Google Takes a Stand….Finally.
Apparently on the heels of the Federal Trade Commissions suit announced July 1, 2009 (details below) Google has been messaging specific Google AdWords accounts as suspended with the following reason: “Promoting Google Money Tree or ads that promote a misrepresented affiliation with Google. Due to multiple complaints from our users and publishers, we’ve made the decision not to accept these ads.“.
Here is a copy of the full suspension message:
“Subject: Your AdWords account: Account Suspension
Message:
It’s come to our attention that you have submitted ads that promote Google Money Tree or ads that promote a misrepresented affiliation with Google. Due to multiple complaints from our users and publishers, we’ve made the decision not to accept these ads.
This is a notification that your account has been suspended due to the submission of these ads and your ads will no longer run on Google. Please note that future accounts you open will also be suspended.
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.
Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your AdWords product or account.“
…
In a related article – reported Wednesday July 1, 2009
‘Google Money Tree’ one of dozens of companies named in FTC, state attorneys’ suits against companies running money-making schemes
“The Federal Trade Commission and 13 states, including Ohio, targeted companies trying to take advantage of hard times by offering consumers everything from nonexistent jobs to phony grants, investments and money-making opportunities.
Among those targeted in 44 law enforcement actions announced today was Google Money Tree, which despite the name, is not affiliated with Google.
The FTC’s suit accused Google Money Tree of getting consumers to divulging account information with promises that a low-cost kit could help them earn $100,000 in six months. What the company didn’t clearly reveal, the FTC said, was that signing up for the kit automatically triggered monthly charges of $72.21.” for the full article.
Why Now?
At long last Google has decided to take a stance and has begun to suspend advertising to individuals promoting the Google Money Tree or similar advertising where Google’s name is used a as misrepresented affiliation. I am not sure when the messaging began. It may be a direct response to the FTC’s suit. I have asked Google for a comment on this new messaging and will report back with details when and if they become available.
This came to my attention while visiting the AdWords help forum where I work as a Top Contributor. There are quite a few angry members at present. Some not even aware that the affiliate program the signed up for was a scam. Some others may have been caught in error because there are many complaints from advertisers claiming that they are not promoting anything like a money making program.
If you feel that you have been a victim of Google Money Tree or another outfit claiming a misrepresented affiliation with Google report it to Google.
Also report it to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) know.
UPDATE: Google has commented (kinda) through the official Google Blog.
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I got kicked off Adworks for the Google Money Tree and Misrepresenting Google. I have no clue how that could have happened. Can someone help me? Google blew me off.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for visiting. I did receive your review request and will investigate for you.
@MrsC
So i have been caught in this google tree thing. I have no idea of what it is and how i am related to it. However I would like if someone at google takes a look at my account and fixes things for me.
I have noticed that both Aimoo and a number of the forums on Aimoo seem to make very good use of the Google name to promote their services. Is Google in partnership with Aimoo?
Dear MrsC,
I am another victim of this global Adwords ban, although I never promoted anything even remotely related to that niche or product…
I tried to explain and ask for a manual review from Google but no one would even talk to me or listen.
Can you please help ? any help would be much much appreciated.
DmitryRapoport,
Sorry to hear that you have been caught in the net.
Have you ever done affiliate advertising? Some people do not even realize that they are selecting a “money scam” product when they make their selections from the affiliate program.
If you have never done any affiliate advertising and are absolutely confident that Google made an error then it warrants a closer look.
Visit my http://www.adwordspi.com service if you would like to launch an investigation.
Dear MrsC,
I am doing affiliate advertising for many years now, and I can assure you I haven’t promoted anything even remotely connected to the “money scam” products.
I wouldn’t mind ordering the Adwords PI service, but will you be able to reverse their decision after you find that my account never had anything to do with it ?
If so, please email me and I will order the service immediately.
Thank You
Dmitry,
The final decision is up to Google. I can review the account to confirm that you have not done any thing that violated T & C and write a report containing the facts of my investigation and send the report on to Google so the account can be personally reviewed by the proper team.
If you have not done any scam advertising in this account or in the past then Google will give your account attention and we may see the suspension reversed. I have had success getting many advertisers reinstated if we find that the advertiser did nothing wrong and were caught accidentally.
Hi MrsC
I am so glad to find some quality info on this(Google Money Tree)!
I have promoted affiliate products, but I have never ever even heard of Google Money Tree or promoted “bad products”.
Please can you investigate my account for suspension reversal???
P.S. – This is terrible! I manage many clients in my client center(MCC) and Google even suspended their accounts! Client who are only promoting their brick and mortar businesses. How can Google be so unprofessional and just suspend my accounts? Surely they can check my account history and see for them selves that I have never touched Google Money Tree? I have a long standing Adwords account and I have almost $10000 ad spend – All legally.
Sad and unhappily
Marcel
A client just got hit with this suspension, and Google has replied to his polite plea for a review like this –
“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.
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. ”
and that’s it –
What? “we ask that you do not contact them about this matter” !?!
there has NEVER been anything other than completely clean ads, and anyone with a brain could review his 5+ year history and see that to be the case. This is crazy!
Google can be very subjective and arbitrary when it comes to shutting down advertising. My understanding is that
–Individual Google reps can review the site and then ‘adjust’ quality scores to effectively put you out of business.
–Unfortunately they also use software based assessments that are really going after sites that fit the ‘bad affiliate’ model…they tend to punish a lot of innocents in the process.
If you call Google, make sure you the reps name and email address and then ask to talk to a supervisor if you get an unsatisfactory answer.
I am working with them right now to try to get a clients quality scores re-adjusted. They went from 6/7 to 1 in a single day.
Hi, I too was banned from Google for allegedly promoting Google products for money making purposes. I have had a google campaign for my car alarm company for the past 4 years or so and everything was fine until I followed a Google Adsense link to a site about affilate marketing and then this led me into many other sites of similar nature. Eventually I decided to try it for myself and started to promote Clickbank product as an affilliate marketer, this failed for me within a couple of months, it got too hard for me and cost me adveritising spend (besides I did not really know what I was doing) so I deleted all my affiliate marketing campaigns and just kept my legit car security campaign going, this is my only source of income which provides for my family and now my sales are down considerably. Do I stand a chance of getting back on with Google? Will I get a second chance or am I doomed for my stupidity? I saw on another forum that if if I start a new account with new address, new bank details, and new domain with Google Adwords I may get away with it, but I am concerned that if I get a new domain and set up a re-direct back to my original site, google my notice this and suspend me again. HELP I AM DESPERATE TO HAVE SOME PROFESSIONAL ADVICE ON THIS MATTER, AS GOOGLE IS KILLING ME.
I also got kicked off of google adwords after 6 years of using them. It has taken me about 6 different attempts to even get the small about if information I did. They state there is another company who violated their rules and our company is similar to the one who violated so we got kicked out as well. They would not elaborate on the similarity, just said we can no longer help you. I offered to provide them with an endless amount of documentation to show we are a real licensed and registered company. I even offered to have our attorney talk to someone there. They did not want to hear anything. They made there decision end of discussion. We do not have any other companies, we do not do any affiliate advertising. There decision is a mistake, I know that we have not done anything wrong, so it’s very upsetting. Any advice
@Angie
I am starting to see some similar stories around the web. And I am still trying to sort out a client situation of my own.
But it does seem Google is saying they are willing to live with lifetime bans for some very nebulous “relationships” and “similarities”.
My guess is that some person or persons thought it would cost too much to try and do too fine a sort. They will live with a certain amount of loss of what would normally be perfectly acceptable dollars if not for this latest purge.
But how broadly and how poorly they are defining “acceptable” losses has me concerned.
Thanks for sharing.
-Tom Hale
I don’t understand why Google didn’t take legal action on this from the beginning. Surely when one’s company name is used as much as theirs in this scam, they had to know about it. My account was billed as “elitepack” with a phone number after and followed by CYP. I was able to get an address for them which is: FAREMED Services, POs Box 22100 E. 26th St., Aurora,Colorado 80019. Even though Google has finally taken some action, there is still the charge on my account for 79.86 and 1.00. I have contacted my credit card company and it is in dispute, but if it is never paid, can they turn this over to credit and destroy my good credit? I consider this a fraudulant ad, which I am certain it is. I’m considering writing the Attorney General of Colorado. Surely this company has made enough money that they could care less if they can no longer advertise using the Google name, but they will figure out another way to do it, I promise you. The only thing I ever received from them was a packet about half an inch thick which I didn’t even bother to read as it didn’t seem worth while to me. Too, what about those people who were shown holding their checks? I guess they work for the company, but it seems they should be liable in a fraudulant scheme. We sure do have our share of Madoffs in this country. It is sick……………..
Google Adwords Suspended
Two days ago my Adwords Account stopped serving Ads. First I thought it must be kind some error. However, later in turned my Adwords account was suspended.
I tried to find out why I got suspended, but Adwords is refusing to share this kind of information with me. All they are telling me is that I did not comply with their T&C. I was running those Ad campaigns for a couple of months now and it never was an issue.
I believe that many cases people get suspended from Adwords unfairly. The issue is that they don’t have any kind of appeal process. Once you have been suspended Adwords basically ignores you…
Don’t forget to check out my blog:
http://surin290.blog.com/2010/01/03/google-adwords-suspended/
Hey mate. I don’t follow many blogs, but yours is of thefew I follow.Have a great day!