Google - Business or Money Grubbers?

Based on my sole opinions, which granted, I am a hot head and an opinionated woman who does not have an issue with speaking her mind. Hold on to your seats, because I may blow you away...

This morning started out as any other morning might have. I woke to my beautiful family asking for breakfast and play time and computer time and the all time, every day question...do you really have to work on that computer today? I read my e-mails, started my normal marketing procedures, spent some time thinking of new topics to write about and kissed my babies...all 5 of them about 500 times.

And then I receive this e-mail from Google:

"Hello Melanie A Winters,

It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s) through users of third-party programs paid or provided with other incentives to visit your site. Such programs include, but are not limited to auto-surf, pay-to-surf, pay-to-read, or pay-to-click sites.

Please bear in mind that if we continue to detect invalid clicks or impressions from these services on your ads, we may disable your account to protect our advertisers. In addition, we may adjust your future payments for any days during which invalid clicks occurred in order to properly credit advertisers for any invalid activity.

We understand that you may wish to receive specific information regarding the invalid activity we observed on your account. However, due to the proprietary nature of our algorithm, we cannot disclose any details about how our monitoring technology works or what specifics we found on your account.

As a reminder, any method of generating invalid clicks or impressions is strictly prohibited by our Terms and Conditions and program policies:

https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?hl=en_US

https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

For your reference, you can find tips and guidelines for keeping your account in good standing by visiting our Help Center at https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=23921&hl=en_US.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team"

Whoa...shock me into the living faster then a double shot of espresso would have! My Google Adsense account has had $4.54 in it for the last few weeks. This is my total earnings since I started displaying their PAID FOR BY THE ADVERTISER advertisements on my web site. I immediately log into my account and find that this balance hasn't changed. So, you ask...what did change then?

I started promoting my site! That's what changed. I have been using traffic exchanges to reach out to other people who work from home and have the ability to earn real money paid by me to them for joining my affiliate program. This is against Google's policies. Go figure, if 1000 people visit my site, and see a link unit listing 5 other candle sites and decide to price check or compare or even buy...yes, I did say BUY...from a competitor, this goes against Google's policies.

So as an advertiser, you are paying to for key words to get lost in the shuffle with at least a million others. Google is taking your money, investing it and making a fortune, and laughing all the way to the bank about that poor slob who pays to have the term "soy candles" show their website somewhere amongst the other 1.1 million sites that have that word as one of their keywords as well. You would be better off to contact each one of those top 20 web sites and tell them you'll pay them to show your link for a month.

Google's main message to you is to stop promoting your site! I have a message clearly written for Google to see right on their very own chalkboard. Keep your $4.54!!

Incentives are one of the games of getting shoppers to your site or retail store. If I can't use a pay-to-surf, pay-to-read, auto-surf, manual-surf or pay-to-click site to get people to my store, then I obviously cannot use a discount, buy one get one offer, gift certificate or any other type of promotional material. And since I do offer specials on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to my customers, I just removed everyone of your link units from my website. Which leaves your advertisers back to attempting to find another site to show their links, because they just lost mine.

Google's automated e-mail full of accusations sent me into a void swirling with rage and frustration. Their accusations were invalid, incorrect, uncalled for and unfounded. Pretty serious accusations to make without any proof of wrong doing. Unfortunately, I don't have the funds to keep a lawyer on call, or you can bet your bottom dollar that I would sue their rear ends from here to kingdom come even if I can't win because it's clearly outlined in their "fine print".

And just so we are clear..this was my answer to Google:

"To Whom It May Concern:

All reference to Google will be removed from my site today. My balance with you has not changed since I started promoting this site through traffic exchanges, and in my attempt to promote my site, I had no idea that any extra traffic provided to Google advertisers would be a bad thing. Your attempt to accuse me of invalid clicks is uncalled for, incorrect and invalid, not to mention a serious accusation to make without knowing any of the facts. I will be sure to promote the fact that Google does not want to help their advertisers get traffic in any way, but instead wishes to take their money and run with it.

Yours in success,

Melanie Winters"

My final word....

Google can kiss my royal behind on broadway. I will not use their services any longer, nor give them advertising space for pennies. Anyone interested in exchanging links with me, well ....contact me. I'll be happy to take some money out of Google's pocket and let you keep it in yours while I promote your link!