $50 in clicks is on them!
Scott
February 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Hey John:
here is a link to a UK financial times story about google’s sagging earnings.. maybe they should have more respect or advertisers…
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article3287055.ece
February 1st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Wow.
Same exact thing happened me, man. I got in contact with a big wig up there. I got the # from a ceo friend of a large network. Listen, there is just some dumbass pencil neck back there who didn’t get girls in high school and now uses his omnipotent legislative power to screw hard working internet marketers. Sad.
I was dis’d for mobile subscription after 1 warning. a simple mistake. It has to be one of the largest I have ever made.
Now, I cannot start a new account to save my life (and I have tried all the ideas above).
They are a bastard of a company and I hope their days are very short. Google provide 0 accountablity to those who pay them Millions a year.
Sad.
Good Luck Guys!
February 22nd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I have just had the same thing happen to me. The only exception is that I put it on all of my blogs, including blogger their product. I am a cancer patient and I was just trying to turn my school units into some money for support, not a huge business. I had no idea and I have been getting the same run around, except now reading this I am going to ask the local consumer reporters in the Boston area to do a piece on it. thanks for your site
February 28th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
You didn’t know using a trademark in ads is not allowed ?
Play with fire, get burnt.
Next time think twice before breaking the rules.
Wish you best of luck.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I am new to Internet marketing and I am having a similar experience now with Google Adwords for a few weeks. At this point, I simply want to START advertising my 2 Websites using Adwords. Google suspended my Adwords account before an ad had even run. There are hundreds of international dating Websites on the Internet, and many of them use Google Adwords for sure, because I’ve seen these Adword ads run by my much larger competitors dozens of times. I haven’t given up hope yet on this since I anticipate Google Adwords to be a significant part of my marketing. Can anyone offer some useful advice? I offer here a factual description…
About 1 month ago I started Internet marketing of my international dating Website, http://www.YourLatinDreamGirl.com. I am an American living in Barranquilla, Colombia, married to a Colombian girl. The objective of my Website is help men from outside Colombia find a Colombian wife or girlfriend, especially a younger wife or girlfriend. There is nothing vulgar or offensive on my Website in my opinion. My Website has men’s and women’s profiles in a typical style for this type of international dating Website, and contains photos of many (but not all) of the registered clients on my Website.
I’m 50, my Colombian wife is 27, and I’d like to share my success by showing others how to do it, and run a successful dating business in the process. Our baby daughter, Nicole, was born here in Colombia on February 5, 2008. Pretty tame stuff I think…I refuse even to accept photos of female clients even in normal bikinis…it’s a dating Website to meet your significant other, NOT an adult site…
I set up my FIRST Adwords account…I’ve never advertised ANY business previous on Google…got my credit card approved by Google, no problem…got my bank account in the United States approved by Google, no problem…then, after 3 weeks (about 1 week ago…today is March 3, 2008), still my first Adwords ad had NOT yet appeared on Google, so I e-mailed Google customer support…it took several days to get an answer, but finally the answer was to the effect of, Your Adwords Account has been SUSPENDED and your ads will no longer run on Google, because your ads violate Adwords policy. (Remember, of course, that up to now NEVER have ANY ads of mine for ANY business of mine been advertised using Google.)
The Adwords ad I tried to run was this…
“I’m 50. My Sexy Wife 27. Wanna hot younger wife/girlfriend? U deserve it! Here’s how (photos).”
(Now, if somehow this ad violates Google’s policies, which would be somewhat amazing to me, okay, Google can tell me this, and I can rewrite the ad. BUT DON’T BAN ME FOREVER FROM GOOGLE. What kind of a business treats its customers like that?!)
So I emailed them back, asking why, because there is nothing contrary to Adwords policy on my Website, and why do you permit dozens of my larger competitors to advertise on Google Adwords and not me from the get-go?
This was about 1 week ago and I have no answer yet.
6 days ago, February 26, 2008, I was ready to begin using Google adwords for a totally different line of business and Website, promoting health and beauty products. So I opened another Adwords account to do this, but when I tried to verify my bank account, Google’s computers blocked the registration of this same bank account I had gotten approved by them previously…
so I contacted Google customer support via their live chat service, got prompt service (within about 3 minutes), got a helpful friendly lady, but all she would say is that my account was under further investigation, that she needed to check with her Adwords Specialist Team, and e-mail me back when she had more information, and that it might “take some time” to research this. I said okay…that was 6 days ago…today I again live chatted with another Google Adwords rep, a man this time, who promptly and politely told me that the lady from 6 days ago was still researching my account and that he would contact her immediately to give me an update. I said that is fine for now, but that if I hadn’t heard back by later today I might contact them via live chat tonight or tomorrow morning, because I am losing potential customers in my health business website by this delay. My strategy right now is to focus on getting approval, at a minimum, on the health Website because it’s a totally different business than my international dating Website.
If Google doesn’t like my international dating Website, I think they have an obligation to accept at a minimum my adwords ads for health and beauty products, because on the Internet via Google search right now, there are DOZENS of others Distributors of the SAME health products (not similar, but EXACTLY THE SAME) from which sponsored ads from these dozens of other Websites, Google accepts with no problem.
Seems to me that if Google says to me, in effect, that for now and forever into the future I may NEVER advertise ANY business of mine using Google Adwords, they may be committing an illegal act…an Antitrust Violation…actionable by an aggressive attorney…it’s illegal under US Antitrust Law to treat the other Distributors of health products so differently from me so as to deny me access totally when my ads for health products and Website are nearly the same as dozens of competing Distributors of the same health and beauty products…however, this is NOT what I want…I simply want to advertise on Adwords, in normal fashion, with normal types of ads…and then, later on, I can address further with Google Adwords the subject of my international dating Website.
Does anyone have any advice or comments?
Waiting for a little while longer might work, but do the weeks stretch into months and the months into years, in this type of situation with Google Adwords?
HEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!!!
John C.
March 17th, 2008 at 10:03 am
The Google monolith is all about money and power. They have lost sight of the bigger picture and the fact that it is all of us who have helped make them rich. So, when I got banned from the adsense program without any known cause or recourse, I decided that the world needed to know just what google has become. That is why I started the Google Horror Stories website at http://www.googlehorrorstories.net. Here you can post your Google horror story or share alternatives that you have discovered. I invite all of you who have been burned by google to come and share your story, truthfully and honestly. There is nothing wrong with that and it just may someday make a difference. Also feel free to post my link.. I am not counting on Google search traffic.. Rather real organic traffic from real sites to share the bad news about google.. Your help would be greatly appreciated.. Post your article today. Thanks
March 31st, 2008 at 3:29 am
If someone creates an add with somthing like http://www.joebloggs.com that would be illegal as Fred would be “passing off” on Joes trademark.
April 4th, 2008 at 9:34 pm
John C.
You asked for advice? How about stop encouraging old men to take advantage of their power and/or skin colour/ and or national privilege by marrying young desperate women and girls from other countries?
How’s that.
PS:
Jonas…. sorry to hear about your troubles. What is your next plan? Moving away from PPC perhaps??
April 7th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Just as a follow-up, yes, I got a new account. I did all the things I mentioned in my post.
And, Yes, I have moved away from PPC somewhat. I still do it, because it is the single most effective way of bringing traffic to your website that I know of, but I am also concentrating on learning other traffic strategies.
John
April 15th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Response to Michael:
I respectfully disagree with you that marrying a younger lady and having a baby girl with her is “taking advantage” of the girl. That’s what I personally have done.
It’s called “creating a family” and is the most beautiful thing on earth.
John C.
April 19th, 2008 at 3:33 am
I was thrown off Ebay if it helps you out. I like that you call them Nazis. I do not agree with it maybe because I was not thrown off Google not yet. It just is very funny the way you put it. Ebay of course is a different story I asked what I did wrong and well they would not tell me. It is just terrible.
Charles Pisano
May 6th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I, too, just got “suspended” from AdWords, and my story is much the same as everyone elses. Ihave never tried to run objectionable material. A couple of my ads a long time ago were disapproved. They gave a reason, and I never bothered with them again — or anything like them. I tried using “starbucks” as a keyword on one ad (not in the ad itself)and was told that was a copyright infringement. That was many months ago, and I never did it again. I have been running a few campaigns now for mostly my own web sites which are anything but objectionable. On May 1st, Google decided to “suspend” my account. Of course, my traffic dropped by 1/3.
From everything I’ve been reading, there is nothing that can be done. It doesn’t pay me to try to get a new account for my own web sites since they will pick up on the URL and “suspend” my new account.
I have in no way been a flagrant offender. Anything I did was unknowingly and unintentional. They suspended my account without warning. When I asked they why, they said I had repeatedly vilated their terms and conditions. Am I mad? You bet!!!
It’s strange, however, that I can still access my account. I just can’t advertise. I am also besides myself, because that is where I make a part of my living.
I really don’t know what to do.
June 7th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I remember having this sort of treatment from Pay Pal, I here they have moved forward now so it’s only a matter of time, I hope before google sort themselves out as I have an adsense account and I am very nervous about the banning they do on these accounts too.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Anyone have luck getting a new AdWords account with a new IP adress etc? I got banned 3 days ago and I want something that will work. Pleaase respond with a solution, I relyi on Google AdWords to feed my family and now I an screwed because Google has no compassion for silly mistakes.
July 2nd, 2008 at 8:49 am
I created a adwords account only yesterday, to advertise printing services, i didnt use any competitors names, only keywords such as “litho printing” “digital printing” “brochure printing” and I got an email today saying my adwords account had breached there terms of service.
I called and the lady couldn’t tell me why I had been suspended, its absolutely outreagous the way they treat people, i was willing to spend around £10,000 a month with them but i think i’ll go spend that elsewhere.
July 5th, 2008 at 6:54 am
It is apparent that Google Adwords is banning accounts even if you violate their terms (even unknowingly coz no one read their TOS & Policy) at the very first time. What Google is doing is, of course, not good for the healthy business practices.
Well, I would like to suggest to all fellow Google Adwords advertisers, including Cos that if you are banned from Google Adwords then only option could be possible is having new Credit Card on different name & address and new IP. I have a belief that Google can easily track the credit details you are using.