[HN Gopher] Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear ___________________________________________________________________ Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear Author : kajic Score : 50 points Date : 2022-03-04 21:41 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (kajic.com) (TXT) w3m dump (kajic.com) | tragictrash wrote: | Google is not your friend and must be treated as an adversary. | J5892 wrote: | This applies to literally any public corporation. | alistairSH wrote: | Perhaps, but in a normal business partnernship, you have | contracts that spell out the terms and means of recourse. | With Google ad services, you have vague ToS spelled out by | one party and no real recourse. | dsl wrote: | Welcome to the world of blackhat SEO. If someone starts driving | up the price of ads for a targeted keyword, you generate a | massive amount of abuse and pay people to write complaints to | Google. | | From Google's perspective, they look at your account and see | activity that indicates you are doing terrible things. | | Coupons are an extremely competitive and hostile market to be in. | Not saying what happened to OP is fair or acceptable, but things | aren't always as obvious looking at them from the other side. | kurthr wrote: | Exactly, competitors may well be the source of your problems. | It's cheaper (and safer) to trash your competitors than raising | your own rankings (with SEO). | george0812 wrote: | If your business relies heavily on Google to get customers | (Adwords) or for generating revenue (Adsense, youtube, | extensions, search, ...) You are doomed. Google will/has | terminated accounts on a whim with no recourse: one day you wake | up and your business is destroyed, all you have is a vague, | automated email and no way to contact a human being. To Google | you are just a number, a statistic. They absolutely don't care | about you or your business because they have market power. | | This company is the worst partner you can ask for, a true | monopoly abusing customers and users alike. | | STAY AWAY from Alphabet! | stevespang wrote: | dangrossman wrote: | This has been my experience with Google too. | | I have a suspended Google Merchant Center account for an | ecommerce site. That's Google's service to list products for | their "shopping" search tab, which you also need to run shopping | ads. I sell some home decor items I hand make in my home workshop | with a laser cutter and paint. Nothing weird, just like "welcome | to our home" type signs. It's a standard Shopify-hosted store | with flat rate shipping, a posted shipping policy, return policy, | privacy policy, and contact page with a contact form, my address | and my phone number on it. That should check off all of Google's | requirements for a merchant center account. But, it was | immediately suspended and multiple requests to reconsider the | suspension just get me a form letter back saying my site violates | their policies. No human at Google will ever give me any specific | reason why. | | Every month or so, one of my Google Ads for another site gets | suspended for violating the policy "Certificate required: free | desktop software". This policy is about ads that link to | downloadable .exe/.zip desktop software. My ads, which have been | largely running without change for 9-10 years, are for a SaaS | analytics service for marketers. There is no desktop software or | downloadable files on the website. Just your typical | pricing/signup/login pages like any web app. There is no rhyme or | reason as to what ad in my account they will suspend each month. | I can create the same ad again and it'll be approved since there | is no actual policy violation. | | Like OP, I can easily reach a human to sell me more ads. No | matter how many times I click the unsubscribe links in their | emails or ask to opt out, they actually hound me, at every email | of mine they can find, and all my personal and business phone | numbers, to take "account review" calls where they can try to | talk me into spending more on Google Ads. But when it comes to | getting support for policy issues, nobody will talk to you. | ilamont wrote: | Good luck getting a straight, specific answer from anyone at | Google regarding supposed problems that violate one of their | vaguely worded policies. Some of the stuff flagged by their | automated systems are laughable - one that comes to mind is an ad | promoting genealogy research that was blocked for promoting birth | control. | | Not that the other platforms are much better. A nonfiction book | publisher once told me her Amazon detail page on a book about | surviving breast cancer was rejected for promoting sexual | content. Besides the description containing the word "breast", | the word "therapist" in the description was interpreted by | Amazon's "AI" as being about rape. | glaucon wrote: | > that was blocked for promoting birth control | | I can't let this pass without commenting on it. When did | promoting birth control become a problem ? Is Google run by | some religious cabal who believe that we shouldn't contradict | God's will ? I assume the intention is to keep various groups | in the USA happy ? Would be interested to know if you can | "promote birth control" outside of the USA. | dangrossman wrote: | > Google doesn't allow ads related to birth control or | fertility products in the following countries: Bahrain, | China, Djibouti, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, | Kuwait, Malaysia, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Palestinian | Territory, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, | Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Yemen | | https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/176031?hl=en | Induane wrote: | Makes me think of SNL's celebrity Jeopardy. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | https://i.imgflip.com/4600cy.jpg | mtgx wrote: | There needs to be some kind of law that mandates that a company | MUST reply to customers and/or users within a given time and | offer a proper redress process. | | I remember years ago FB would block your site and they would give | you NO OPTION to contact them - like AT ALL (they used to hide | the support chat button, and I think they still do from some | people). | | I also knew a company that got its own IG account indefinitely | suspended because malicious competitors accused it of cloning | their names, even though they were the ones doing that. There are | even some articles on Google about being able to pay people to do | this for you for like $50. | | And they could never get that account back after months of trying | to talk to FB about it or send documentation to the recommended | appeal links (all apparently useless). | | This is unacceptable from any company where you are a | customer/user, let alone multi-billion dollar companies that | definitely have all the money they need for proper support. | | If your support is this poor/non-existent, you shouldn't get to | talk about your "record-breaking multi-billion dollar profits" | quarter after quarter. | | This is something we as a society can decide upon, whether or not | these companies like that (of course they wouldn't). ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-04 23:00 UTC)