Saturday, November 21, 2009

Getting Blocked From Adsense

Yesterday I switched to a three-column blog. It is a move I have been thinking over for a while and one that I like. I am still considering switching to this background, but that's a whole other story. Yesterday afternoon, I checked my Adsense reporting to see how many people had visited my new-and-improved blog. My heart sank as I saw a red lettered message saying my account had been disabled.

I looked into it, and it wasn't someone hacking into my account again. I actually think it was the opposite of hate, but love that caused my Adsense account to be disabled. It is my suspicion that a kind reader may have been over-clicking to help my revenue. If someone did that, that was kind, and I'm not mad. I've clicked on ads just because I like the blog or site, too.

I do think Adsense is sleazy for disabling my account a week before cutting me my first check. If I had known that would happen, I would never have used their ads. Needless to say, they were fine with me leaving the ads on my site without having notified me of my account being disabled. I have taken the ads down and will not offer Adsense further free advertisements.

I did not click. I did not ask others to click. I followed their rules.

I appealed the decision and was replied to pretty quickly, with them saying, "We've re-confirmed that your account poses a significant risk to our advertisers." I guess that a blog that discourages frivolous spending and over consumption really is a threat to their advertisers.

However, it was always my intention to monetize this blog. I am going to play around with other advertising options and I want honest feedback. I don't want anyone to feel like different advertising makes this a less reader-friendly site. I am happy when I see this blog making me money, but I am even happier when I hear that my blog is making a difference in someone else's life. So, honest feedback about any advertisements I try out would be appreciated.

To other bloggers who are worried Adsense may do the same to you, I wouldn't be. My blog grew suspiciously fast, or at least it looks suspicious to Adsense. When I find a replacement means of advertising I like, I'll recommend it.

48 comments:

Kay said...

I emailed you a little while ago about other advertisement options you might want to look into. Haven't heard back from you, so maybe the email didn't make it?

Emily said...

Kay, I don't think I did get it. I just looked back through my "Blog Stuff" folder and I didn't see it. I'm up for suggestions if you can resend it.

Kay said...

Just did, to your yahoo address.

Anonymous said...

Wow, what has happened to the world when success is seen as suspicious?! So sorry that happened to you, and yes, sleazy of them both in terms of the timing and in leaving their ads on.

Lori said...

That really sucks. I'm sorry for that.

Lilith said...

Does this mean AdSense won't be paying you for the money you had earned before they yanked your account? No, no, no, no. I hope there's a way you can appeal that.

Emily said...

Lilith, it does mean that, and my appeal was rejected, but I don't blame the Takedown. You guys netted me over $40 that I won't see, which was real nice, and I liked your post on me.

dust in the wind said...

I clicked on the new background you are considering and LOVED it. Just my 2 cents :)

Amber said...

I'm so sorry that happened! I can't believe they aren't even going to give you the money you made already!

Caitlin said...

A ton of people have had the same problem with Adsense. I think it's just free advertising.

Linda @ A La Carte said...

I am so sorry that happened to you also. I don't know anything about AdSense but won't be going there. I hope you can find other ways to bring dollars in on your FABULOUS blog. It grew so fast because it is so great and so timely in today's economy. Best of Luck and I'm a follower!!

Linda

Simple in France said...

Emily, I think Jacob at Early Retirement Extreme just had the same thing happen to him a few days ago. That's two bloggers I follow with the same experience in two weeks. Maybe it's the 'frugal' message or, as you said the loyal readers overclicking. But it does raise questions in my mind about Adsense. Good luck with your further efforts to monetize.
By the way, that background is very, very cute.

Lisa said...

I like the new background possibility. What a bummer about Google Adsense!

Anonymous said...

I hear you, Emily!

My account was just disabled last week as well.

Apparently, I'm an adsense terrorist.

I was *finally* starting to get clicks - I only had about $50.00...then voila! I'm a serious risk.

I appealed it and was denied.

I noticed they left up the ads on my blog, too, and I had a heck of a time figuring out how to get them off...but I finally did it.

No free advertisements here!

Roxanna said...

I love your blog but haven't gotten around to posting yet, but I had to this time. Adsense did the same thing to me and it really upset me! I wont even put them on my new one because of it. I think they do it right before they are about to payout or if someone is making 'too much' $$$

Chick Hatchers said...

Emily, Although we don't know each other, I am a daily reader of your blog. I love that you find creative ways to be frugal and then share those findings. It's actually quite generous and I THANK YOU!

My blog is not monetized (yet) and I have no experience with any advertising other than what annoys me about some other blogs I read. I'll share that with you because I do think it should be considered. After all, if a reader is annyed enough or long enough, they may stop being a reader, right? I get annoyed by pop-ups and those advertising bars that move up or down the screen. They are easily closed by clicking th little "X", but if you miss-position the mouse or the bar moves, then the ad gets clicked. Some of those ads can actually have malicious code (to track sites visited and sometimes even read info stored in cookies, which can include login information for other sites) and I am very careful not to click on ads unless I am familiar with the company being advertised. I actually had my Ebay account hacked because of mis-clicking and I just happened to have my Ebay session open and logged in on another window. Because it was open and logged in, my login information was available to the person who owned that other website and they used it.

So, while I don't mind ads on the site that are stationary, I don't like ones that can be easily accidentally clicked.

Thank you again for your wonderful blog and your generosity in sharing what you learn and know.

mychildsview.blogspot.com
chickhatching.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

My husband was looking into adding AdSense to his blog, so I had to investigate this. I still don't know, but I came across this: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020965.html

Is that maybe what is going on?

Anonymous said...

It sounds to me like they disabled your account to keep from having to pay you. Try sending them another email, threaten to "spread the word" about what they did to you unless you get your check.

Emily said...

Chick Hatchers, thanks for the ad advice. I'l be keeping that in mind.

redeemed, I wish it were just an email phishing scam. I found out through my blogspot account and confirmed it with my adsense account. They didn't even send me an email notification, which they should have, obviously.

Anon, you would think they should know not to mess with bloggers, because of course we're going to write about it. Since I've already "spread the word" I'm not sure what that threat will do.

What makes me so mad is they did this to Athiest Mama and Early Retirement Extreme and others. It sounds VERY suspicious.

MamaMay said...

I had that happen with AdSense too. I personnally don't know a single person that has gotten paid with AdSense, though I am sure some have. I also had trouble because they kept trying to advertise Tarot Card Readers on my site. Sadly I had to scrap them.

My I reccommend Project Wonderful. I make 100 dollars every few months with them, and I have about 1/4 the readers you do! They are VERY upfrount about the the money you make or not and allow you to have complete control over who advertises on your site.

M. Lilly Grohman said...

The did it to me as well, and to my friend Tabby, too. All this week. I'd made $35. Tabby's was starting to pick up steam as well.

I am really, really sorry that this happened to you. I hope you're able to find another method to use your blog to earn money. It's an excellently done blog, and I really enjoy it.

Also, I like this layout. Very pretty and quite readable.

Natballs said...

that is BULLSHIT that adsense did that!
I have no intention of monetizing my blog, though.

OT: I have a suggestion for a post (s)?
To plan a week of meals within a certain price range. Like, make Monday's meal;the next day make Tuesday's using Monday's leftovers; make Wednesday's using Tuesday's leftovers, etc.

Anonymous said...

Emily,

Since you are getting so many clicks on your blog ads, would you consider putting up a banner for The Hunger Site (or its sister sites for breast cancer, literacy, child health, animal rescue and the rainforest) on your blog? Each click on The Hunger Site donates about 1 cup of food to the hungry, and it costs absolutely nothing.

www.thehungersite.com

Amanda said...

I hear this about Adsense so often I'm starting to wonder if they're not trying to scam bloggers. Sorry it happened to you.

[LJT] said...

I am sorry this happened to you! Judging by the other comments, it seems like a common occurance with AdSense.
I use AdSense on my blog but have yet to make anything with it (not many people visit/read my blog). But I might just pull them down after hearing about your situation. What other programs are out there for monetizing?

Anita (Living, Loving and Learning) said...

I've pretty much given up on Adsense. I have them on my search and ads on the bottom of each individual post, but that's it now.

elegant_phoenix said...

Goodness. I'm new to the blog-o-sphere and once I got my heiney in gear I was going to look into Adsense. Thanks so much for writing about this. And so many bloggers in the same week... Sounds a bit fishy to me.

BTW - love your blog. Though I'm not as frugal as you, your tips have saved me a lot of money. I'm able to feed my family of five plus a 96 pound dog for under $300.00 in SoCal. Thank you and keep it up!

Elegant_Phoenix said...

Funny - just found www.youdata.com

I still have yet to check it out, but it's a start.

Anita (Living, Loving and Learning) said...

Emily,
I am using Adsense, and Commission Junction I control what ads I put on my blog now. I love it, because I get to share the products I love.

Anonymous said...

I'm wondering if they canceled your account because you blogged about adsense several times, maybe they consider that as encouraging people to click.

Emily said...

Works Hard, this is what Adsense says about encouaging clicks:

"Encouraging Clicks

Publishers may not ask others to click their ads or use deceptive implementation methods to obtain clicks. This includes, but is not limited to, offering compensation to users for viewing ads or performing searches, promising to raise money for third parties for such behavior or placing images next to individual ads."

I didn't do that. As I said, I followed their rules.

Anonymous said...

I know that you followed their rules. My theory is that adsense has some kind of computer program that searches their user's blogs for potential violations. Blogging about adsense a certain number of times would probably raise a red flag. If that is the case, I can't imagine that they would would pay someone to read through your entire blog and check whether or not you actually violated their rules. It's probably just easier for them to cancel your account.

Anita (Living, Loving and Learning) said...

I'm sorry I said I used adsense, I actually meant to say i use linkshare, which is afflilated with Apple/Mac

Anonymous said...

As a professional tarot reader, I chuckle at comments like above. The people who believe the most that we're "sorcerers" I find, know the least about us. I wish people would educate themselves before making assumptions about something like that. It's not what you think it is.

Off to eat children and skin my cats (insert big eyeroll)

Emily said...

Anon (above) brings up a good point. If you write an off topic comment that makes me laugh out loud, I may still publish it.

Mary Lynn said...

Sounds like this is a systemic issue with Adsense. It might be worth filing a Better Business Bureau complaint. It's not worth pursuing the payment through legal means since it's "so small" on the grand scale, but multiple BBB complaints could really make an impact.

Patty said...

http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/12/18/why-ive-decided-to-abandon-google-ads-on-the-simple-dollar/

Santa said...

Project Wonderful is a good ad site, and you can set it to let you approve ads first if you worry about negative ads.

Heather said...

i'm sorry. that is entirely crappy and shady, especially since it appears to be a trend. i haven't monetized my blog get, if i ever do i will remember this lesson.

julie said...

Adsense disabled my account, as well, quite a while back, for "suspicious clicking" or whatever, which is pretty ridiculous since my blog is very small and I had earned perhaps fourteen dollars over several months with it, all the while putting up with those shady Adsense ads.

I tried BlogHer for a while after that, which did certainly pay much, much better, and had better-quality ads, too, but they closed my account, too, after I refused to censor a photo of my children painting naked in the yard. You couldn't see anything, of course, but BlogHer was "uncomfortable" with it. I doubt you'd have that problem.

Meegs said...

Hey Emily,
Just wondering how you switched from the two column to three column on blogger/blogspot? I'm having trouble figuring out, but really want to make the switch.

Thanks!

Emily said...

Meegs, I followed these directions exactly and got a third column. It's for a minima template.

http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/blog-secrets/145-how-to-get-a-3-column-template

Meegs said...

Thanks Emily! That worked great.

Andrew Wilder said...

Emily, I'm surprised you're giving up so easily after your appeal was rejected. I say email 'em again and escalate the issue! At the very least, you should insist that they clarify EXACTLY why they dropped you.

Audra Michelle said...

I'm so sorry this happened to you! I'm experimenting with Ready Site (no money earned yet) and Logical Media (made a little - can choose ads and can advertise through email, facebook, etc as well). I am scaling back my adsense because I don't want to give them more "free" advertising but I don't want to lose the little I have just in case I actually ever get paid!

Early Retirement Extreme said...

Same story here ... Adsense disabled my account after I had earned about $140 but before I got paid. They stated the same reasons. I appealed but haven't heard anything back from them though.

I am looking for alternatives now.

Laura said...

I think there is probably a class action lawsuit waiting to happen with AdSense. I read an article a few weeks ago that talked about how AdSense is robbing their clients. Here is a link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/why-google-bothered-to-ap_b_213176.html

Dustin | Engaged Marriage said...

I also had my AdSense account disabled just before my first check was to be cut. It sure does seem suspicious!

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