If you’re using Google Adwords to direct targeted, relevant, and specific traffic to your website it’s possible your website could get a Google slap on the wrist, or what’s called a site suspension.
Google Adwords is raising the advertising bar. Google’s looking for better websites. Quality blended with policy is becoming more important. Not only does your website need to be mobile-friendy to rank better, it also needs to be policy-friendly and thus ad-friendly. In short, some sites violate Google’s best practice policies for quality content and advertising and some don’t. If your site does not meet policy standards, Google Adwords gently reminds you to get it fixed. Fix it and you can resume advertising. Don’t fix it and you can’t continue to advertise on Google Adwords, for example.
Violations of Google’s advertising policy could include some of the following: copyright; counterfeit; healthcare and medicines; misrepresentation of your self, product or service; political content; remarketing lists; technical requirements, and more.
Often, the fix is just something common sense and simple. For example, Google Adwords temporarily suspended one of my client’s Adword’s account. One morning when I logged in to the account the notice, “Site Suspended” came up next to each of the live text ads. The ads were paused even though the account was performing well for over three months. I was a little puzzled so I immediately called Google. As usual, the support representative was excellent. She put me on hold to check the account status. She came back with the reason: the pages with clients testimonials did not have a disclaimer attached to them. In sum, a “results may vary and we cannot guarantee xyz,” etc., etc., statement was needed. It was an unintentional but understandable requirement. It made perfect sense and was a simple oversight. We corrected the site pages and asked Google to check the site again. Adwords was back and running in 24 to 48 hours.
Some takeaway tips:
- Make sure to include disclaimers if your offering products or services related to results that may vary with individuals. Weight loss is a good example.
- Sell what you offer and offer what you sell.
- Make sure your e-commerce setup is clean, honest, and covers all the requirements for a friendly, safe, and legal customer purchase.
- State refund and return policies clearly on your website.
- Be clear about your products and services.
- Be honest. Don’t play “marketing mind games” with site visitors.
- Remember that Google Adwords has millions of websites to check and examine for possible policy violations. Sometimes there is a delay in “catching up” to basic and unintentional site violations. Don’t be too surprised if this happens. Make corrections and then contact Google Adwords support immediately after your changes are completed.
- Sometimes policies may change. Be patient and cooperate. In the long run, it makes for a better internet.
- And most importantly, carefully read the Google Adwords policy guidelines.
It’s much better to make changes to your site before rather than after you start Google Adwords. I learned from this and so did some of my clients. This is just one more way to put your customers and visitors first.
By Stuart Atkins
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