I got a Christmas card from Google

by 5buckguy

This is a very difficult post to make, for reasons that will soon be clear, as it affects many things that I’ve done in the past, and a few recommendations that I’ve made.

Shortly before logging off for the night last night, I did a final email check, and there was an email from Google. I’ll share it with you:

Hello,

Our specialists regularly review partners participating in the AdSense network. After a thorough review of your account, our specialists found that your business model is not a good fit for the AdSense program.

As we’re no longer able to partner with you, your AdSense account will be disabled in 7 days and ad-serving will cease at that time.

Please rest assured that you will receive payment for all outstanding earnings in accordance with the standard AdSense payment schedule. However, you are not eligible for further participation in the AdSense program.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Now, just a few months ago that email would have upset me a lot. A year ago it would have made me absolutely suicidal.

Last night I stared at it for about a minute, took a deep breath, and said to myself “Well that isn’t so nice, but life will go on”.

Actually, the letter came at an interesting time, and there’s no reason to believe that Google can read my mind, or that what I’ve been working on this week caught their attention, because the review probably came prior to this week, but …

Based on Gary’s success story, I made a decision this week to at least test the effect of my mini money sites without AdSense. I removed AdSense from my highest volume site 3 or 4 days ago, and so far the results are encouraging. That site is making just as much of a profit without AdSense than it was before.

And I’ve been in the process of converting my biggest site over to the new method the last two days. There are several hundred pages in that one, so I want to make sure I get the template just right before running LP Genie on it.

You would think I would care about this news, and you’re right, I do care. It’s sort of like if you’re in a relationship with someone, and you decide it’s time to end it. And then the other person dumps you first. On one hand it’s a relief, and not so upsetting, but on the other hand you would rather be the dumper than the dumpee.

So I’ve been dumped, 4 days before Christmas. Grinch is a 6 letter word that starts with a capital G also, so fitting.

My main concern though, and the purpose of this post and the accompanying forum thread I’ll be starting, and the email that I’ll be sending out in a few minutes to alert everyone to the subject, is …

Is the problem with the Mini Money Sites business model? Have I led people astray? Have I put others at risk of receiving the same email from Google?

That’s my concern more than what will happen to my income, because I know that my income won’t be affected all that much. I have options. First of all, I was removing AdSense anyway. Second of all, I can replace the AdSense block with a Yahoo block very easily if I choose to.

In fact my friend, James Jones, has often advised me that YPN pays better than AdSense anyway. I always wanted to test that theory, but I’ve been comfortable with the fact that I can check my AdSense stats and the figures are updated every half hour or so, where YPN only posts the next day. I hate suspense. Maybe they’ve changed their reporting, guess I’ll find out soon.

When I started building mini money sites, my goal was to earn income from eBay. Then I added AdSense as an afterthought to pay part of the AdWords bills. Then I found that my pages could be profitable from AdSense alone, and all eBay income was gravy, so I didn’t mind eBay auctions shown below the fold, in the cold spot.

I never considered that what I was doing, and teaching, was Google arbitrage. Some disagreed with me. I still don’t think it is, but Google has the right to fire anyone they want from their program. What upsets me most is that there is no definitive reason for this. If eBay would have suspended me they would have given a reason, like selling pirated software, failing to pay my invoices, not purchasing items I bid on, whatever. Google, from what I’ve heard before, never gives a reason.

So why was my account terminated? I can only guess. It wasn’t for click fraud, otherwise they would have refused to pay me what they currently owe me. Do they consider what I’m doing arbitrage? Do they even ban that in their TOS? Is it because I teach others how to do what I do? Have advertisers complained about my landing pages? Or is it something else? Why didn’t they just tell me what I couldn’t do and let other sites continue, like the AdSense on my blogs?

Anyway, Gary’s results have convinced me that if I had eBay in the hot spot, I might not have needed AdSense at all, certainly his results have been encouraging.

So maybe the whole MMS model has been slightly flawed. Actually all that needs to be changed is the template (the skeleton), so I don’t think it’s the model at all, maybe just my reliance on AdSense to monetize the pages, and I suspect many of those that are using MMS’s are testing without AdSense anyway.

If not, maybe you should. Maybe it will prevent you from receiving the letter from Google that I received. Maybe it will give you a 100% ROI that Gary talks of receiving from eBay alone, rather than the smaller number that I get with eBay and AdSense combined.

Google has given me 7 days to remove AdSense from my pages. I have several thousand pages to convert. I’m sure there are thousands of pages I haven’t even thought about in years, I remember putting up some blogger blogs a long time ago that haven’t been touched. Fortunately most of my sites (except my blogs) are using a php include that pulls in the code from a single module for each site, but I have a lot of sites. Thank goodness for php includes. :-)

I checked my all time stats this morning, I’ve been with AdSense since February 2004 and have earned almost $600,000 from those ads. The flexibility to earn income that way will be missed, but life goes on.

In fact, I’m more excited than ever over the prospects for 2008. Change is exciting.

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Facebook comments:

  • http://www.philoscribe.com Dee

    Dennis, I only ‘met’ you some 5 maybe 6 months ago and during that time I have only ever observed you acting with total integrity. I’m sorry whatever has happened to upset the great God Google will cause you considerable extra work which of necessity will have to be completed over the holidays BUT I am such a believer in the fact that the Universe is always balanced. When a door closes another must open. I wish you the happiest Christmas Dennis and I also wish you a successful and prosperous 2008 – I know it will be a good year for us all in the e1kad family. As for Google? Bah, Humbug!

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  • John Kane

    Their arrogance in the email notice is nausiating. It shows the contempt it has for its “Partners”. Kind of like a drug dealer partnership instead of a business relationship. Stop giving them your dollars and stop taking their pennies.Get off that “Crack” habit in 2008.

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  • http://www.squidoo.com/learn-to-sell-products-on-ebay Claire

    After 9 or 10 years on here I have come to the conclusion that nothing is perminent. You have to do 2 things if you want to be on the web. 1. you have to be willing to change and readjust at ANY TIME and 2 you have to have thick skin. Its nothing you did Dennis its just bound to happen. If it hadn’t been adsense it would have been something else. You know when you said you took a deep breath? Well you’ve arrived. What you’re doing here in my opinion is not giving bad news, just teaching those you care about in your membership to BE READY for anything.
    That, and the fact that you are learning you didn’t need it anyway are the good things. Its also good that you are getting better at receiving the shocks. We all have to do that as hard as it is. There is no way of knowing if you are doing something they don’t like. These companies play by their own rules. You just do and change when need be. Now lets see if I can carry out my own advice the next time I get a blow lol.

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  • Janelle

    Thanks Dennis for being so open about this and sharing with people. I am still struggling to get going with my internet marketing and had been pushing hard to get Adsense income coming in. I have always had a thought in the back of my mind that it would be wise not to make Adsense the main source of income because I’ve read nightmare stories like this before. It really just drives that point home to me and I can adjust what I am working on now. As you point out there are other alternatives and I have been reading about some lately which are supposed to be better and pay more than adsense anyway. I will now make a priority of using those other methods.

    I hate how everything is geared towards pleasing Google on the internet and how they seem to have become the ‘owners’ of the internet. Their email sucks and not telling you why also sucks big time.

    I’m glad you are in a position where you don’t need them, and that this isn’t a huge blow to you like you say it would have been a year ago, say.

    Thanks again Dennis for the heads up and all the best in 2008

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  • http://www.dognaturalhealing.com Mayra

    Hey Dennis,

    I just recently joined your membership, and I have been impressed with all the material available and your honesty.

    I hate that this happened to you during Christmas season, but you will have a better New Year without the Grinch.

    I have a blog and only a couple of websites out there, but I have personally never been a fan of Adsense. Actually, I just recently removed Adsense from my blog. I am still looking for a way to monetize it. I hope I do not have to go back to Adsense!

    And, as someone else said earlier, it was meant to happen.

    I read something today, that made a lot of sense to me.

    It was the story of a very poor man and his wife, who were visited by the greatest Kabbalist in the world. The Kabbalist asked the man and his wife for food, which included fine meat, vegetables and good wine. The poor man and his wife, only had a scrawny cow, from which they fed themselves with cheese and mild. The poor man decided to immediately sell the cow, and get the supplies for the wise man meal. The great Kabbalist ate tons of food, and then left with his students. The poor man’s wife was very concerned about their future and what they were going to eat. The poor man, unable to bear the sight of his weeping wife left and started walking through the forest. While there, an old, rich man found the poor man, Joseph, and told him that he wanted to leave him his money, because his family were like vultures, waiting for him to die to get his money. The rich man died, and the poor man gets all his money that was buried someplace in the forest. Few years later, the Kabbalist went again by the same area where the poor man and his wife lived, and noticed that they were now wealthy. The Kabbalist, then told the students: “it was the poor man’s destiny to be joyful and fulfilled, but he never thought to ask for everything that was really meant for him. He would have been content to spend the rest of his life with his one scrawny cow. That’s why I had to help him get rid of it.”

    So, you have to think of Google as the “scrawny cow”.

    Best wishes to you.

    Mayra

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  • Kristi

    Wow, I got a Christmas gift from Google too but it was a pretty cool gift card and a mini-drive. Sorry to hear of your trouble. The manner in which you’re handling the situation speaks volumes of your character. I’m honored to have you as a guide and look forward to becoming active in the forum.

    Kristi

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  • http://www.5bucksaday.com 5buckguy

    I received that gift package from Google earlier this month. I still have to figure out who to donate the gift to, but the flash drive doesn’t seem to work on my Vista computer.

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  • http://www.webwritinginfo.com Courtney

    Dennis,

    It sounds like Google sped up the process you were planning anyway. It’s almost like they dumped you before you could dump them! Although the work to remove the Adsense will be time consuming, I’m excited to read about your results in the new year!

    Courtney

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