Banned From Adwords and Google Search in less than 24 hours. Google claims no connection..

1 Reply

EDIT: I recieved some advice from Matt Cutts that my search results pages were being indexed and interpretted by Google’s search engine as spam because they are full of duplicate cotent affiliate links to Amazon. I set all the search results pages with .htaccess and now my site is ranking well again.

This is a story of how my site was banned from Google Search and Adwords in less than 24 hours. This happened on August 23/24th. The site in question is http://filleritem.com, which helps you find filler items on amazon.com that qualify for free shipping and will put you just over the $25 limit.

I created the site seven years ago(it was the first site of its kind), and it has been mentioned in several different places on the web and off. It has recieved over a 1.25 million visitors(only 20% from organic search) since I added google analytics in 2006. The point I am trying to make is that it is a site that people want and use.

On August 24th I recieved a notification that my site was in violation of the adwords bridge page policy and my account was being suspended. I was a little surprised, but I did not really care as I have spent very little on my adwords account.

Over a month later I checked my google analytics and noticed that google traffic was very low. A search for site:filleritem.com returned no results. Something was wrong. I looked more closely and my traffic from google stopped August 23rd, less than 24 hours before recieving the adwords suspension.

My first action was to submit my site for reconsideration on google search. Then I called adwords support. I tried my best to explain to them that this is a site that people want and use, and that it shouldn’t cause me to banned. They response was basically that my site violated their bridge page policy(which I disagree with as it has unique functionality). They also claim that there was no connection between being banned on adwords and google search. I find this coincidence hard to swallow.

My reconsideration request for both my adwords account and google search have been denied. I have attached a screenshot of my adwords overview and the google analytics of google search traffic.

For me this is bad timing(november + december 3x normal for filleritem.com). While the income from this site is nothing to brag about, it is something I have come to expect and rely on. Please fix this google.

 

Vegetarian and Vegan Search Engines + Restaurant Discounts

Leave a reply

I have had quite a few requests to make veg versions of Recipe Puppy, which lets you search recipes by ingredients. In response I have created two new search engines, Vegetarian Recipe Search and Vegan Recipe Search.

I am also excited about recipe coupons and restaurant gift certificates, two very very similar new sites that make it easier to find restaurant coupons near you.

All these sites are works in progress, so let me know if anything is not working as expected.

Amazon Kindle in Linux

Leave a reply

I have started reading a lot of books on my iphone, and was hoping to install it under Ubuntu 9.10.

Unfortunately, there is is no linux version yet and the Lifehacker instructions did not work for me.

Luckily I have virtualbox installed an the Windows kindle reader installed perfectly under XP. Unfortunately you can’t search within the book, which makes my copy of The Flavor Bible a lot less useful.