February 29th - Google Suspends Lots of Small Adsense Accounts?
Submitted by Gary on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 17:36.
On friday I got good news - many of my newer blog sites finally got a page rank from Google. However, my celebration was short lived when I received the 'account suspended' message from Google for my Adsense account. In doing some research I discovered that many small Google Adsense accounts were suspended on February 29th. So, is this part of some strategy on the part of Google?
I have of course appealed and will await the outcome of that appeal.
What is very strange is that the email said my account posed 'a significant risk' to advertisers. In effect, no reason was given for the action.
It goes without saying that I don't click on my own ads - why would I? I couldn't possibly match my hourly pay doing so so its uneconomic to do that but then I am not accused of false or fraudulent clicking - or am I? Therein lies the issue - I am not sure what I am accused of so how can I appeal against charges that are not specified?
What I see in common with others who received this email on February 29th is that all the accounts were small - ie - none had yet reached the magic $100 pay out number. I have had my account 5 or so years but never really put any effort into it. For most of that time, it was two small websites and simply generated a few cents a month. over the past 2-months, I created several blogs and worked hard to promote them with the result that I started to generate clicks and revenue. Not huge revenue but substantially more than in the previous 48-months.
For now, I am working on the idea that the sudden rise in clicks triggered some automated program to cut in and suspend my account. I have other more sinister theories which I may post later. For now, I'll appeal.
Meanwhile, it gives me an opportunity to try some alternative solutions and write some articles about them. And if I don't get Google Adsense account back - no big deal. I have never been an Adsense fan anyway.
DigitalPoint.com Discussion
There appears to be a discussion of this article at www.digitalpoint.com. Not being a member I cannot participate. Here are some additional details though for the posters there...
I had the account for about 4-5 years. It generated less than 50 cents a month all that time as it was used for one small blog site.
Three months ago I created 3-4 other blog sites and started to promote them with the result that I made over $6 in February on that Adsense account.
Not much I know but progress and March was looking even better.
In total there was around $65 in the account.
I was not suspended for clicking on my own ads so far as I know - the email simply says my account poses a risk to Google's advertisers.
In doing some research on how best to appeal, I discovered that on February 29th many other folks were suspended with the same email - all were like me - very small accounts.
Just on thursday Google announced to a dsspointed stock market that its total clicks in January had declined for the first time and it was seeking to cut costs.... Am I a casualty?
Here is the actual email
While going through our records recently, we found that your AdSense account has posed a significant risk to our AdWords advertisers. Since keeping your account in our publisher network may financially damage our advertisers in the future, we've decided to disable your account.
Please understand that we consider this a necessary step to protect the interests of both our advertisers and our other AdSense publishers. We realize the inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and cooperation.
If you have any questions about your account or the actions we've taken, please do not reply to this email.