Good summary article from Google specifying all the ways that you can’t make money online, and some of the ways that you can safely make money with an outline of the techniques that should work. On the AdWords Help Forum, users asking about various scams are a common feature. More common since the credit crunch started, as some, especially affiliate recruiters, try to profit from the misfortune of others. Google has been slow to act – but they have acted, at last.
The article is a week or so late, as this is really the complement to the recent action taken to stop these scams from appearing in AdWords adverts. The AdWords Help Forum, and the AdWords Help Forum Experts are seeing quite a lot of advertisers, some of whom have unwittingly joined these scams, asking why their adverts have been stopped.
Undoubtedly there will be some users accidentally caught, or coincidentally trapped for other reasons, where the account has been denied or the Quality Score has been dropped to 1/10. If you’re sure that you aren’t sending search users to these scams, you should probably approach a pay-per-incident AdWords Professional to assess the account and site, and to negotiate with Google to restore the QS or resume the account.
The article describes both the affiliate recruitment scams, and some of the common organic search scams, some of which revolve around user confusion between paid search and organic search results – some schemes offering “guaranteed page one search results” are in fact offering AdWords results, very often at an outrageous markup, from organisations who claim to be Google.
AdWords and Organic Search Results Are Not The Only Problem
Google and the other search engines, driving the traffic volumes of trusting users that they do, are targets and implicit, albeit unwilling co-operators in promoting spam and scams. Blogger, for example, is sometimes used as part of a route to direct users to AdWords arbitrage, or, as in the case of the article you are reading, to republish articles to promote suspicious offerings:
Summary
Late, but welcome, Google starts to defend search users from scams that abuse the Google brand.
There will be other scams – the loss of one set of scams will simply results in the scammers switching targets. Just like this:
PT Barnum – or deception? What’s the line between marketing ethically and flat fraud? Google’s beginning to make sure AdWords advertisers stay on the right side of that line at last.
Michelle MacDonald wrote,
I’ve have tried to contact” making money with google”, no such site. I got the CD however I am returning it to you. It was never opened, and I tried to cancel this but could not find the site. I am hoping this will get the job done. Thank you.
Link | July 27th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Jeremy Chatfield wrote,
Hi Michelle – we have nothing to do with any products called “Making Money With Google”, “Google Ca$h” and so on. The article is a warning against becoming involved with scams that abuse Google’s brand, and highlights some of the real ways that Google’s products can be used to make money legitimately. Mostly this means having your own products, or at least your own site with your own unique information.
Sending your unopened product to us won’t do a thing – we’ve been warning against these scams for many years, here and in the AdWords Help Forum.
If you paid for the product using your credit card, you need to claim back against the credit card company – and check your credit card statements carefully. The kind of unscrupulous organisations that promote these scams are known for often charging the card repeatedly for varying amounts, some much larger than the original purchase.
Link | July 27th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Patrice wrote,
Thanks for the warning. Great post by the way.
Link | August 18th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Padma wrote,
I am seeing articles that say how people are making $25.00 for each ad. they post on google. The main content is same with little tweak there and there. But comment section is ditto in all the articles that I have seen so far.
Link | August 30th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
detoxtechno wrote,
Adwords is really great for promoting your website and also affiliate links. i have just passed the Google Adwords Professional exam today and i am very happy.
Link | October 7th, 2009 at 4:05 am
Google Adwords Expert wrote,
There are a great no of affiliate marketer who offers to make money with adwords and most of them are scam. Google has provided very good article but adsense is something for which you can be banned without any reason.
Link | November 8th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Harley Frisbee wrote,
Adwords is really good in driving traffic to your website. however, they are very strict right now and they would not easily approve websites that they thought have low quality content. :
Link | April 29th, 2010 at 4:23 pm