It's Official! Google AdSense fired us!

Here is the email that I received from Google AdSense about a month ago:
<pre>This message was sent from a notification-only email address that does not
accept incoming email. Please do not reply to this message.
---------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

After reviewing our records, we've determined that your AdSense account
poses a risk of generating invalid activity. Because we have a
responsibility to protect our AdWords advertisers from inflated costs due
to invalid activity, we've found it necessary to disable your AdSense
account. Your outstanding balance and Google's share of the revenue will
both be fully refunded back to the affected advertisers.

Please understand that we need to take such steps to maintain the
effectiveness of Google's advertising system, particularly the
advertiser-publisher relationship. We understand the inconvenience that
this may cause you, and we thank you in advance for your understanding and
cooperation.

If you have any questions or concerns about the actions we've taken, how
you can appeal this decision, or invalid activity in general, you can find
more information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

</pre>
Here is the reply after the appeal:
<pre>Hello,

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.

As a reminder, if you have any questions or concerns about your account,
the actions we've taken, or invalid activity in general, you can find more
information by visiting
http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=57153.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

</pre>
I am actually quite puzzled by all of this.* I have seen Google AdSense advertisements all over the internet.* It seems to be quite a popular way to fund sites.* I thought surely this would be a way to have a very limited and targeted method to deliver ads and have it support this site without asking for donations or putting up with ads from companies that sell penis pills and weight loss plans.

Boy, was I wrong!

It seems Google is quite large. Over 24,000 employees.* Lots of brilliant scientists, engineers, sales and marketing folks.* Except in their Google AdSense division.

Google has a lot of patents and they have developed some very useful systems and technologies that are used by millions of people every day.* Except in their Google AdSense division.

Google is rated as THE if not ONE OF THE best search engines out there.* As a matter of fact, I'll bet within a few hours of posting this, it will appear on some high level executives desk over at the Google headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. Hell, it may even hit the desk of Mr. Page or Mr. Brin by tomorrow.

Why am I puzzled?* Why all of this ranting? Because I don't get it. We seem to "pose a risk of generating invalid activity" according to Google AdSense.

WTF? Generating invalid activity? WTF does that mean? You mean you have the ability to narrow down my searches to give me the best possible results with your supercomputers and search engine technology, but, you can't filter out "invalid activity" generated from someones cat sitting on their keyboard?* WTF?

Anyway, all of this ranting has made me ponder where we would like to head with all of this Donations vs. Advertising stuff.* Many of you have already spoken and it seems that most like the Ad-Free zone that TrawlerForum has to offer.* I use and have used many products from folks on the internet that rely on donations for their continued existence. Many offer very good products without all of the advertising trash that clutters the site.

If and when we do advertise it will be with advertisers that have participated in discussions on this forum in the past. Boaters such as yourselves. Not advertisements sold by some twenty something marketing major that can't tell the difference between a trawler and a trowler.

My new home page has been changed from Google to Bing. I am convinced that Google is just like the rest of some of those over size companies that are largely run by complete idiots without a clue. I fired Bank of America a few months ago because they were able to finally convince me that they didn't know what they were doing.

In the words of Donald (God I hope he's not the next president) Trump:

Google, you're fired!

I must apologize, I shouldn't have clicked the ads a couple of times. After looking they were not of any interest but I guess that put you over the top.

Maybe if they had given you a chance with a few more ads with a wider range and a bit of actual time for the initial flurry of clicking to settle down it might have worked out.
Maybe they have gone Hollywood where the TV shows must garner an instant audience of 400,000,000 viewers or get cancelled, no develop the audience time and maybe actually have to do a bit of work to attract an audience.

My rant is done.
Clark


-- Edited by C lectric on Thursday 7th of April 2011 11:20:25 AM

Very strange indeed.* Who blows more money on toys than boat owners?* I would have thought that the demographics of this site would be right in the sweet spot for advertisers.

And maybe that's yet another reason I'm not rich - WTF do I know?

*

I spent a lot of my money on booze, birds and fast cars - the rest I just squandered.
George Best

BaltimoreLurker wrote:
Very strange indeed.* Who blows more money on toys than boat owners?* I would have thought that the demographics of this site would be right in the sweet spot for advertisers.

Click to expand...

*Yes, my thoughts exactly.* I'll bet most of our members have jobs or good income from trust funds or annuities.* Most also have homes.* And better yet, almost every single one has a very nice boat!

*

Starting with the observation that I think that Google is Satan's corporate operations wing, I kind of understand the problem.* Google ad words charges advertisers each time someone has the ad dished up to them (I think).* There is an additional fee when it is clicked on.* With that model they shouldn't be putting ad words on Forum sites at all since the same eyeballs are generating the presumed traffic.*

At least I think that might be the issue.* That, or the fact that they are just *******s.

dougd1 wrote:*almost every single one has a very nice boat!

Click to expand...

*Not me. I gots me a YACHT!!

Or some such other*name as defined in another thread

*SD

Who needs google ads anyway? They just clutter the screen and get in the way.

What do you say we start discussing a modest annual fee to help offset the costs of maintaining this site. How many regular users are there on the site? What's a modest fee? To me, it's $20-30 annually.

I would gladly pay a small annual fee to support a site that I visit daily and glean so much helpful info from.

I love the ad free zone and access to this site. I would gladly donate $20 a year if I could do so through paypal.

Budds Outlet wrote:
I love the ad free zone and access to this site. I would gladly donate $20 a year if I could do so through paypal.

Click to expand...

*Just click the link below at the bottom of the page and donate away.

*

OK webmasters... let us know how many registered users we have, how much it'll cost to keep us going, and give us a financial picture. I recall Boatdiesel is about $50 a year... I belonged for a year, got the info I needed, and didn't renew. This free stuff cannot last forever.

What'll it take to keep you guys afloat? Maybe you could charge double for guys posting to OTDE.

I thought the ads thing was a great idea. They were unobtrusive, and potentially useful for the members, while at the same time helping pay for the site. I can confirm that the ads we got down-under were for largely local boat products/equipment related businesses. It seemed win-win all round. I actually conducted some 'invalid activity' it would seem, checking this out for Doug and John. The only flaw would appear to be that Google are too greedy, and were charging too much each time someone happened to click on an add to see if there as anything of interest? How could site users know this was going to disadvantage the advertisers, by (I assume that's what 'invalid activity' means) innocently looking at the ad, and maybe not buying..? Isn't that what ads are for? To be looked at, and hopefully prompt a sale if the item is what the clicker is wanting? Surely any ad, no matter how good must take a lot of hits per actual sale, so surely the cost per hit needs to be suitably low, or no wounder they would have unhappy advertisers. How often does greed spoil a good thing, eh? This...sadly is another example...it stinks, and I also will change my browser search engine now in protest. I will also drop in a donation.

I think requiring an annual fee could restrict new users from signing up. Donations, and the shameless requests for them , are by far the best way to go. If the donations route can't support the weight of the traffic, then we could discuss other options. Things like restricting the number of visits to keep bandwidth down or a "premium" membership (like BoaterEd) structure that won't allow picture attachment or avatars without upgrading your account while still allowing free access to the lurkers among us. There are lots of options that we could try before we start requiring a membership fee for everyone. That, IMHO, will kill this community.

How about - you can read anything for free, you have to pay to post?

Well guys, I tried to donate, but what do you do when the only way to do so is to start a Paypal account, and it keeps rejecting my legitimate email address, so I can't get past it's bloody thought police, to register and pay. I am the only one with the email address, yet it keeps saying it can't accept, so I'm done for now - very frustrating going round and round. It would have been much easier to just do it via credit card direct, but that's not an option, it appears, sorry.

Peter B wrote:
Well guys, I tried to donate, but what do you do when the only way to do so is to start a Paypal account, and it keeps rejecting my legitimate email address, so I can't get past it's bloody thought police, to register and pay. I am the only one with the email address, yet it keeps saying it can't accept, so I'm done for now - very frustrating going round and round. It would have been much easier to just do it via credit card direct, but that's not an option, it appears, sorry.

Click to expand...

*Peter, like you, I avoid PayPal like the plague, but I think the donation wizard will allow you to use a cc.* It did for me.

*

I see that the DONATE button allows use of a credit card OR Paypal.

OK - time to start doing something about this.* Screw GOOGLE.* I like this forum, appreciate the input from all and don't want it to go away.*

I'm in for $25 - just donated via paypal.*

I get WAY more than $25 value per year....and I challenge all members/lurkers to do the same.* Let's keep this forum alive and ours with no ads! *

Thanks guys!!!! It is truly appreciated. And more importantly, thanks for your contribution by participating and sharing your thoughts and ideas with the rest of the forum!!!!

Ok, well, for what it's worth, I finally managed it. For some reason down here in Oz, we don't get the credit card option, when we click on our country, we see the American Express Card option disappears. However, worked out it was my wife Doralle, who had an existing Paypal account on the M/C so was able to use that. Where there's a will there's a way, as they say......

I just did my donation. I was not really happy that it forced me to use PayPal. Even though I filled out all the info on the credit card side, I guess because PayPal has my email and picked it up, It some how would not accept my donation with out using Paypal. Any way the money is on the way. Thanks guys for a great site. We have been cruising so much for the past year that I haven't been as involved as much as I once was but it's all good!! Thanks again!