Clattertron

[dc]R[/dc]unning several websites means I’ve tried my hand at a few online advertizing campaigns to increase readership: Project Wonderful, Facebook, and Google AdWords.

A few months ago, my use of Google AdWords came to an unexpected, and unfortunate, end.

First thing: I’m not bashing AdWords here. I’m only sharing my experience, as a way to educate others.

You Done Goofed

To my surprise, I found out my AdWords campaigns were not running—and were not for a few weeks. I soon discovered clattertron.com was flagged as a ‘bridge page’ and (unknowingly) violated the AdWords terms of service.

I had zero idea why this happened. The vague description of a bridge page in the AdWords FAQ did not help either (essentially: a website leading to another website. Okay…)

After a couple of phone calls with Google I had my answers.

AdWords Doesn’t Like Affiliate Links

The main culprit for being flagged as a bridge page: my Amazon Affiliate links. The Google AdWords rep told me I couldn’t advertize a site with affiliate links—which wasn’t really clear to me in the first place, or ever.

I also couldn’t link to my online stores via Society6 or Storenvy either. Yes, linking my online stores was a no-no, even though they were not technically affiliate links.

Images in blog posts linking to an item on Amazon were also considered ‘ads’ and not allowed, even though I wrote about the item in the blog post (like my review of the Surface Pro 3).

Me: “So, if my site was all about product reviews, I couldn’t link to where visitors could buy the product?”

Google person: “Yes. It is not allowed.”

Better still, this exchange:

Google person: “There’s also an ad for…The Magic of Eyri in the sidebar. You can’t have that.”

Me: “…That’s my book. I can’t link to where people can buy my book? I don’t have the means to print and sell copies on my own.”

Google person: “No, you can only have links to your own site.”

I explained the links were how I made money, which I in turn used to pay for my AdWords campaigns.

Google said, if I wanted to continue to advertize via AdWords, I had to remove all the affiliate links from my site. Not just the sidebars, but the posts.

I laughed and said, “Well, sorry. It isn’t worth all the hours I would spend going through three years of posts to remove the links.”

Dropping the Hammer

I get where Google is coming from when it comes to affiliate links and ‘bridge pages.’ I’m sure there are plenty of fly-by-night websites thrown up with scraped content, stuffed with affiliate links (or redirects) and bring in readers via keyword advertising.

Google needs to be pretty black and white about this sort of thing. I get it: it’s another example of scammers ruining it for the people who actually create content.They could also be a bit more up front about what you can’t have on your website (it’s possible the terms of service changed long after I signed up).

The AdWords situation was frustrating and confusing, but it now means I have one less thing to worry about each month. I’ll put the advertizing dollars to some other use (which wasn’t a lot of money to begin with).

To Google’s credit, during my second phone call the rep did spend a good 10-15 minutes with me trying to figure out a way to make both of us happy. We couldn’t reach a compromise without me totally overhauling my website and changing the way I make money, so I had to walk away.

The Amazon Affiliate program helps pay the bills, but more importantly I need to link to were visitors can buy my stuff.

Read those terms of service, kids. Read them early and often, because they are always changing. 

This post originally appeared in a newsletter. I’m publishing it here with some minor updates and edits.