Ask Kalena

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Let me preface this post by saying that I love Google and I’m a big supporter and very early adopter of AdWords pay per click advertising. BUT a recent experience I had with AdWords support staff left me shaking my head and my fist in frustration. And it wasn’t an isolated incident.

Sadly, a level of bureaucratic lunacy seems to have pervaded Google AdWords in terms of ad approvals and editorial policy in the past 12 months. Here’s the latest example:

My client, a psychotherapist based in New York, had asked me to create a series of new ads for his AdWords campaign based on a new service he was offering. His site domain is unusual in that it contains 44 characters – way beyond the standard 35 character limit allowed by Google for display URLs in text ads. So we had been using a non-existent but similar shortened version of the URL as the display URL for years, with Google’s approval.

Scores of ads were still running successfully using the fake display URL so when it came time to draft new ads a couple of weeks ago, I used it again. But every time I created a new ad, it would show up as “disapproved” within minutes. I double checked the running ads to make sure I typed the display ad correctly and tried again and again. Every time the ads would be approved and then show up a few minutes later as “disapproved” with the display URL being cited as the cause of the problem.

In despair I emailed AdWords support staff to ask for their help. The first response I got was from Manvee, who wrote:

“The ads are getting disapproved when you are using another shortened version. Please know that I reviewed your client’s account and found that their ads are being disapproved because they are using display URLs which do not match their destination URL. Please know that we have allowed your client to use only specific shortened versions like [shortened display URL]. Therefore, their ads will be disapproved if they use any other version that we have not allowed.”

Sure. Except that the specific shortened version they suggested WAS the one we were using. So after another week of disapprovals and an increasingly frustrated client, I sent a follow up email asking AdWords staff to please have somebody login and manually approve the ads or explain why the display URL they recommend was no longer acceptable, even though it was running fine on older ads.

The next response I received from AdWords support was from Ruchi:

“Thank you for your email. I understand that you are concerned about your ads being disapproved even after you have made the required changes.

WHAT WE FOUND

Our AdWords Specialists found that there was unauthorized access to your AdWords account [account number removed]. No campaign changes were made to your account on that date, but we believe that the security of your account has been compromised.”

Huh? What? Did I not just explain that my client and I both have full access to the account via separate logins? Could it be that you think one of us is a hacker? And even if the account was compromised (which it wasn’t), how on earth would that influence the approval or disapproval of my client’s display URL? And why haven’t you addressed my actual problem?

As you can imagine, my patience was fast running out.  I emailed my frustration and asked Ruchi to escalate the issue to a senior account manager. The response I received was not the one I was expecting:

“Thank you for your response. I apologize for any frustration experienced by you. We suspect unauthorized access to you account by a 3rd party. We have reactivated the MCC and child account. However for the client account: [account number removed] we still need you to check and confirm that all the changes made in your account were authorized. As soon as your confirm this we will activate your account.”

So not only did they NOT offer any assistance with the problem at hand, but they de-activated my client’s account without warning! At this point, my client stepped in and called AdWords support directly, which was probably a good idea given my plummeting patience and rising stress levels. This time we both received a response from someone called Priti:

“Thank you so much for your patience.  I received a response from our specialist team, and it looks like in order to use an alternative URL for your ad, the URL must be of a non-functioning website.  Currently, [shortened display URL] is a functioning site (this is possibly a recent development), so the ads cannot be approved for this URL.

We definitely want your ads to be approved, so here are the steps that need to be taken:

1) Please change the display URL for these ads to [shortened display URL (a)]
 or [shortened display URL (b)] (both of which are non-existent websites and within the character limit)

2) Please then email me back you once you have done so.

3) I will then send your ads back to our Ad Review team for expedited review, and follow up with you once they have done so.”

Phew! At last somebody at AdWords support was offering us a solution. I logged into my client’s account, made the changes to the ads and emailed Priti immediately. Problem solved right? Wrong! Within a couple of hours, my client received the dreaded You Have Disapproved Ads status notification.

By this stage, my client’s stress levels had caught up to mine and he sent back an email to Google that simply said:

Here we go again! When will it ever end!?

I was dumbfounded by 3 weeks of fighting AdWords bureaucracy and decided it simply wasn’t worth pursuing any further. It wasn’t until 4 days later that my client received the following email from Priti:

“Thank you again for your patience.  I apologize – I was not in the office over the weekend, and so did not get your email nor Kalena’s email until just now.  I do see that you have made these changes in the account, and I am going to send this to the ad review team immediately so that they can approve your ads.”

She then expedited the process and the ads were up and running within the hour.

Hats off to Priti for finally resolving things, but shame on Google for hiring support staff that don’t seem to have the ability to solve relatively simple problems and for creating so many unecessary layers of bureaucracy for advertisers to jump through in order to do so.

Given the number of web sites inflating the size of the Internet on a daily basis, it’s likely that domain lengths are going to increase as fewer short domain names become available for registration. In light of this, you would think that perhaps Google would consider increasing the allowed character limit of display URLs, or at least suggest alternatives at the point of ad creation.

Anyone else got a tale of woe to share about AdWords editorial policy?

Loyal readers of my blog will know that I don’t give out the Dumbass of the Week crown lightly. I’ve never given it to a question submitter before but felt compelled this week when I received the following question:

Hello Madam,

I am SEO and working more than 55 sites last one year, i want to know the Online Marketing Strateges like google adsence (sic) and adwards (sic) etc. I also how can i get one way links, is free one way links are good or not? like gotlinks.com, backlinkspider.com etc, Till how many keywords i use in title tag, description tag and how can i use h1, h2 in our pages. Pls give me all the information as soon as possilbe (sic).

thanks
iliyas

Hi iliyas

First up, my name is Kalena. I would’ve thought that was pretty obvious from the site name, but perhaps not. I don’t expect to be called madam until I’m 96 and using a walking frame. Or being schmoozed by a door greeter in Walmart. Either way I don’t like it and never will.

Next, if you can’t even spell them correctly, I doubt you will be able to grasp the complexities of Google AdWords and Google AdSense. It takes our students up to 6 months to do it.

And as for “Pls give me all the information as soon as possilbe” – what’s up with that? Not even a triple grande white chocolate mocha donation could compensate for that crap. You didn’t even offer me a short black.

Lastly, if you’ve SEO’d over 50 sites and you still don’t know how to obtain one way links, how to use heading tags or how many keywords should go in your title and meta tags, your clients are in real trouble.

Perhaps you should start from scratch and take our Search Engine Optimization Starter Course?

Sitting in the big chair marked Dumbass this week is an annoying little SEO outfit from Manchester called Web Propeller.

I ranted yesterday about how they were evil site scraping bastards because they basically steal the content from this blog within an hour of me posting it. I’m not the only one they steal from. They scrape Marty’s content too, as well as Niall Kennedy’s blog and others, listing us all as “contributors” on their blog home page. What’s up with that? As someone commented on my post yesterday, perhaps they should change that title to “unwilling, unwitting contributors”.

Well as luck would have it, they scraped my post from yesterday. So now they are proudly announcing on their own site what evil site scraping bastards they really are. And the kicker? They’ve tagged the post under the category seo problems. Bwa ha haaaaa!

And just in case somebody from Web Propeller notices their stupidity and deletes the post from their site (perhaps while on a break from stealing other people’s content), I’ve posted a screen shot:

Some days, I really love my job. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if they scraped this post too?

UPDATE: ROTFL

UPDATE 2: ROTFLMAO

I think it’s time they changed their catch phrase from “making you rank better” to “making you rank better for your own stupidity”.

UPDATE 3: The penny has dropped. According to a public apology by the scraper himself, Web Propeller is a fictional company and the domain is owned by a company called Creative Suit.

The site scraping was apparently nothing more than an unauthorized experiment by a naughty junior staff member. His boss is plenty mad about it and is asking for suitable punishment suggestions. I was going to suggest they make him use this picture as his screen saver, but figured that was too cruel.

Apology accepted! Maybe site scrapers will think twice now before doing this to anyone else.

Yep, check it out. A mob called Web Propeller are scraping every single post I write on this blog, within an hour of me posting them. Compare my recent post to theirs.  They’ve even stolen my image!

I feel a site scraping bastards Googlebomb coming on! Anyone care to help?

I had this week’s dumbass post all lined up and then I received a suggestion from Sphinnster Incrediblehelp about a more deserving candidate. So without further ado, I give you this week’s dumbass: Gene Marks.

Frighteningly, Gene writes for Business Week on MSNBC and his column is read by a large percentage of small businesses. The link above leads to his very unenlightened post titled Tech “Solutions” Your Small Biz Can’t Use. In the post, he basically states that having an online presence is a bad idea for small business.

This article contains possibly THE WORST advice for small business that I have ever read. Certainly the worst I’ve read this year.

Here are five 13 reasons why this article makes Gene Marks a dumbass:

1. He uses “highfalutin” as an adjective:

“A lot of highfalutin software and gadgets aim to help you run your company, but too little of it is suited for a small business environment.”

2. He claims to speak for ALL business owners:

“We business owners are subjected to an endless array of tools that never fail to disappoint. We’re promised. We pay. And we’re let down.”

3. He claims that the following technology doesn’t work when evidence to the contrary is staring him in the face:

“1. RSS Feeds 2. Spam Filters 3.Antivirus Software 4. Blogs 5. Search Engine Optimization 6. Mobile Applications 7. CRM Software 8. AdWords 9. Online Video 10. Web 2.0″

4. He recommends against using anti-virus software:

“Betsy was looking for just the right technology to slow down her employees’ computers and significantly degrade the performance of her business applications. Well, she found it, and it’s called anti-virus software.”

5. He tars all SEOs with the same brush because he was scammed by one:

“I forked over a bunch of dough to a firm in California that promised to get my company’s name on “all the major search engines” when someone was looking for products that we sell. How did they plan to do this? I’m still not really sure, but it had something to do with spiders, black hats, and link farms. That should’ve been enough of a hint that witchcraft was involved.

6. He recommends against using anti-spam software:

“I get this question at just about every presentation I give to business owners: ‘What spam filters do you recommend?’ My answer: ‘None.’ They all suck.”

7. He recommends AGAINST using anti-spam software! (Thought this one was worth repeating)

“In the end, it’s cheaper for your employees to just sort and delete spam as it comes in.”

8. He considers mobile apps (and renewable energy) science fiction:

“Mobile applications will be a great thing someday. Just like hovercrafts, telepods, and renewable energy. But for a small business on a limited budget, it’s still science fiction.”

9. He sold $20K worth of software to a customer who didn’t need it and blamed the customer:

“I’ve always been a big proponent of customer relationship management [CRM] software. One big reason is that my company sells this stuff… Unfortunately, we have a lot of other customers who haven’t been as successful. Fred, a manufacturer of roofing materials, is one of them. Fred and I both learned that a CRM system doesn’t work for a small business without an internal “champion” who takes ownership of it. His $20,000 system just sat there. No one used it.”

10. He encourages readers NOT to buy his company’s software:

See 9.

11. He writes off pay per click advertising for all small business just because HE can’t figure it out:

“Are you interested in a mind-numbing exercise? Give AdSense a shot. Or Yahoo SM or MSN AdCenter… Here’s a word of wisdom: Leave the mass-market advertising to Coke (KO) and Pepsi (PEP). Small business owners should stick to less mystifying forms of promotion.”

12. His comments about online video are pure fiction and display his total ignorance of the medium:

“Quality videos require production companies. Otherwise you’ll have grainy, useless footage. And videos that run beyond a certain length aren’t even YouTube-able.”

The final clue that shows Gene as a deserving candidate for Dumbass of the Week is this one:

13. He complains that RSS Feeds are meaningless, but his own articles appear in them:

“Bob, an electrical contractor, knows what RSS stands for, and I feel sorry for him. He had the misfortune of signing up for an RSS feed.”

In fact, there is an RSS feed directly under his article. Priceless!

Wow, I started this post assuming I’d only find 5 reasons why Mr Marks is a dumbass, but I ended up with 13. Well 12 really. Judging by the commentary his article has triggered, it seems I’m not alone in my assessment. But it’s scary to think of how many small business owners will read this article and take it as gospel. Let’s hope they read the comments!

Have you got an opinion on the article? Why not contact the editors of BusinessWeek directly, or simply comment on this post. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.