A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma - part 3

Mention Google's 'User Deception' policy to a friend of mine and you'll see steam coming out of his ears.  He is one of those who was caught out by the subtleties (or obscurities) of meaning in this policy.  Now, I have to say that this friend - let's call him Peter - is as honest as the day is long and will go out of his way to to do things ethically and fairly.  So, when Google told him that he had been suspended - and when he discovered why - he was appalled.

Peter had only recently gone into internet marketing.  He's a professional man, now retired, and had thought that he might share his knowledge and experience in his own field via a website.  He set one up and ran a successful short adwords campaign (based on Armand Morin's Secret PPC method) to drive people to the site.

Some time later, he signed up for Simon Coulson's Internet Cashflow course and found it both interesting and useful.  It was certainly something he'd recommend to other people, so he decided to promote the course as an affiliate.  And it seemed the obvious thing to promote it via Google adwords, using the same method as before.

Now, Armand's method requires the use of banner ads and, when you submit a banner ad to Google, you have to wait for it to be approved, unlike the ordinary line ads which go live as soon as they're submitted.  And so Peter discovered that he'd been banned not for running an ad that was contrary to policy but simply for submitting one for approval!  Believing that it must have been the wording of his ad that was at fault, he replied to the email from Google, explaining that this was a genuine mistake and asking them to reconsider.

The reply Peter received from Google was uncompromising.  He read in growing disbelief that his account had been suspended "due to submissions of ads that promote an Unacceptable Business Practice - get rich quick.  In response to the many complaints that we have received from users and publishers, we've decided not to allow ads which promote "get rich quick" sites."

How, he wondered, could a website which offered a year-long course, involving a considerable amount of study and work, be considered a 'get rich quick' site?  True, Simon Coulson promotes the course as being the system that he used to make £2 million and that his students have used to make considerable incomes, but does that make it a 'get rich quick' system?  Simon has made over £2 million and a number of his students have done extremely well using this system, so he's only stating what is true.

Once again Peter contacted Google, explaining that he had assumed (wrongly, it appeared) that a 'get rich quick site' was one that was underhand or was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by promising them something that was unnattainable - for example, £20,000 in the first week with only half an hour of work a day.  He pointed out why, while Simon Coulson's site truthfully said that large incomes could be achieved with this system, there was no suggestion that this would be achieved quickly.  Google was unmoved.  However, he was told that if he 'changed the wording on the website' his case might be reconsidered.  When he replied that it was not his website, he was told there was nothing that could be done.

So there he was, banned for life for innocently trying to promote a perfectly genuine website selling a course which he had found very helpful.  And from what he has heard since, many internet marketing sites have met the same fate.  If you Google 'make money online', the ads that come up are all concerned with gambling or modelling for 'sexy cam' sites.  Personally, I'd rather see ads about internet marketing courses.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma - part 2

So what is it about Google policies that makes them so hard to follow . . . or to understand?  At first glance they seem straightforward and eminently sensible.  If you go to the relevant web page you will see that advertising should provide a positive experience to users, should be accurate and truthful, should comply with laws and regulations, should be safe for all users, shouldn't violate users' trust or privacy and should be compatible with Google's brand decisions.  Surely there's nothing there that an 'honest tradesman' could argue with.

If you dig down a little deeper, you'll find it gets a bit more detailed.  The 'positive experience' means that the link text must accurately describe what users will see if they click the link - in other words, users need to know that if they click a link saying "cheap hotels" (for example) they're not going to be taken to a porn site . . . or even to a site with only expensive hotels.  And under the 'safety' heading we find that if a website collects sensitive personal information, it must be hosted on a secure server that uses SSL (https).  We're also told that billing terms and conditions must be clear and conspicuous to users and that the domain of the display URL must match the domain of the ultimate landing page URL.

So far, so good.  As consumers we can all feel safe clicking on Google adword links.  What's more, the safety of our computers is protected by a ban on infected websites, on websites that distribute harmful or disruptive software and on websites that are misleading or deceptive about the nature of distributed downloads.

In addition, we find that websites that collect personal information (such as email addresses) must have a clearly visible link to the site's privacy policy.  I wonder, though, whether anyone ever reads a privacy policy and whether anyone would actually notice if the policy said "we give no guarantee that we won't share your information".  It seems to happen so much these days - spam appearing on an email address that we gave to a completely different person or organisation - and we're all used to just clicking 'delete' on messages in our inboxes, but we continue to give our email addresses on sites where we're offered something interesting or useful in return.

Somewhat worrying, however, is Google's statement that it doesn't allow the promotion of sites that collect personally identifiable information with the promise of a free item or prize.   This covers every squeeze/optin page on the internet - "give us your email address and we'll send you two free ebooks". I've not heard of anyone being banned . . . sorry, suspended . . . by Google for directing users to an optin page . . . yet.  But if you're thinking of running an adwords campaign and you have an optin page, perhaps you should contact the adwords help desk for advice before embarking on it.

So the question arises again . . . how have so many people been suspended from Google adwords when the policies seem to be so sensible and protective of the consumer?  The answer, I believe, lies in Google's interpretations of its own policies, particularly those covered by the heading "User deception".

To be continued . . .

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma - part 1

In 1939, Winston Churchill described Russia as "A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma".  If he were alive today, he might use the same phrase to describe Google.

Many SEO experts have made a living trying to work out exactly what parameters Google uses to decide which websites appear on its first page and which are relegated to the unseen hundreds of pages that follow it.  Google plays its cards close to its chest and, it is said, frequently changes its parameters (no doubt to keep the SEO experts on their toes).


Nothing wrong in that, of course.  If everyone knew exactly what to do to get to the top, and proceeded to do it, Google would have to resort to pulling names out of a hat in order to assign places on the first page.


However, Google's secrecy and unapproachability is not always so benign.  In recent times, while constantly urging people to advertise on the web using Google Adwords, it has also been banning many others from ever using this method again.  Some of those banned have been serious advertisers, spending thousands of dollars a month on their campaigns.  So why have they been banned?  In many cases it's hard to tell.


Google refers to it as a 'suspension' rather than a ban - but since there is no way of appealing against it and since it means that the 'suspended' person cannot use any of his or her accounts to advertise ever again, 'ban' seems to be a more suitable word.


If you go into Google and search for " adwords account suspended" you will find over 82,000 results.  And if you look at the first few pages, it seems that many of these are written by people who do not understand why they have been banned.  


Google's Terms and Conditions state that people cannot advertise anything that contravenes any law in the countries in which the ads are shown and that they cannot advertise anything that violates its policies 'as revised from time to time'.  The first is, of course, reasonable and sensible.  The second is where the trouble lies.  

To be continued . . .