Friday, February 8, 2013

Google is Evil!


Google has banned Cheap-Ass-Living from its search engine. I was starting to get a significant amount of traffic through Google by people looking for info related to frugality and cheap living. In fact the page views to Cheap-Ass-Living were starting to surpass 500 a day. I’m not even counting the time last month when Blogger farted and changed the style of the blog to “mosaic”. Page views then surpassed 1800 but I knew I was only getting more views per individual and not more individuals finding their way here. And since I liked the original style better I changed it back.

Now I think that 500+ page views per day is not too bad considering the fact this is a relatively new blog and considering the fact that I haven’t been posting on a regular basis. All this changed about a week ago. Page views went from more than 500 a day to less than 400 the next and about 200 views the day after that. I knew something was amiss so I checked to see what the problem was. That’s when I realized I was getting absolutely NO TRAFFIC from Google. That seemed rather odd so I went to Google search and typed in Cheap –Ass-Living. And this blog was nowhere to be found.

I have spent the last week trying to rectify the problem but to no avail. Not only did I not receive any notice from Google that I had been banished to the wilderness but numerous emails by me to Google officials have gone unanswered. Google is the 800 pound Gorilla in the room when it comes to the internet and to be excommunicated from their search engine is a serious blow to anyone with a blog or other web site. I was hoping that I could somehow still figure out what the problem was and fix it. This morning however I received this email from Google regarding my Google AdSense account.

Hello,

We continually review all publishers according to our program policies ( 
https://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&stc=aspe-3pp-en ) and Terms and Conditions ( https://www.google.com/adsense/localized-terms?&stc=aspe-3tc-en ). During a recent review of your account, our specialists found that it was not in compliance with our policies.

WEBMASTER GUIDELINES: Publishers may not place Google ads on pages that violate Google’s webmaster quality guidelines (
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35769#quality). While we've included the following excerpts from these guidelines, we recommend that you take the time to review them in their entirety.

* Make pages for users, not for search engines.
* Don't employ cloaking or sneaky redirects.
* Don't load pages with irrelevant words.
* Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank.
* Avoid "doorway" pages created just for search engines, or other "cookie cutter" approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.
* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
* If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

As a result, your AdSense account has been disabled.


Additionally, as stated in our Terms and Conditions, publishers who have breached this agreement may not receive further payment. The earnings on your account will be returned to the affected advertisers. Please note that this step was taken in an effort to protect the interests of our AdWords advertisers, and to maintain the quality of the AdSense program.

Thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team



WELL FUCK YOU GOOGLE!!!!

I have gone over the webmasters guidelines to find out if I did something to violate the terms of service and have not been able to figure out what the problem is. I have made repeated attempt to get an explanation from SCROOGLE thugs and have been met with silence. Not only have I been totally removed from Google search results and had my AdSense account revoked but Google will not release any money made from the account to me. It wasn’t much ( about $85.00) but still that pisses me off. This blog wasn’t really making anything but it was nice to get a little pocket change every now and then for my efforts.

Since this blog is hosted by Blogger on Google servers I fully expect it to be completely removed from the internet by Google soon. I will leave it up until that time if anyone wants to save an article. I suggest you do it now however while the getting is still good. I don’t know where I will go from here. I might start another blog using a different platform other that blogger but I haven’t decided yet.

 I have been working on a manuscript about cheap living. In fact it is the reason I started this blog in the first place. I was hoping to have a “built in” audience for it if and when I finish it. Before I started Cheap-Ass-Living I sent a few “sample” chapters of the manuscript along with an outline of the proposed book to a publisher and they sent a letter saying they were “intrigued” by it and wanted to see more. I have been working on it little by little (which is one of the reasons I haven’t posted as much as I have) so now might be a good time to go ahead and finish it. The Manuscript is called “NO MONEY?  NO PROBLEM!”, Subtitled, ‘how to live the good life on little more than pocket change.” Kind of catchy don’t you think?

Anyway it’s been fun and remember, even though SCROOGLES unofficial motto is “Don’t be evil” these bastard ARE pure fucking evil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tex Dakota

9 comments:

  1. Don't be evil, we hate the competition! ;-)

    Suggestion: you can backup your entire site as an XML from the Settings menu, Other submenu. Click on "Export blog" and it will download to your computer. Then you *should* be able to go to someplace like wordpress and import there, although I've never tried that.

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  2. I understand your disappointment, but most blogs don't show up most of the time in google searchs - unless of course they are add partners. So you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

    If you think your message will sell well, do as John says, switch web hosts.

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  3. I noticed something was wrong when I began having trouble finding your blog on google - always kicked me to the 50 best blogs ever or something like that.

    I don't know jack about computer web hosting and the like so I'll let others who know a lot more about it advise you. But no worries - we are still able to find the blog.

    Sure is weird about google though - good luck with that.

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  4. Nightshift here...Tex, don't want to see you go. Get an email account, we will send ours, (I will anyway) You can email your post to us. FWIW. Anyway, keep us posted. I have you in my favorites so like you said FUCK Google. I don't use it.

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  5. It might sound paranoid but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they report you to the Governmental powers that be as well. They don't have that massive server operation in the middle of nowhere to keep tabs on their OWN stats! Keep fighting!

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  6. Ah, so you got Google-slapped. Here's an article by a marketing guru I like (I am NOT affiliated with him in any way) on how to get readers without Google: http://www.andyjenkinsblog.com/2012/06/18/seven-ways-to-get-traffic-without-google/

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  7. Are you doing anymore post or is this blog over? D

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  8. Hi, you may want to look at your backlinks profile, i.e. trading or reciprocating links with other similar sites to "boost" rankings. Also, I have not read through your content to a large extent. But please be aware that duplicate content will get a site penalized.

    There could be other variables. But I'd start with your external or backlinks. You can also export all of your blog posts and start over on a new domain, 301 redirecting the old one to the new one. This has worked for many others affected by Google or getting penalized in the past.

    Good luck!

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  9. Hey, I just found this website on google. First time visitor.

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