Google - do no evil?

[faris]

I feel compelled to vent some spleen.

Google recently suspended our AdSense account. The reason given is "Invalid activity". No date was given. No further information was provided.

As I'm the only person who touches our website, I *know* that there's nothing iffy going on. We play by the rules. I'm one of the good guys.

I therefore thought it would turn out to be an error. Some automated system picked up something odd that it thought was suspicious which caused out acccount to be suspended, and all I had to do follow the appropriate appeals procedure, a human would look into it and give it the all-clear, and all would be well.

I was wrong. My appeal was rejected, and we remain suspended.

This absolutely infuriates me. I *know* we have not done anything wrong. My moral compass points due north. This makes the situation even worse because I've been accused and apparently found guilty of doing something when in reality I'm completely innocent.

But I can't defend myself because Google won't tell me what the problem is, nor even WHEN the problem occured. It could have been any time in the past 12 months, and I don't keep apache (or ASL) logs for more than a month even if I knew what I was looking for.

The worst thing is that they do not allow any direct human contact. All I'm allowed to do is appeal again via that same form I used the first time, but with the stern warning that each time the appeal is rejected, subsequent appeals will be treated with more and more distrust (or words to that effect).

The Google help forums are full of people in similar situations - no doubt the majority of them are innocent too. But there is just no way to do anything about it.

This is sooooo wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I feel like an ant, being squished under the Google corporate foot.

The End.

Thank you for listening.

EDITED to correct product. I had said AdWords in original post, when I meant AdSense.

[mikeshinn]

For what its worth, we dropped our adwords account earlier this year. Surprisingly googles own statistics showed we were not getting any ROI on the ads, despite paying for them. So frankly I'm not sure its worth it.

No ROI, heres a bill, have a nice day. No thanks.

[faris]

Yeah...it was not a financial loss - but it was a moral loss

Thanks though!

[mikeshinn]

Thats really a shame they wont tell you. I thought adwords had an 800 number you could call. We got emails all the time that a google rep would help us to get the most of our adwords account. Maybe this is it?

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum81/3946.htm

The toll-free phone number for Google Advertising is:
1-866-2-GOOGLE
(466453)

[Highland]

Google's Achilles heel is their near-complete lack of support. We had an issue with Google Checkout that left some money sitting in limbo. The stunning thing is that Google has no phone support anywhere. Even if that is Google's phone number, I seriously doubt you'll get anyone who can help you there (ours was resolved purely by email). Google has offered us phone support only for optimizing our Adwords account. I would stay on the forums and be loud. The forums are, sadly, the only place where I've ever gotten any kind of answers from a Google employee.

We don't use Google Checkout anymore. Too much trouble for not enough traffic.

[faris]

I had meant AdSense not AdWords. Oops.

Yes, they have a number you can call if you pay them. But if they pay you, forget it

[mikeshinn]

Google has offered us phone support only for optimizing our Adwords account.

Us too, so it could be thats all that number is good for.

[Kalimari]

Google has offered us phone support only for optimizing our Adwords account.

Google provide support for Adwords because Adwords makes money for Google - they need our ad's to be successful.