Google stole me $15,000+
 

Their "Content Network" traffic is complete garbage and I just noticed a few campaigns with that 'option' turned on by default...

Keyword: little april

13,667 1,395,390 0.97% $0.74 $10,118.01

$169.95 from triplexcash for that Period (September 1st to Today)

ROI: -$9948,06

That is only *1* campaign for *1* keyword.

Lost some more on other campaigns... I'm pretty sure that "Content Network" was turned ON without notice and I want Google to refund me the money. Otherwise I will contact Visa and chargeback as many transactions as I can.

Anyone has dealt with a similar situation?

damn why weren't you constantly monitoring the campaign(s) ?

ouch... :-/

I agree, their content network is pure garbage... I guess it's because of all those adsense "experts"/spammers/abusers out there... I always switch off the option to receive traffic from their content network... Have no idea how yours got switched on, but good luck on getting your money back!

Why would you let it go that far?

lol... this is stupid for so many reasons...........

Because most of those campaigns were very small... a few hundreds clicks per month from the Google/Search network.

They probably added their Content Network by default and I did not really notice this until yesterday.

From what I read on the web, their Adsense/Content Network is completely out of control and by adding that option to all their Google Advertisers without notice is a joke.

I made a mistake by not monitoring that monster more closely, but I still believe that I should not pay for things I did not OPT-IN by myself.

did they only recently begin adding the content network by default?

Same thing happened to me.. had a few small campaigns and didn't watch it closely enough.. within a period of a few days.. it shot up to where I owed about $1500 or so I think.

So, all of a sudden.. content network costs turned on or started pulling traffic that was never there for months.

For that specific campaign, it started from September 10th, 2006...

Campaign was live since 2 years. From a steady ~200 search clicks per month to ~3500 trash clicks per month w/ Content Network.

That's it... all of the sudden you get a shitload of traffic that doesn't convert.

Experienced the same thing with Kanoodle during 2 weeks, when they added their Content Network 2 months ago. Went from $2/day to $50/day... I contacted them in first place because I though it was hitbot traffic. They gave me a full refund of $900.00

I don't understand why they must play around with their advertisers. Without us, they would not do any money and so all those Adsense users with their garbage traffic. I hope this trend ends soon.

This is like paying $1 per CPM for a banner spot on an adult site and the owner add your banner in another spot at the bottom of an archive page without telling you... then charge you a few thousands more for his "great" extra traffic. Very unprofessional.

Sound like you & others have been exploited
& put between a hard spot & a rock :Oh crap

Running for 2 years on google search, must
have been turning a nice little consistent
profit for you.

You ready to can it now? I dont think they'll
let you continue if you charge back.

I woke up and had like 10k on a keyword and I even had a budget. I think their software errored or somethin. Either way I couldn't get a refund from them. I charged it back of course, might want to do it now and not waste your time with them.

I can kiss them goodbye. Lost over $15,000 only in the last 4 months and based on their inconsistent listings we are not going to get it back soon.

Anyway, it would be pretty easy to open a new account under different company/owners names.

That's an expensive lesson. :helpme

yep when you have too many campaigns that sort of thing can happen, similar things have happened to me too.

Holy fuck. They did it to me too!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:

Calling them right now... grrrrrrrrrrr...

has nothing to do with how many campaigns or any factor i could figure out.

this is happening to a lot of people and a few that i know have got burned and happened to me a few times.

What happens is that you can have content ads on -and google regulates in different ways how those ads are shown, where etc based on a multitude of factors. traffic will be very consistent over long periods of time - say for the sake of argument, spending 50.00 a day on that particular ad group for months... then arbitrarily one day, it will sky rocket to the campaign max daily budget with 100% shit traffic. so it might go from 100 clicks a day for a few months... then out of the blue, it shoots up to 10,000 or whatever the max daily campaign budget allows.... usually with none clicking anything on the page. when that happens, it also causes the other ads to stop showing for content searches at the same time because the one group is over taking everything to achieve the max daily spend. it seems to be a pretty random thing and has nothing to do with click fraud i think... its just google fucking up. google should obviously know when a guys account history, going totally untouched for long periods of time and having a very consistent history, goes completely haywire.

google will always argue that the traffic is legit... it can happen to anyone here. set up a campaign with one ad group and one keyword like "poopy pants" and set the daily campaign limit to 5000.00 and there is a big chance that eventually it will go sideways and start hitting that daily limit eventually.... even when it has a history of months of only getting 2 clicks a day, regardless of bids/campaign budgets.

so you better be set up to protect yourself and be able to prove what happened as well as track click fraud if you want your money back. otherwise, what they would most likely do is credit his account back a few hundred dollars for "click quality adjustment" and call it good.

the simple solution is spreading everything over as many campaigns as possible with as low a daily budget as you are willing to risk... so if it happens, you have 30 campaigns with a max daily spend of 50.00 or 100.00.. instead of one campaign with a daily max spend of 3000.00 .. where one ad group will do this and run it up to 3000.00 everyday and keep doing it until you stop it.

Man, that sucks! :(

Erin in the Adwords department is telling me that it's in their terms when the campaign was first started that you are automatically opted in. I am livid.

She kept on repeating herself and I was getting more angry. She stated there will be no refunds given and wouldn't let me talk to a manager. You have to make an appointment with them, so I said Tuesday. If they don't call me on Tuesday, Wednesday I'm doing a chargeback for $400+. Now I have to go through several accounts doing the same thing. :mad: :mad: :mad:

same thing here
i had a budget of 100$ a day awhile back and i logged in and saw i was at 170$ for the day
cancled
never used again

Told Google I was not expecting them to do anything and that I will contact credit card companies on Monday to chargeback the most transactions possible up to September 2006.

Campaign was up since February 19, 2005.

February 19, 2005 to September 6, 2006 (almost 19 months... ~570 days)
================================
4,389 170,139 2.57% $0.21 $925.37

Average $ per day: $1,62/day

September 7 to December 28, 2006 (113 days)
=============================
16,789 1,504,165 1.11% $0.65 $10,839.45

Average $ per day: $95,92/day

I will not put ANY trust in Google anymore.

Anybody knows the date the "Content Network" went live?

I can tell it was not there in February 2005. That's for sure.
It was added later on.

That sucks :Oh crap !!

really sux!

adwords does shit for me - i have much better luck with AVN ads

dont be surprised if they come after you. 15K is worth fighting for. you agreed to their terms. the mistake is yours. if you want to make an argument about the traffic, quality, account history etc... you might find yourself having to make that argument in court as a defendant if you don't be careful.
:2 cents:

I tried asking them this because my campaigns were created years ago. The girl couldn't tell me, just that it's in their terms that Content Network is an automatic opt-in. She also couldn't tell me where their terms was. Fucking idiots.

I found one account that was $972. :mad:

I have had the same thing happen and no refund, but I did catch it the same day. Fuck ADWORDS. I quit using them and never plan on going back. There is nothing quality about Google. They are where they are becasue they are greedy bastards.

sounds like you're a dumbass

Content clicks have been the default for as long as I can remember. The same thing started happening to me in December of 05 so I had it turned off.

Being that you logged in today, you obviously accepted the changes to their TOS in November. You'll need to sue them in Santa Clara County Superior Court, and you'll lose.

:(

not really .. i would be careful if i were google .. a class action lawsuit is waiting for them in the corner

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

When they turned that on, I got not only an email, but had to actually confirm the new TOS before the campaigns added the content network.

Sucks that you didn't seem to get either of those courtesies. Good luck!

You are probably right. Would be a waste of energy... and it's not like I'm making 50k per year. On the other end, we lost another 40k three months ago due to another sponsor and another 20k in random investments... That was just a bit too much for my taste.

I will see how I feel about it on Monday. I will probably write it off and move on to make 2007 one of the best year ever. :thumbsup

There is no money to be made in adwords, none.

Everyone knows to turn the content network off, it's those assholes with MFA sites that ruined the content network.

Thanks for the bump.

People are not dumbasses... they do dumb things. That been said, at 36 I will be a long-time retiree driving karts around the world when you will still tell people how dumb they are on GFY :winkwink:

thats the attitude that i personally love. shit happens. it happens all the time. things change. good times come and go. its what you do in the bad times that reveals your character... use it! :)

it was a weird lesson and definately a tough one... given the sum involved and the lengthy history, i would definately call them and freak out just to see what happens and be agressive about it. by default, they will tell you all is ok... but you can argue and they can/do credit people back.

tell them you run some of the top SEO blogs on the web and this is shaping up to be the great story to kick off the new year. ;)

they can find the URL on their end right away, see the account history etc. your case is extreme. i argued and got a 200.00 credit back a couple times, my friend argued and got 600.00 back when the same thing happened to him. its worth trying... but after that, i would just let it go and move on and pour that energy into something that will make you money!

Exactly. I'm just pissed that they snuck that one in on me. I would be happy with a partial credit. :(

Contact them right away. I believe there's a pretty tight time limit for disputes now (is it 30 or 60 days...I forget).

As long as you get the first message in there you stop the clock.

good luck.. Just call CC company and say it was stolen ;)

gotta love the ppc game.

ppc is like gambling .. just like gambling the casino always wins in the end :)

Fuck PPC. I go for the free traffic.

You cocksucking whiners, don't supervise your own campaigns and then blame the PPC engine for presenting you with a fat bill.

Content network is on by default. There is however, a new feature (within the last year) that allows you to bid differently on it.

Due to how Google's system automatically "optimizes" ad rotations it is possible to be getting traffic then totally have it drop off. Or vice versa, getting no traffic and then have it spike. I have a couple of clients who pay me to manage google traffic it is a total pain in the ass to try to explain this. Makes me look like an ass.

I don't mind the content network traffic but I definately don't pay the same amount for it. I suggest taking your max bid and cutting it in half. This pretty much guarantees you will not get caught paying top dollar for inferior traffic.

Sorry, but when you sign up for a campaign years ago when there was no such thing as Content Network and then they opt you in without telling you - you would be pissed too.

Whenever there is money being spent without you having to actually spend it yourself, it's a really good idea to keep track of what's happening - constantly. There's no excuse in trying to frame google for his fuckup. :error

Dont tell me about driving karts dude... I've got more trophies than I can count

Only one guy beat me in the IKF Texas State Championship

maybe you've heard his name.. AJ Foyt IV