I set up Site Targeting Ads on Google Adwords and a few weeks later I've noticed that some of the sites that supposed to display my ads are not displaying any ads at all (not only mine but any, none) or are not displaying my ads while I have many showings of my ads reported on those sites and my account was charged. One of them is 2CHECKOUT.COM. Therefore I stopped ALL my site-targeting campaigns on Google. Here's an email I received from Google: Hello ( ... ), Thank you for your email. After consulting your issue with our technical team, we have determined that there was a temporary error in our site targeting program. Since www.2checkout.com does not display ads from Google, please delete this website from your site-targeted list in order to avoid any further charges while we work to resolve this issue. I apologize for this error and for any inconvenience it may have caused. Also, to thank you for your patience while we investigate your situation, I'd like to offer you a credit of US$1.00 toward your Google AdWords account. If you'd like to accept this credit, reply to this message with your confirmation. After we process your credit, you'll see it reflected on your Billing Summary. To view the credit on your Billing Summary, please allow a couple of days and then follow these steps: 1. Log in to your account at https://adwords.google.com/. 2. Click the 'My Account' tab. 3. Review the 'Billing Summary' page. The credited amount appears as an adjustment for the current month. If you encounter any similar situations in the future, please let us know. If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords. Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available. Jason D. The Google AdWords Team
If Adwords makes this kind of stupid error, how you can trust if for example an site that in this case shows googles ads but are charging you incorrectly. For example, yesterday I tried a new site: they do show google ads. But after 20000 impressions I got a few click from my best flash ad - very strange. How can I trust that I got these 20000 impressions? Also the site owner would no be producing fraudulent clicks due the problem is that I got almost no click! this case is more difficulty to trust. And congratulations - you discovered a serious billing fraud/mistake from the biggest Internet company and you have a $1,00 credit.
Well, you should have known right away that 2CHECKOUT wouldn't use Google AdSense anymore. However, they could have used it when they were just starting out and then just stopped. A lot of people would have done the same thing.....They only gave you $1.00 for that mistake though? Tell them you'll sue and see how much you get
if you accept the compensation your basically waivering any future compensation claims that may arise if this is a big error. If i were you i wouldnt accept it and wait a while (1-2mths). Then claim it later, from the looks of it theres no time limit on it. Good luck!
Don't use the "suggestion" tool for site targeting. The sites that are returned using that method (typing in a work like "webmaster" instead of specifying a url) will return a list of, well, garbage. I noticed sites being returned in the "suggested list" that were: Down (page cannot be displayed) Adult (only one or two) Completely unrelated (demographic and/or topic) Did not have Adsense running If you're going to use site targeting your better off building your own list of sites. I use the following method: 1) Search your target phrase in Google, Yahoo & MSN. 2) Scrape the top 25 - 50 urls from each result set. 3) Enter them in Adwords - it will tell you how many accept advertising (i.e. have Adsense). 4) Check each site you decide to run on to determine if it meets your advertising criteria. 5) Pick the ones you want and let it fly. Not a perfect method but it's better than letting G pick sites for you. Don't spend your money with companies you don't trust.