You Suck, AdSense
February 27, 2019 6:52 PM Subscribe
I can't access my AdSense account at all and can't get any response from the company. How can I fix this so that I can get the money they owe me? And what internet advertising company can I then move to instead?
Back in October I became aware that my knitting blog was running some ads advertising a dating website that's geared for married people who want to cheat on their spouses. I tried to access the blocking controls in my AdSense account to block this company from advertising on my site, only to find that I would only get a message that said, "We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it." At first I assumed it was just a temporary bug, but though I kept trying for several days I got nothing but the same message. I began to use the feedback option to report the problem and got no response. I tweeted at AdSense a number of times. No response, no resolution.
Well, I got busy with other things and though I would occasionally send more feedback or tweet at the company in the hopes of getting them to respond, I mostly let it drop. Then on February 19th I got an automated email from AdSense saying this:
In the last 24 hours:
New violations were detected. As a result, ad serving has been restricted or disabled on pages where these violations of the AdSense Program Policies were found. To resolve the issues, you can either remove the violating content and request a review, or remove the ad code from the violating pages.
I then tried to visit the AdSense account policy center in order to look at the report that would tell me what these violations were so that I could fix them, but I couldn't view it. All I'd get was the "unable to process your request/engineers are working on it" screen. And I still couldn't view my blocking controls, though the rest of my account seemed to be functioning.
AdSense seemingly does not offer its customers any way to contact them directly. It has an automated troubleshooter, a community forum, and a feedback system, and one can tweet at them, and that's all. I've used all four of those methods repeatedly since February 19th to no avail. The troubleshooter didn't seem to have any suitable answers for my issues. I posted in the community forum that I couldn't access the policy center or blocking controls and didn't get a single answer. I used the feedback option repeatedly -- no response. I tweeted at AdSense and got no response whatsoever.
Then yesterday morning suddenly I couldn't access my AdSense account/dashboard at all. It had been fine the night before and then on the morning of the 26th when I clicked on it to check on my earnings I just got a screen with the AdSense logo and a flashing blue bar across the top. It's been that way ever since, regardless of how I try to access my account (i.e., via my blog or directly through their website).
Though I have been using AdSense for years and haven't had any issues with them before this past October, I am pretty fed up with AdSense at this point -- I have never ever dealt with a company that simply refused to respond in any way to customer complaints -- so I guess my question is, how do I get my account to function for long enough that I can get the money in my AdSense account (as of February 25th I was just a few dollars below the $100 payout threshold), and what other internet advertising companies can you recommend as a good replacement for AdSense?
Back in October I became aware that my knitting blog was running some ads advertising a dating website that's geared for married people who want to cheat on their spouses. I tried to access the blocking controls in my AdSense account to block this company from advertising on my site, only to find that I would only get a message that said, "We apologize for the inconvenience, but we are unable to process your request at this time. Our engineers have been notified of this problem and will work to resolve it." At first I assumed it was just a temporary bug, but though I kept trying for several days I got nothing but the same message. I began to use the feedback option to report the problem and got no response. I tweeted at AdSense a number of times. No response, no resolution.
Well, I got busy with other things and though I would occasionally send more feedback or tweet at the company in the hopes of getting them to respond, I mostly let it drop. Then on February 19th I got an automated email from AdSense saying this:
In the last 24 hours:
New violations were detected. As a result, ad serving has been restricted or disabled on pages where these violations of the AdSense Program Policies were found. To resolve the issues, you can either remove the violating content and request a review, or remove the ad code from the violating pages.
I then tried to visit the AdSense account policy center in order to look at the report that would tell me what these violations were so that I could fix them, but I couldn't view it. All I'd get was the "unable to process your request/engineers are working on it" screen. And I still couldn't view my blocking controls, though the rest of my account seemed to be functioning.
AdSense seemingly does not offer its customers any way to contact them directly. It has an automated troubleshooter, a community forum, and a feedback system, and one can tweet at them, and that's all. I've used all four of those methods repeatedly since February 19th to no avail. The troubleshooter didn't seem to have any suitable answers for my issues. I posted in the community forum that I couldn't access the policy center or blocking controls and didn't get a single answer. I used the feedback option repeatedly -- no response. I tweeted at AdSense and got no response whatsoever.
Then yesterday morning suddenly I couldn't access my AdSense account/dashboard at all. It had been fine the night before and then on the morning of the 26th when I clicked on it to check on my earnings I just got a screen with the AdSense logo and a flashing blue bar across the top. It's been that way ever since, regardless of how I try to access my account (i.e., via my blog or directly through their website).
Though I have been using AdSense for years and haven't had any issues with them before this past October, I am pretty fed up with AdSense at this point -- I have never ever dealt with a company that simply refused to respond in any way to customer complaints -- so I guess my question is, how do I get my account to function for long enough that I can get the money in my AdSense account (as of February 25th I was just a few dollars below the $100 payout threshold), and what other internet advertising companies can you recommend as a good replacement for AdSense?
Do you have enough page views for mediavine or adthrive? Ezoic?
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 8:51 PM on February 27, 2019
posted by never.was.and.never.will.be. at 8:51 PM on February 27, 2019
on the morning of the 26th when I clicked on it to check on my earnings I just got a screen with the AdSense logo and a flashing blue bar across the top.I've been seeing that too. The mobile link works for me: https://www.google.com/adsense/m/
posted by Knappster at 9:16 PM on February 27, 2019
Shot in the dark, but have you tried logging into your account from another browser or device? It's possible you're using deprecated hardware/software that can't properly display the site, or have extensions or scripts running that might interfere with the account page loading completely. This help forum post from 2012 had a couple people resolving an issue with the same error message by disabling DoNotTrackPlus and AdBlock for Firefox on Google domains, for instance.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:50 PM on February 27, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by Rhaomi at 11:50 PM on February 27, 2019 [5 favorites]
Small claims court.
Google do this to people every day. The only thing that will make them stop this bullshit is if they face some consequences for doing so. If you take them to small claims court, they will have to respond and explain their actions. Even if you lose the case, you will have forced them to respond to your questions. If they do not respond then you should get a default judgement.
posted by richb at 3:36 AM on March 1, 2019
Google do this to people every day. The only thing that will make them stop this bullshit is if they face some consequences for doing so. If you take them to small claims court, they will have to respond and explain their actions. Even if you lose the case, you will have forced them to respond to your questions. If they do not respond then you should get a default judgement.
posted by richb at 3:36 AM on March 1, 2019
« Older What would YOU do with this oddly-shaped space? | Is there a more common name for the dish "flaming... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by cgg at 8:17 PM on February 27, 2019