The ads, they are a-changin’

Not the ones on TV, I mean. The ones on my website.

I’ve  become one of the many victims of Adsense, the branch of Google that’s pretty okay with being evil. Last month, after getting a serious traffic boost from advertising and hitting the $200 mark, I got the “Your account is canceled. We’re not telling you why” message. The appeal took two weeks to get a response, which was “We’ve gotten your appeal.” Four hours later “Nope. You’re canceled. We’re not teling you why, and we’re still not giving you the $200 you earned. Hope you didn’t need the $50 you spent advertising your site!”

As a result, I’ve gone ahead and started setting up Adsensevictims.com, where I’ll start collecting stories from others who’ve had this same thing happen. It is, apparently, very, very common. Systemic, even, amongst people who’ve gained some popularity, and it’s time to set up a real warning for that.

From now on, I’ll be using ads from Project Wonderful. I’ve been planning to make the switch anyway, I’d just been waiting to hit the payout threshold. Project Wonderful, on the other hand, makes a habit of treating publishers and advertisers humanely with its open, honest bid system. When I know more about the payout, I’ll post the information here.