Adwords account suspended for talking about SEO. Why isn't Moz suspended, too?
-
First let me say that we don't care that much about Adwords. We were spending about 20 bucks a month and we never optimized it, tinkered with it, or cared that much. Business is booming for us just with organic search and referrals from happy customers. (We're a blog writing service called BlogMutt. Motto: We work like a dog to fill up your blog.)
But we just got suspended from Adwords. After multiple inquiries and multiple unhelpful responses, we got a note that said: "Please note that your website contains matter which states your site's SEO increases. Anything which relates to SEO is not allowed as per Google Policies. Please make appropriate changes to your website."
Now, we don't say your site's SEO increases with BlogMutt. What we do say is what everyone says, that blogging is a best practice for any modern marketing effort. We certainly are less clear about improving search rankings than, for example, moz.com. Why is it OK for Moz, but not for us?
Don't get me wrong. I think Moz should be able to continue advertising. I'm just wondering how we got into the Adwords crosshairs.
Any thoughts?
-
I wonder if that's it.
I forgot about that text, wrote it like two years ago. I'll scour through the site, see if I find any others like that.
I still wonder how this got on Google's radar. I just did a search for the offending phrase there "SEO improves" and I see a bunch of advertisers who are violating this rule on their home pages AND in the ad itself.
That is, how is it that I'm in trouble for two words on an inside page and another guy can advertise: "Guaranteed Page One SEO" and get the second ad spot?
-
I do see on this page https://www.blogmutt.com/pages/customer there is a How It Works with the following:
- We write a blog post on the suggested topic using the ideal number of keywords.
- You post the content to your blog.
- Your site's SEO improves.
- Through your blog, you will engage new customers.
Could it be that they feel this is a guarantee that you can't back? I'm not saying anything against you or your company here, but just trying to see where Google might find an issue with things. One of the conditions in Advertiser Claims is "All advertising claims must be factually supportable." https://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/1331529?hl=en&ref_topic=1310871
-
See images below. And thanks in advance for any insights.
-
OK, here are two images. One is just the notice that's at the top of my adwords screen when I'm logged in. The second is the note I got from Google after I requested an appeal.
It's really mysterious. The part about SEO is the most specific they've gotten with us, and it still doesn't really make sense.
Any ideas are most welcome! I don't belong to any PPC forums because it's such a small part of our overall efforts, so I'd much rather get an answer here.
6a00d8357e4fe369e201a73dd2f8b1970d-pi 6a00d8357e4fe369e201a73dd2f8ac970d-pi
-
OK, since you are the second person to ask, I will get some screen shots and post them here.
I guess that's kind of my question, but it's more like, "Why is it that we got singled out for doing something that lots of great and reputable companies -- such as Moz -- do every day?"
And thanks for looking at our site. I think the only place we mention SEO is in the video, so maybe that's what we need to change, but we make a claim that is much much milder than any of the SEO software providers or consultants.
-
I know! Something doesn't add up!
Yes, I'm 100 percent sure it's legit stuff from Google.
I think they reply to all requests for appeal, no matter the amount. I do think Google does not consider dollar amounts when deciding to suspend, and just goes off the rules.
And I understand that they don't want people gaming the system so they can't give advice that's too specific.
But I still just don't understand what's going on here.
-
I think a screen shot would be most helpful to understand the issue at hand - including who the email came from and the part that you've bolded "your site's seo increases." To me, this doesn't read as a full sentence. And, when I look at your site, your site doesn't actually say anything about SEO on the home page.
When you log into your account what do you see?
If AdWords traffic doesn't matter, then could you explain what type of resolution you are looking for in this Q&A? Is your question "why can other sites advertise on terms like 'SEO'?"
-
Something doesn't add up here. If you do a search for "SEO" the page is littered with ads for SEO companies. Are you sure that this email was from an Adwords representative? If you're spending $20 a month, I would be surprised if you could get a rep to respond.
-
Hmmm, I still don't know why your account would have gotten flagged simply for "being about SEO" so something is definitely up... I would suggest submitting your story to the big SEO/PPC news sites like searchenginewatch.com, searchengineland.com, searchenginejournal.com, etc. because people need to be aware of this and then maybe you will get a more detailed response from Google.
-
The ads were pretty generic. Our most used was: "Customized, weekly blog posts to help you connect with customers."
The violation was for our landing page, which is the same as our home page: https://www.blogmutt.com. There's nothing there about SEO. The video does say that blogging can help you get found by people searching on Google, but that's way less of a claim than Moz or any of the other content providers.
So, that's why I wonder why we got flagged. We've had to kick out some writers because they were rotten writers, and I wonder if one of them was so mad that he reported our ads to Google and that's why we got suspended. We'll probably never know that, but that's about the only theory I can come up with.
-
What did the ads say? And the landing pages? There are tons of AdWords advertisers that bid on SEO-related keywords, so this is the first time I've ever heard of anything like this.
-
That line is the only useful part of that email. The rest is just account details.
It is directly from Google as a response to our request for an appeal of our suspension.
And we do our own, we don't use an agency or third-party for our adwords.
-
hi Scott,
Is it possible to grab a screenshot of that note? Is it from Google? Or some other SEO agency/advertiser you got that message?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Linking Adsense to an Anaytics account
Hi Ive linked an adsense account to the relevant sites GA account but cant see an approporiate new section in GA with the Adsense data in it! I presume there should now be ? If so where should it be and if its not there what's likely cause/fix ? All Best Dan
Paid Search Marketing | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
What is the SEO value of Thomasnet
Ok, the company I work for has had a paid listing on Thomasnet.com. This was started long before I took over the marketing. We get no real value from Thomasnet, just a lot of solicitation for unrelated things. And my company has been paying $15,000 a year for this listing. Thomasnet is a huge waste of money and I want to cancel it. The problem is that I do not have a good understanding of the link value from Thomasnet. They have a high domain authority and we have a good number of links from them because we pay for the listing. If we stop paying, those links go away and I am afraid it will hurt us in our rankings. Any insights? Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | dloeschen0 -
Will PPC elsewhere on my domain help my organic SEO?
I have an e-commerce site with a small product line which an on-going organic SEO campaign. As a side project, I'm planning on doing some PPC testing with a highly converting product squeeze page, which I'll run Google ads to gain traffic. (this is PPC only and for this page I am not concerned with organic SEO traffic - although of course the page itself will be fully optimized). I am wondering whether to run this squeeze page on a sub-domain or sub-directory of the existing site, OR to host it on a completely fresh domain? I would like to know if as side-effect my existing Website benefit 'organically' from some of the PPC traffic, helping with it's domain authority, etc.,? or could this possibly do any harm? p.s. Bear in mind this is not going to be a page visible on the on the main site itself, it's a separate entity for PPC. Would be great to have some expert Moz eyes on this and opinions. Thanks!
Paid Search Marketing | | GregDixson0 -
Adding nyc to a keyword in Google Adwords
Hello. If I have a keyword in Google Adwords that is using phrase match ("keyword"), could it be useful to add the keyword phrase "keyword nyc"? Even if I did not add the second keyword phrase, my ad would be triggered if someone searched for "keyword nyc." So would it be redundant to add the second keyword phrase? Thank you!
Paid Search Marketing | | nyc-seo0 -
Does having a new website design and code affects the SEO
Dear experts, We are in the process of completely revamping our website code and design to a new version of prestashop. Having mentioned that, please note that we are not changing the URL links. So, the same products links will be the same and intact. Only the content is changing. So, how this is affecting my website SEO or SERP? Regards,
Paid Search Marketing | | kanary0 -
Bad Adwords Leads and B2B Placement Ideas
Hello, I have two PPC related questions that hopefully someone could help with. My client complains that the majority of leads he is getting are disqualified - mainly due to fake contact info left on the landing page. This happens both in the Display and Search campaigns. We are getting a good number of leads and we checked with Google that there is no fraud involved. What can be done about this? Has anyone encountered that kind of complaint and how did you deal with it? Can you recommend any tools, other than Google's Ad Planner to find good placements for a display campaign? Another client of mine is selling B2B services such as document destruction etc. Where can I find, for example, a list of placements frequented by people from the insurance business? I never had a problem finding placements for B2C but B2B seems to be a lot different. Any insight will be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Michal
Paid Search Marketing | | michalseo0 -
What is the effect of a proxy server replicating a sight on SEO
I have heard of PPC company's that set up a proxy server to replicate your site so that they can use their own tracking methods for their reports. What affect if any does this have on SEO for a site?
Paid Search Marketing | | prima-2535091 -
Questions about Adwords Display network.
I am starting up an Adwords campaign that is set to run in the Display (content) network only. In the past I have meshed search and content together, but after reading Brad Geddes book I see that I need to separate them. I can't see my quality score for my keywords - it just has a dash in place of QS. Is this normal? Additionally, I can't see how much I am paying per keyword. I only have one text ad and it is still pending approval. I have several image ads that have so far had a good CTR. I'm assuming that I can't see QS because my text ad is not running yet. But, if this is the case, then how do you optimize your campaign for image ads? I'm currently paying about 45 cents per click. (Previously when I had a poorly optimized quickly thrown together campaign I was paying twice that), but I believe that I could get this down significantly. Any help is greatly appreciated! You guys rock!
Paid Search Marketing | | MarieHaynes0