How To Get Around March 5 Google Slap?

[johnny1]

I thought it would be useful to share notes on what Google wants this time. I'm NOT looking in this thread for complaints about how Google sucks, nor am I looking for pompous messages saying things like "I haven't been hit at all." Let's have good, solid information only.

I had a site slapped which has:
- Articles
- Privacy Policy
- Contact Us
- About Us
- Terms of Use

I noticed my unslapped competitors have:
1. A float-in window grabbing email addresses in exchange for a free report. (I would have thought this would be Slap Bait, but apparently not.)
2. Lots of pictures. For example, they have pictures included with testimonials.

Johnny

[nadavs]

I had a chat with some Google representatives (and some robots). These are the (lame?) answers I received:
1) My links (privacy policy, contact us, etc.) are at the bottom of the page. I moved them up.
2) There is a lot of whitespace (I had a centered area with text). No whitespace anymore.
3) The page is not appealing (but it makes sales!). I made it appealing (according to the representative)
4) I should try to use colors (hmm...). There are colors now.
My minimum bid is still a lovely $10.

I think I'm going to have a little chat with them tomorrow and ask them for a manual QS check. I wonder what answers I will get tomorrow ("We just don't like you.")
nadavs

[PPC-Coach]

It's what your selling, nothing to do with the page.

[Barginator]

why dont you show us this page; we will tell you what we think

[chrisd]

These $10 Google slaps mostly applies to humanly flagged sites by some Google Staff. Forget all the BS about the QS and trying to figure out why.

When you get those $10 min. bid, your domain name was flagged and marked "kill".

Nothing will un-slap it, stop wasting your time.

Some people seem to make it threw the slap, but I've never seen someone share any info on that. Speculative reasons why theses make it threw:
- Their sites are years old and given a reprieve...
- They spend a lot of money every month ($100K+?)...

The $10 Google slap, is simply a mechanism for Google to control who can and can't advertise on Adwords. It's arbitrary (only Google knows why and when) and legally clever (Google hides behind the QS spiel and does not have to justify why it is refusing service to you and not others).

[PPC-Coach]

It's not controlling just newbies, it's also controlling things they dont' want to see anymore.

[chrisd]

Your right it's not just newbies....I updated my post

[mykel79]

Geographical targeting seems to play a role. The same landing page with the same keywords and a very similar ad, and similar ctr gets different quality scores in two campaigns that differ as to the geographical area they target. One dropped to poor, the other only to ok.

[PoorGuy]

Originally Posted by PPC-Coach

It's what your selling, nothing to do with the page.

So, what kind of products Google is targetting? Ringtones? Ebooks? PayDay loans? Viagra?

Originally Posted by chrisd

These $10 Google slaps mostly applies to humanly flagged sites by some Google Staff. Forget all the BS about the QS and trying to figure out why.

When you get those $10 min. bid, your domain name was flagged and marked "kill".

Okay, I kinda get this, but the question is, why these sites are flagged by Google Staff?

[GuyFromChicago]

Originally Posted by PoorGuy

So, what kind of products Google is targetting? Ringtones? Ebooks? PayDay loans? Viagra?

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/09/...w-landing.html

[chrisd]

Originally Posted by PoorGuy

Okay, I kinda get this, but the question is, why these sites are flagged by Google Staff?

It's arbitrary (only Google knows why and when) and legally clever (Google hides behind the QS spiel and does not have to justify why it is refusing service to you and not others).

I know this is frustrating but it's the truth. You will never know exactly why your site got slapped. The only entity that could know is Google and they will hide behind the QS spiel.

Google has monopolistic tendencies, when given a choice use something else...

[seradex]

Google has yet to justify their actions. I'm a "Newbie" here, but I am not a "Newbie" to the Landscape of Affiliate Marketing.

Once you're flagged, you are basically done and have to start from scratch. This usually means getting a New Domain, and building a Website from the ground up.

Calling a Google Rep has historically proven to be a waste of time as they just keep telling you to do this and that and life will be good for you. In most cases, YOU will probably know more than the Google Representitive and this only annoys them. Realistically, Google doesn't know everything, especially your own Personal Business Model and Website.

They also know that sooner or later you will just Accept what has happened and go away. At least this is what I found from my own standpoint.

From past experience, I can only say you have to start all over. In as much as this really, really sucks, imagine how the Networks and Publishers feel losing all those Affiliate Driven Sales. That can be alot of Money, and Financial Losses like that can only be assumed as being quite large.

These things hurt everyone.

Sadly, they also hurt your Customers as well. They're the innocent and unheard voices not very many of us take into account of either.

[Johu]

It's extremely arbitrary - Some of my Ad Groups were slapped to $10, others were not. They keywords were fairly similar too, as the ad groups just targeted synonyms.

[johnny1]

My unslapped competitors all sell ebooks.

[_vlada_]

johnny1, start new site. I changed them like underwear.

[veneficuz]

Originally Posted by _vlada_

johnny1, start new site. I changed them like underwear.

Did this help?

Originally Posted by mykel79

Geographical targeting seems to play a role. The same landing page with the same keywords and a very similar ad, and similar ctr gets different quality scores in two campaigns that differ as to the geographical area they target. One dropped to poor, the other only to ok.

Did you try adding the "slapped campaigns" countries to this working campaign of yours.

[_vlada_]

Helped more than waiting for Godot.

[Masterful]

Guys, my sympathies to all of whom that got slapped.

And now for a bit of advice which I hope you do not take as a lofty, condescending impartation, but an attempt to help. You will probably notice that you already know all this stuff, but the fact that you got slapped suggests that you did not comply with it all properly.

All Google wants to do is provide a quality service for their users. All of their slaps are geared towards that end. You will only get slapped if your campaign does not comply with this quality service ideal. Just make sure to do the following and you will never have to worry about being slapped again.

1) Make sure that your landing page is part of a complete site, with Contact, Privacy, Terms and Conditions, About and Site Map pages

2) Make sure that all of the pages of your site are linked together

3) Make sure that at least most of your markup is valid. A few errors here and there are negligible

4) Make sure that your keywords, ads and ad texts are all HIGHLY relevant to one another

5) And most importantly of all, make sure that your landing page has LOTS of UNIQUE and RELEVANT content on it. And I mean LOTS. No silly three-hundred-word articles

You can have opt-in boxes, loads of images and all kinds of other rubbish, but as long as there's LOTS of UNIQUE and RELEVANT content on your landing page, you will never get slapped - at least not at the present moment.

Many of you will say that you've already done all that stuff, but your having been slapped indicates that you have not, or at least not properly. Stick to those rules and you'll never have to worry when you see that Adwords is "down for maintenance" (i.e., formulating another slap).

[FredRoe]

I run over 150 different adwords campaigns, and yet I haven't been slapped on any of my sites yet. And I also have campaigns that go to one page wonders who also are not slapped. Not sure why you're having so many issues.

[bigmarvloyal]

Originally Posted by FredRoe

I run over 150 different adwords campaigns, and yet I haven't been slapped on any of my sites yet. And I also have campaigns that go to one page wonders who also are not slapped. Not sure why you're having so many issues.

I'm kinda the same although I have had one or two of my campaigns bitch slapped in the past day or so.

Guess what? After some digging, I found out why, rectified the problems and got them running back to normal.

If you get slapped, think logically about why that might have been. Does your SITE... not only landing page... really offer searchers a solution to the problem they are facing... does it really answer their questions... is it really giving them what they are looking for?

Granted, some cases of Google Slappage are uncalled for and a bit too generalist for my and many other peoples liking... but what we gonna do about it apart from have a good cry on here?

Cheers

Stewart