1:00 AM
Paul B
I've been an Adsense user for about 7 years, and over the last 3 I've made some decent money. I probably reached my highest amount last year right before the Panda update, then my traffic tanked. I went from about 200,000 page views per month here on Bauer-Power to around 40,000. Needless to say, my Adsense money hasn't been that great since before Panda.
That's why I was so surprised to get the email last Sunday. Here's what the email said:
Hello,Well isn't that vague as all hell? I went ahead and filled out the appeal form, and while I waited I Googled around to see if anyone has ever had their account re-instated. I didn't find anyone! So it wasn't surprising to when I got this email:
With our advertising programs, we strive to create an online ecosystem that benefits publishers, advertisers and users. For this reason, we sometimes have to take action against accounts that demonstrate behavior toward users or advertisers that may negatively impact how the ecosystem is perceived. In your case, we have detected invalid activity on your site and your account has been disabled.
We're limited in the amount of information we can provide about your specific violation. We understand this can be frustrating for you, but we've taken these precautionary measures because intentional violators can use this information to circumvent our detection systems.
In some cases, publishers can make significant changes to correct the violation and are willing to comply with the AdSense program policies (google.com/adsense/policies). For this reason, we offer an appeals process as an opportunity to work with you to resolve the issue. To help you with the process, we’ve created a list of the top reasons for account closure for you to review before submission at http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=2660562. Please be sure to provide a thorough analysis in your appeal, which you can submit at https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/request.py?contact_type=appeal_form and we will follow up accordingly.
Thanks for your understanding,
The Google AdSense Team
Hello,Invalid click activity? It would be nice if they can tell me on which site, or pages this was detected on so I could look for a cause, and maybe fix it, but nope. They just give you some vague mumbo jumbo about protecting proprietary detection methods. Bull crap!
Thank you for your appeal. We appreciate the additional information you've
provided, as well as your continued interest in the AdSense program.
However, after thoroughly re-reviewing your account data and taking your
feedback into consideration, our specialists have confirmed that we're
unable to reinstate your AdSense account.
Please know that, once we've reached a decision on your appeal, further
appeals may not be considered, and you might not receive any further
communication from us. Note that AdSense publishers whose accounts are
disabled for violations of our Terms and Conditions are not eligible for
further participation in AdSense. For this reason, you may not open new
accounts.
Also, accounts disabled for invalid click activity will receive no further
payment nor any reissue of previous payment. Your outstanding balance and
Google 's share of the revenue will both be fully refunded back to the
affected advertisers. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
We understand that you may want more information about your account
activity. However, because we have a need to protect our proprietary
detection systems, we're unable to provide our publishers with any details
about their account activity.
Anyway, that ship has sailed. It is what it is. Since I make most of my online money from Adsense, I thought I would look for a viable alternative. The search wasn't promising at all. I checked out the following, which you may have seen if you visited during the beginning of the week:
All of the above were utter horse crap! Now there are some people making money with those sites, but based on the crappy ads they serve, I would say most of those guys are running work from home/money making blogs. The reason I say that is those are the types of ads they run. Not exactly the kind of stuff that a sysadmin looking for a solution to a hosed up Active Directory Schema that is affecting his Exchange environment wants to see at 3:00AM. I mean, that stuff just isn't relevant to a tech blog.
I was almost going to give up, and concentrate on my video podcast more, when I heard from Karl over at AskTheAdmin.com. He said that he has been getting really good results from Technorati Media. Then it hit me that I was invited to that a few months ago. I just never implemented it because of how well Adsense was doing.
Well with Adsense out of the way, I really had nothing to lose, so that is what I am running now. The ads you see on the site are from the Technorati Media Publisher Network, and their ads are way more relevant than those above. In fact, many of the ads I see are the same ones I used to see on Adsense. Nice!
From their page:
We operate the largest social media advertising network. With our deep agency and client relationships, we ‘ll deliver targeted campaigns from top brands at high CPMs. We’ve built a national sales team with a record of success from top tier media companies including Google, MSN, Yahoo!, IGN, Hearst, CNET, Tribal Fusion, Washington Post, and Time Inc. So you can take part in campaigns from top brand advertisers and fill whatever’s left at the highest possible rates.
I just implemented them, so I can't speak to performance yet, but I am hopeful now that there is life after Adsense. The funny thing is I started this blog to share my enthusiasm with technology, not really to make any money. That was just a bonus. This little journey is making me think a little harder about that again. Still though, who doesn't want some extra cash in their pockets?
Have you recently been banned from Adsense? Found any good alternatives? Are your going to try out Technorati? Let us know in the comments!
