Leaderboard

I have this love/hate relationship with Google. On some level I believe Google really does want to make the web a better place. However, as a corporation, they have to generate an ever increasing amount of money for their investors, and in the age of Facebook this must be very difficult. As a result, Google is like a schizophrenic; you never know who, or what you are dealing with at any given moment. When Google's algorithms get crazy they can't be reasoned with, have no compassion, or guilt over the mayhem they leave in their wake. AALBC.com posts advertisments, provided by Google, throughout the website. On the page you are reading now, there are likely two Google provided advertisements; one horizontal banner at the top of the page and another at the bottom. I have been serving Google ads for over a decade almost as long as their Ad network has existed, and I've gotten a check from them, often a 4-figure one every single month. But every once in awhile Google comes down on me for something on my website that they don't like. If you don't react quickly enough to address their concerns, Google will remove their ads from your site until you comply. They don't play. I used to have Amazon products appear on my website from their products feed. This allowed people to buy anything Amazon sold on my website, which allowed me to earn commissions on those sales. Amazon sold a sex toy (some kind of kinky butt plug) on their website which meant the product could appear on my site--which apparently it did. Google disabled my ads as a result. Ultimately I ended up removing the Amazon products feed feature from the website. The feature also ran afoul of one of Google's SEO rules, but that is another subject. Another time Google sent me a link to a post on my discussion forums that they did not like. It was something Kola Boof posted. I actually removed the offending images on the page, but that was not enough to placate Google, for they said there were many other offending images, but they refused to provide me with additional links to to help me get rid of all the images. Unable to find all of the images on my own, Google simply stopped allowing the forum to serve Google Ads--no trial, no jury, no recourse. Ultimately, I relocated the discussion from thumperscorner.com to aalbc.com, but that relocation resulted in a big reduction in participation. Just this week I got two more warnings from Google: Hello, This is a warning message to alert you that there is action required to bring your AdSense account into compliance with our AdSense program policies. We’ve provided additional details below, along with the actions to be taken on your part. Affected website: aalbc.com Example page where violation occurred: http://aalbc.com/reviews/kola_boof.htm Action required: Please make changes immediately to your site to follow AdSense program policies. Current account status: Active Violation explanation Why was this action taken against my account: Google ads may not be placed on pages with adult or any kinds of non family-safe content. This includes any site which contains: Full nudity Pornographic images, videos, or games Pornographic cartoons or anime (hentai/ecchi) Please note that to fix this violation, you need not censor the content itself, but you should stop placing ad code on the page. It turns out Google did not like a topless image of Kola Boof that was on the page?! This is frustrating because on the very same page, Google was serving an ad feature an image of a provocative, largest breasted woman, promoting a Russian (wink, wink) dating site. Whose sensibilities are Google trying to protect? I can't show a bare breast, but Google can promote a sex site?! I replaced Kola's photo with modified version obscuring her breasts, which is on the right. if you click the photo, you can see the original image which violated Google's policy. A few days early I received the message below: Hello, This is a warning message to alert you that there is action required to bring your AdSense account into compliance with our AdSense program policies. We’ve provided additional details below, along with the actions to be taken on your part. Affected website: aalbc.com Example page where violation occurred: http://aalbc.com/authors/author.php?author_name=Frances+Cress+Welsing Action required: Please make changes immediately to your site to follow AdSense program policies. Current account status: Active Violation explanation Publishers may not implement Google ads in a manner that makes them more prominent than the content of the page itself. On mobile devices this includes placing two or more Google ads on the viewscreen at the same time. Please be aware that if you have responsive website design that ads may shift into non compliant positions as the format of the screen changes. I'm saying to myself, "What the hell is Google talking about now?!" I hate sites that place ads which dominate the page. In fact work hard to make sure this does not happen. On one hand Google will tell you to place ads within the content as this increases clicks on the ads and on the other they manage to find something wrong with a page I actively work to ensure ads do not dominate. It turns out my problem was the mobile version of the website. I've designed the pages to take all of the ads on the right hand side of the page and move them below the content on mobile displays. In order for the ads to be seen on a mobile device, one has to scroll past the page's content. So it seems absurd that this would make Google think my ads are more prominent that the content. Please note, the mobile optimized version of the website was created to comply with one of Google's SEO rules, but, again, that is another subject. I explained to a Google employee that I thought this was overreach on Google's part and that anyone looking at the mobile version of the page could not reasonably conclude I was making the ads more prominent than the content itself. The employee remained mute on this point. But it was true, if you scrolled to the bottom of the page you could indeed see two Google ads at the same time, depending upon the ad rotation; so I deleted one of the ads to comply. Usually months, even years, go by between violation warnings from Google, but two in the span of a week gives me the impression Google is getting more aggressive. I'm just glad I was not on vacation to return home to find my site was banned from serving Google ad for not addressing their warnings. In an ideal world, I would not be dependent upon Google for advertising, but frankly they are the only game in town, that provides a meaningful source of revenue for sites like mine. So it turns out that jumping through Google's hoops is worth the effort. If I were perfectly honest, my site is actually better as a result of doing what Google suggests particularly as it pertains to SEO. Hopefully I won't have to hear from Google again any time soon.

Facebook Inc. has inked contracts with nearly 140 media companies and celebrities to create videos for its nascent live-streaming service, as the social network positions itself to cash in on a lucrative advertising market it has yet to tap—and keep its 1.65 billion monthly users engaged. The company has agreed to make payments to video creators totaling more than $50 million, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Its partners include established media outfits like CNN and the New York Times; digital publishers like Vox Media, Tastemade, Mashable and the Huffington Post; and celebrities including Kevin Hart, Gordon Ramsay, Deepak Chopra and NFL quarterback Russell Wilson. The value of individual contracts varies widely, with 17 worth more than $1 million, according to the document. The highest-paid publisher is BuzzFeed, slated to receive $3.05 million for broadcasting live between March 2016 and March 2017. Just behind BuzzFeed is the New York Times, which is to receive $3.03 million for a 12-month deal. CNN is third, with a $2.5 million contract. [Kevin Hart $600K] (Read the complete story at The Wall Street Journal, 22 June 2016) Now the Wall Street Journal did mention whether this would be good, bad, or indifferent for any of the parties concerned. Judging by the popularity of the videos Facebook is already streaming I have not hope this will benefit readers, as Facebook optimizes this content for revenue generation. It is already telling that a Buzzfeed commands for for their content the venerable New York Times. Will this put more pressure on the NTY too become more like Buzzfeed so that they can earn more from Facebook? How will the effect resource allocation at the NY Times. Wil they can a few more journalist so they can hire a few kids to make stupid videos like the one described below: The potential power of Facebook’s platform has been evident in early experiments. In April, two BuzzFeed employees streamed a Facebook Live video showing them placing rubber bands around a watermelon until it exploded. It was Facebook’s most-watched live video, until it was beaten out by Facebook user Candace Payne, who in May filmed herself in her car, laughing uproariously over a noise-making Chewbacca mask. {sigh}

Yeah Facebook is executing brilliantly. Paying content producers had to come eventually, still this is a relatively small payment to The New York Times. If I were running the paper I would not publish on Facebook for a mere 3 million. Still, small business are left holding the bag, having to pay to reach the fans they have attracted on Facebook. In contrast, Youtube still pays content producers. I get a check from Google, for my Youtube videos, every month and have for years. It is not a big check, but it is something. Everytime I log onto Facebook they have their hand out asking me to pay to promote a post that they have identified is interesting to readers.

This continues to diminish the use of Facebook for small biz. While I saw a slight spike in sales from using Facebook recently, the creation of content by larger platforms will always trump the smaller users who are looking to find a way to monetize the people who they have connected with on Facebook. Facebook is still in the process of figuring out how to beat YouTube at it's game, but they are a long way from doing so. The process of paying big named content creators, or stupid video creators is an attempt at making the regular user feel that they can also generate the type of viewership that those more popular videos generate. The failure is in the fact that to gain watchers/viewers you still have to boost post and the user has to pay for those eyes which is not the case with YouTube. It's compounded by the fact that at least with YouTube the potential to earn is inherent. All of this leads to more of the same for small websites... how do you get people to your content on a consistent basis. Facebook is just going to continue to maximize and benefit as it has been doing.