I got banned from AdWords

Posted under Affiliates PPC, PPC news by Erez Zundy

I’m not sure what just happened, but today when I looked at my account I realized that I didn’t get any click for 4 days. I got nervous since I know Google is on a crusade to find affiliates and kill their accounts. So before I freaked out I checked my keywords, and all of them were with QS higher that 6 when most of them with quality score higher than 8. Then, I checked if my ads were disapproved for some reason, but all my ads were on “active”. This is when I thought to my self that my account is probably under review and my ads will run again soon. After all, I didn’t get any warnings about low quality score. Boy was I wrong!

I contacted AdWords support, asking them when will my ads be active again. I got an email saying that I got banned! :

Hello Erez,

Thank you for your email. I understand that you are concerned about your
ads not running. Please know that your Google AdWords account has been
disabled due to multiple violations of our advertising policies, including
violations after final warning, related to Landing Page and Site Quality,
in a related account. As a result, your ads will no longer run though the
Google AdWords system and we are unable to accept advertising from you in
the future. Please note that future AdWords accounts you open will also be
disabled.

As part of our commitment to making the AdWords experience safe and
effective for our users and our advertisers, we routinely review the
landing pages that our advertisers promote through our search and content
networks.  If we find that an advertiser has submitted poor quality
landing pages that do not comply with our advertising policies, including
the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines, we reserve the right to take
account-level action.

Landing pages advertised via AdWords must have relevant, original content,
and must be transparent about the nature of the business being promoted.
Further, advertisers are prohibited from promoting certain types of sites,
which include, but are not limited to:

* Data collection sites that imply delivery of free items, etc., in order
to collect private information
* Arbitrage sites without relevant and original content that are designed
for the purpose of showing ads
* Affiliate sites without relevant and original content that are designed
to drive traffic to another site with a different domain
* “Get-rich quick” sites that make unrealistic promises
* Sites that are deceptive
* Sites that distribute malware or spyware
* Extremely misleading/unverifiable or inaccurate claims

Please note that this action is related to sites that have recently been
advertised through your related account. In a review of your related
account’s history, we found that your related account had submitted
multiple sites that merited poor landing page quality evaluations.
Although these sites may have been corrected or removed since our latest
review, advertisers that have a history of promoting poor quality landing
pages are subject to account-level disabling.

Then I got really nervous! and angry! I didn’t get any warnings! Ever! . Not only that, but I really had no active campaigns that where promoting any of the site they mentioned as prohibited for promoting. I did try to promote the acai berry once but this campaign ran for about a week and that I paused it. I was promoting everything “by the book” and didn’t use any method that an SEM agency wouldn’t use.

I was really clueless, and I still am. Google won’t return my emails since then.

A friend of mine, that was banned last week, came up with a theory that Google some how noticed that his account was once used from the same PC as mine, and then they thought they are linked to each other and this is why I got banned. But I guess I can’t really know.

I guess what I need to do now is find a way to get back on AdWords. I heard some people managed to do that, but it might be just a rumor. I also heard of people that tried many times but Google always got on their tracks.

This is a real pain in the ass. I got tips from people that I need to open a new company and use its CC, change my IP and billing address, and even replace my computer. Oh, and I not can’t use any Google product so they won’t get on my track. Seems difficult, but i worth the shot. I hope it works.

Few things are on my mind right now:

• Is this the end of affiliate marketing in Google? Or just the end of the lazy, scheming, and just wrong affiliate marketing? Anyway, I’m sure things are going to change.
• I guess that more people will promote their affiliate offer in Bing and Yahoo. Maybe these engines will get more search volume because of it. After all, if many affiliates are now using Bing and not Google, other people might start using it too.
• The final and most important thing that is on my mind is – will I ever get back on AdWords or will I need to find income from other sources. I hope that the answer is yes for both parts of the question.

If anyone that is reading this post has ever got banned and managed to get back on AdWords, please contact me. I would appreciate it.

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