Adsense Team - Flipping Coins?

September 18th, 2006

Okay, I promise this is the last post about a couple of domains being suspended from AdSense. However, I just wanted to tell the story of two Google Adsense Team Members, Blaithin and Sandor.

When my account was suspended, I no longer had access to the e-mail associated with my Google Adsense account. I had tried to change it, but unfortunately you can’t use an e-mail address with Adsense that is connected to a regular Google account. It seems just about every e-mail address I have access to is connected with Google in some way or another. At a dead end, I just had to send a general e-mail to the Adsense team enquiring as to why my Adsense was suspended.

I recieved an e-mail back next day (which I was impressed with) from Blaithin saying “I have reviewed your account information and as your site was found to be in violation of our programme policies, it is no longer eligible for participation in the AdSense programme.”

Now the problem that was stated with the adverts is that they were “too close” to the main menu, even though one was labelled “Ads by Google” and was in a different font size. I’m not going to complain about this, it is obviously my fault, I should have been more careful to draw a distinction between the navigation and adverts. I immediately e-mailed Blaithin back, having updated the site and responded to the violation report. I gave him a summary of changes and asked it was possible to have my account reactivated.

After sending this e-mail I managed to access my old e-mail account that was associated with my Google Adsense. Sure enough I found the e-mail from Google informing me that my Adsense serving on the domain had been “suspended”. Thinking “suspended” was different to “terminated” I also e-mailed back the list of changes I made. The point of contact here was, Sandor.

The next day (impressed again) I received an e-mail back from Sandor sending me a detailed list of a few changes that he think would improve my site and bring me well inside the Adsense TOS, all looking good then. Once I had completed the changes, he instructed me to “e-mail him back if I wish to have the domain re-reviewed for inclusion”. Excellent, so I spent an hour or so making the changes. While I was making these changes I received another message from Blaithin saying (in bold letters) that the domain had been instructed by Google servers not to serve Google adverts and that my site was no longer eligible for the Google Adsense scheme, no matter what I did.

As I compared the two e-mails side by side, I realised there was obviously some kind of breakdown in either communication or policy at Google HQ. Since honesty is the best policy, I decided to e-mail Blaithin with a CC of Sandor’s e-mail and explain the situation to see if he could shed more light on the subject. I was e-mailed back again next day (impressed again, but again in bold) saying that this was incorrect and because the Google servers have been instructed not to serve ads on my site, this would not be changed.

While this was going on, I had a heck of a lot of trouble with my web hosting (no names mentioned here, but my site seemed to be down every 5 minutes). Eventually, my websites were all transferred onto a new server. While I was testing them I found that low and behold, my Google Adsense was being served again! The strange thing was, my inbox was empty. I guess the Google Adsense block is related to the location of the server, not just the domain name.

Since honesty is the best policy (don’t make me stop believing that, Google), I decided to e-mail Blaithin and explain if there were a few dozen impressions on my Google Adsense account this is due to my site inadvertently bypassing the block the Google servers had put on it, however perhaps the account could be left open as the website fully complies with Adsense TOS. Two days later (not quite as impressed) I received an e-mail from Blaithin kindly informing me that he had passed my site onto the Adsense specialists, to block again.

Again, I took this in my stride, after all - policy is policy. Perhaps Sandor was a trainee and made a mistake? I guess if there are such firm rules, everybody must be treated equally.

However, it appears not.

I found a story about a blogger named coolz0r who was in exactly the same situation as me. Due to a minor violation of Adsense TOS he received an e-mail informing him that his adverts had been suspended. However, after making the changes, coolz0r had his advert serving on the affected domain reactivated.

I understand there must be a “case by case” approach to these situations but it would be a giant stretch of the imagination to say I was intentionally violating Adsense TOS. It seems however, your treatment with the Google Adsense team seems to be pot luck, rather than policy. I have addressed a polite e-mail to Blaithin highlighting the situation. So I guess they’ll be at least one more post about my Adsense