Current Status - AdSense on Seekyt.com

I sorry to hear this and I'm in no rush to make any decisions or move anything. Hope you get some good news Monday or Tuesday, if not, it sounds like you have a plan.
Thanks for all your efforts on our behalf, we do appreciate them.
Claire

I’m also really sorry to hear about this and hopefully Google will see the mistake therefore give some good news by Monday or Tuesday. Also you have done a good job with the site Seekyt and it is really sad that Google has sandboxed Seekyt.

Good luck Tyler, I will stay as long as I can earn something with someone, as I do write for a living. I prefer not to have all my eggs in one basket, so changing the ad provider will be fine by me.
Could Copyscape be implemented so that it raises an alarm or does not allow publication if the content is duplicate?
If people duplicate from here to another I think that is when the DMCA will support you if you put in a claim.
Sorry I can do no more than suggest, it is because it is all I have picked up from forums, I am unknowledgable in running a website.
Could we not make Amazon more prominent until we are covered with something?

Admin,
You must be absolutely heart-sick over this ordeal...all your hard work and dedication to Seekyt has made it so wonderful for writers. It is a very frightening thought to realize that one person who violates the Adsense policies can bring down an entire ship. Very scary...

I check my Adsense account every morning. When I heard the ads were gone, I checked my account and both of my emails for anything from Google. I only received the February newsletter.

Does anyone know how much notice Google gives to correct a violation? Maybe between all of us, we can go back and carefully read each article and figure out who did this.

Google could very well pardon us if we are lucky. I am not going to move my articles from here. This is a real shame. I can see the sad drop in my earnings, but all is not lost.

As long as the Internet survives, there will always be a chance to create another writing site. And yes, all 5000 plus of us will probably follow you!

I am keeping the spaces white for right now to demonstrate open slot positions to some other ad networks I'm talking to.

Right now, I'm in talks with Clicksor, BidVertiser, and AdBrite.

Unfortunately, it's starting to look like Chitika is the next highest paying advertiser. I don't know if this is true or not, but it seems that way from reviews.

Does anyone have any good suggestions of alternatives so that I can get in touch with the agencies? I'd really love a program where members can get paid via PayPal quickly with low payout rates.

If google adsense goes, there is no bother you can latch on to chitika.com and you wont be the loser

Yahoo Publisher Network? I think they work just like Google Adsense...I found this on Hubpages that says they pay with paypal

http://sunseven.hubpages.com/hub/Yahoo-Publisher-Network

I'm in as long as I can. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this Tyler. Keep the faith!

This page lists 10 good alternatives to Adsense :

http://www.rosswalker.co.uk/adsense_top10/

Chitika isn't that bad. Most of the people slamming Chitika use in conjunction with AdSense and give it a crappy spot and wonder why it doesn't perform well. Just my two cents.

I'm not jumping ship. I'll wait to see what comes about and decide at that point. If it doesn't work, I'll jump off, but I will wait the appropriate time to make sure.

Good luck to everyone!

Yes I forgot that Jason. Chitika is always placed out of the way and not given much thought.
I would not mind chitika as a main placed ad, it is also one that would be payable to UK writers like myself.

Tyler I am so sorry....I sorta thought that a member had an adsense violation and ignored it not realizing that the entire website would be shut down.

If we all take a minute and check out adsense messages we will find out what the problem is. I just did and I have no messages, and my adsense is active. If you find that you do have a message from adsense...please contact Admin...help him to sort out this mess and help all of us who have worked so hard here at Seekyt...we all love it here and want to get back our adsense.

Tyler is there anyway that I can help you? Just say the word.

In the meantime you could contact infolinks, I was able to obtain infolinks on all of my blogs in less than 6 hours. We would at least have some rev share income...instead of earning 0.

I am not going anywhere....I will wait it out and pray for good turn out with Google appeals..

I'm stickin', too. I've never got a warning and Adsense is working on all my other sites, although, alas, none pay as well as Seekyt.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions everybody!

I'm leaning toward Chitika and Infolinks right now. Infolinks has a toolbar ad that I like which looks promising.

Both Chitka and Infolinks both look like they have a good referral program too, which can be beneficial to Seekyt's server costs.

Alternatively, I can start up a new website, completely fresh, but totally familiar to this one that we can continue to use AdSense on - and this time, I will moderate things much more closely.

If anyone has interest in another revenue sharing website, or if you think it's just beating a dead horse at this point, let me know.

I'll try to implement something by the end of the Sunday.

Please stick here for at least a few months to see if we recover. After all, your views etc are still exceptionally well. You are rating as a PR3 on my tool bar with Google. You would have to start all over again and the loss of authority on the older articles would be possibly unnecessary.
I see no reason that you could not go for Chitika and Infolinks. At least that way you will have Chitika, Infolinks and Amazon if one of them goes down.

I don't think anyone thinks you are flogging a dead horse, and a site that does a 180 would definitely gain great praise instead of folding, IMO.x

No it is not beating a dead horse, it is learning a valuable lesson and starting over again. A fresh start. I am for a new website with adsense, and we all need to work together to keep it clean and shiny like a new penny...no more crap...and no more spinning of articles...Can we get a copyscape or copyright checker for all articles....that will notify you of anything sneaky activity? Also a flag button would be helpful...we can all watch out for you to keep our new website up to par....whatever you decide I am okay with it.

Now would we need to delete our articles and repost them on the new website? And what about all the backlinks and rankings.....would they be lost...Tyler whatever you decide...we are all here for you and we are not going anywhere....

I am thinking about keeping this website, with all of its ratings and traffic, and just replacing the ads with new programs.

In addition, I may decide to start a second website which will be highly moderated, but will be based on AdSense earnings only - maybe with Amazon, or maybe just with AdSense. No more risky business, and ALL articles will be moderated by a human being (me) until I decide the author is trustworthy enough to be pre approved. There would be no set number.

Just as Susan is saying, no more crap. All content on the new site would have to be of the highest quality - something that was not fair and not possible to do at Seekyt. Once you allow low quality stuff, you can't necessarily remove it.

Seekyt will have the same standards of quality. The new website will have higher standards.

Of course, this is assuming that there is room in the world for another AdSense sharing site. Perhaps I can tweak the program a bit, and offer a 75% or 80% share with a 5 or 10% referral program. Or maybe tweak it the other way - 50% for writers, 40% for referrals. Who knows?

I'm open to all suggestions. I'll get something going here at Seekyt.com as soon as possible. I just have to weigh out all of our options right now.

I would be interested in becoming the garden or cat expert on your new website and a 80% adsense share sounds very nice...(smile) I would publish all new content and leave my published content here. I am looking for a website where I can specialize in a category.

Thanks for sticking with us...and keeping us informed as to what is going on with Seekyt.

Glad you are sticking with Seekyt whatever else you do because surprisingly enough, my 1st article, which is only 27 days is already a PR1 and to even have it indexed that young I find amazing.
What do you think about the report button that would flag posts to yourself? That way maybe some of the writer's who are bright enough to care where the site goes can take some of the burden and help by alerting you to really bad or copied content?
Night from me for today anyway, slightly tipsy ( Birthday drink, 32 today eek!!).

Happy Birthday! And I love the idea of a report button. I will do it elegantly.

AdSense ads have been turned off for now. I will be rolling out Infolinks shortly, and Chitka to follow if we are approved.

T: how would we earn from infolinks? Would I need to add my member page info to infolinks or would it be a rev-share earnings via pay pal? Same with Chitka...I would have to become an affiliate or what? Are there any other options and what about the adsense appeal? Is there hope?

What about the images? How and where am I suppose to add them?

Thank you x

Good luck whatever you decide to do. I'm leaving everything until you decide what to do. Like Jason said I use Chitika on other sites and it is not the same as Adsense but location does matter. They also have a map feature. I also use Infolinks and am very happy with it. The added features that you can get with Infolinks are cool too.

In my opinion, if you got these going with Amazon I think it would be at least interesting.

I like the idea of moderation by members via a report button. You have mentioned additional validation like this in the past. You should know that there are some core authors here that would be happy to take the time to read content. Of course, you would still have to make decisions of when to apply that feedback and turn it into action.

Best of luck.

Yeah Happy Birthday Emma!

Quite a few of us IBers have Chitika already, this will certainly help us reach payout faster! I'd be fine with a chance to further diversify with larger chunks of the pie in different places.

I am doing OK with Amazon here (for the number of articles) and doing even better on Squidoo, wonder if enhancing Amazon would help at some point. We could get some great articles up on how to do well with Amazon to help other writers increase their amazon sales too.

I know you have a lot going on, are probably stressed right out. Hang in there, a path will become clear.

Thank you Claire.x

I don't plan to remove content until admin says he believes it's what it best.

Stuff happens when writing online, as we all know that have been around a while. You have to learn to roll with the punches or quit there are no other options.

I know admin that is too scary and bothersome to find all your hard work vanishes in a second..but take my word every thing in this world happens for a reason..God might deprive you from the better to reward you with the best..all you need now is to calm down, positive thinking, clear future vision and a strong will and I'm sure that everything will be okay and that those devoted dedicated hardworking people will be rewarded at the end..just SMILE :)

i'm not jumping ship as well. I love seekyt and I have earned more here than anywhere else. I think you should keep seekyt and try Chitika. I love the idea of a second website and a report button sounds like an excellent idea. There definitely needs tougher moderation of the articles. There were plenty of times where I would read spun articles as well as articles riddled with grammar and spelling errors. Good luck to you Tyler!

I am staying too, I like Seekyt and I want the site to continue to grow as big as it can, Also I am sorry to hear about adsense being lost and just as has been mentioned I agree infolinks is a good choice, along with Chitika, Amazon, or eBay.

But I am guessing in order to put a rev share into place it will take some testing to see which model will work best.

I like the idea of a new website too, I would like to be the jobs and employment expert if you decide to start a new site.

I like the idea of keeping seekyt alive, personally. There is a certain amount of authority here you will not get with a new site. While I think PR is highly overrated, it does help. It also helps to serve visitors better, as they can find relevant, related articles on the site. When you start new, you start new.

If Tyler wanted to branch out thought and start a second site, I'd be on board. This incident we're facing now is a little disturbing, in all honesty, but in my communications with Tyler, I have always appreciated his dedication and candor.

I'm not sure how my comments about Chitika from earlier are being interpreted, but I do want to be clear that they really are not as 'good' as AdSense, but most of the people that use them give them poor placement and draw conclusions that just aren't fair. In my opinion, they are probably the next best choice if the last ditch effort to save AdSense doesn't work.

I will personally probably make substantially less with Chitika. I target topics and trigger high paying keywords much differently than most people and I don't know how well it will translate. I don't use link farms, I don't use stumble, reddit, twitter, facebook, imautomator, or any of the other things a lot of people use. I target keywords that typically show lower traffic totals and often very low cpc because there is almost no competition. I then manipulate the ads, so to speak, so my articles have a better chance of serving high paying ads that are relevant and have a very high ctr. I don't know how well that is going to serve me overall with Chitika, but I still think for everyone, it is the best choice.

I have never been really 'involved' in the community side of seekyt, but the community has been great. This site, while relatively small, seems to have an almost cult-like following of writers, myself included, that don't plan to go anywhere unless there is no other option. This speaks volumes about the site and the community as a whole. It's something you won't see very often in the world of online money making.

We will all earn substantially less with Chitika......it is not adsense....as for infolinks I average $12.97 a month. Which is not bad for infolinks but it sure isn't Adsense...I am hoping that Google gives us a chance to clean up Seekyt and to make it right...I am hoping for the best. And yes we are like one big happy Seekyt family.

You are all right: Chitika is not AdSense, but I feel that using it in combination with Amazon and Infolinks will serve us all very well. Plus, as far as I am aware, we'd be the only site to use these programs without AdSense.

I plan on creating a site much like this one for AdSense-only articles. This new website would demand high quality - much higher than usual - and would differentiate itself based on this high quality. Everyone who has commented here would be safe - but many Seekyt members would not make the cut.

I think that by exploiting Seekyt's 'SEO' authority a little bit, I can build a new site very quickly and hopefully get many new members to it. It's never fun to have to start from scratch, but maybe it's in the best interest of those of us who want to earn substantial amounts of money writing for an authoritative site. That is what this new project will be.

I even went to sleep working out how you would pay writers with Infolinks because they pay the owner of the wensite only. Maybe someone else knows the answer.
Chitika is something, at least others who have lost their google account may be able to earn here then. As not all who lose their adsense are bad writers, remember all the writers that were lost from other countries? Some were awful but we lost the good with the bad.
I would be behind the new site, like everyone says, diversity is key. Adsense and maybe Amazon and Chitika there. I would love another site with the ability of a Zazzle unit as that is another area I know at leastt two of us writers work with.Just ideas not demands though, hehe.

I received an email from my new account manager at Infolinks who wants to know how I plan to use infolinks because she took a look at our site and knows I intend to use it for revenue sharing.

I explained exactly what I plan to do, so I will know soon enough if we can use it or not.

I'm still waiting on a reply from Chitika. I don't see many websites with Chitika used the way you'd use Google - with the huge ads front and center - so it may be a great source of untapped earning potential.

Fab, sorry about all the typos, think the VTs were kicking in by then. Don't worry, no articles were written then.
Shame this is over the weekend, slowing things down for us all.

Well, this certainly came as an unpleasant surprise, to say at the very least. I'm not leaving Seekyt, but in all honesty, I'm very disappointed with the amount of poor-quality content on this site, suspicious and overly-promotional links included in more than 60% of articles published on Seekyt, and most of all with content moderation. One time, I reported an article containing a link pointing to a web page selling penis enhancement pills or whatever that was, and only God and the All Mighty Google know how many similar links there are across hundreds of articles here. Moderation - zero points! I've been warning about this since the beginning. It's a shame how things turned out to be :(

Sorry to hear that, Jasmine! I've always removed articles with suspicious content in it, and there is only so much that I can do. By allowing every person to edit their articles, many pieces of poor content and spam came after the articles were approved by me. In other words, unless I check every article every day, there is no way to keep 100% of all poor content off of this site. The same can be said for any site like this out there. In fact, if you use HubPages' browse button or whatever it's called to jump around to new articles, you'll see the same problem with most of the content you view there.

I think this is a universal problem with crowdsourcing content in this way, but that's what the new website I create will be the answer to - everything will have to be moderated until I "trust" you to publish content immediately, and that will be far more difficult than it was at Seekyt.com.

Thanks for your opinion, though.

I understand your point of view, but I had two articles on HP moderated because of really no big deal. Just a few wrong words from the field of medicine, and economy. It was funny to me, really. You have my full support, and you know how I feel about content-quality because I shared my opinions with you a long, long time ago. Sorry, or not (you and all of us), it's irrelevant now, and too late for corrections of this type, as you stated in your comment. Just think of a solution and we'll follow you. The readiness of Seekyt members to accept the changes speaks clearly about how much we appreciate you both as a person and as our administrator.

Thank you Jasmine!

I just came back from watching a video about the alternatives to Adsense that web owners turned to after being banned. They mentioned Breeze Ads which pays 90% share to publishers and pays monthly if the account is 10 dollars or over.

I am surprised how many ad companies are out there that I never heard of. It's an interesting read.

Breeze Ads.com

I don't think it is because of duplicate content because you would of received a message using google's webmasters tool.

This happened to one of the sites I blogged on (onsugar.com). Some bloggers were creating R-rated blogs and stuff about using prescription drugsand they were not getting removed, so google adsense banned the entire domain from showing any adsense ads. I guessing posts like this http://seekyt.com/male-sexual-enhancement-pills-and-sex-enhancing-solutions/ thatr may be causing the problem. Like Jasmine said, there is a lot of content posted on the site that is against the adsense policy

What is everyones opinion on subdomains similar to Hubpages? Would that not keep decent writers safer?

Having subdomains still won't get seekyt unbanned, because the illegal content is still associated with the seekyt domain.

Sorry I meant for the new website Gloomz. Should have said, I apologize.
Emma x

Subdomains is a bad idea for other reasons. To keep a "new" website safe, I'm going to be extraordinarily strict with the content I allow to be published, and the things that I should have done with Seekyt will be done with the new site, like allowing users to report content.

I have received a message from Google which is still very unclear, but states that the reason for the ban may have more to do with the placement of images in a certain article which may or may not appear on other pages on this website. There was a 3 day warning period assigned to the author of this article who merely needed to either move the image, resize the image, or remove the image to comply.

If there was ever a problem with adult content or specific topics, Google has a great way of warning you before they officially warn you - ads don't show up on the article. This isn't foolproof, but I have always heeded this signal as a warning and all articles on this website were clean enough to display ads on.

In fact, I have removed content by authors here who you might consider top users or excellent writers based on their Seekyt portfolios, just because of this ad rendering rule.

Just to clarify, Seekyt was never meant to be a place for professional writing or outstanding quality articles. I have always maintained that a grade schooler should posses most of the skills required to write an article at Seekyt. I have offered everyone a chance to write here, and I will continue to do so based on our current content guidelines. It is too late to change that now.

A new website will address the needs of each of you who desire a strict place to write and showcase your content. It might be more like Examiner.com in quality control, but easier to become a writer for. As far as I know, there is no place similar to Seekyt.com where the content standards are comparable to opinion columns in newspapers or online magazines. Perhaps that will be the niche for the new site, but it will alienate quite a few people.

Even with that much intelligence from Google, it seems an enormous overreaction for a site with thousands of writers and tens of thousands of articles, to have the whole things knocked down for everyone because of a single violation.

Crazy.

Anyway, plenty of the professionals on this site will be happy to follow you to a higher quality site where the clowns aren't keeping company with us.

Keep us informed!

That's my thought exactly, and that's my intention - to become an authoritative site and get rid of the backlinkers and article marketing clowns.

I really don't see the point of bashing backlinks, really. As long as the content is high quality (and it should be because you want people to be happy about you if they ever visit your site) I don't think it's going to cause problems.

I'll probably leave them here, after all it's more trouble to remove them than to leave them, but feel free to delete them if they are not up to standards. Never made money here and I refuse to push articles 'The best pink jackets' 'The best blue jackets' 'The best green with white dots jackets' to get Amazon clicks so I guess this AdSense stuff annoys me more than many others. On the other hand, I am sure AdSense knows that they are throwing away the baby with the bathwater.

It would be interesting to see if it's possible to get rid of people who just push the same article again, and again, and again, changing about 3 words per sentence.

Just my two cents, for what's worth.

I meant the spammers that just leave a link as backlinking in a comment etc. I build backlinks myself and was indeed saddened when links here went Nofollow.

I just don't see how you can tell people to build backlinks to your content here, but don't allow them to build backlinks to their content elsewhere.

But in any case, that's another debate, and Admin has his hands full already poor guy.

I just saw this thread... I wouldn't mind more editorial control, but since I write for backlinks and AdSense I really don't think I'll be writing more here. Chitika isn't so bad, but I cannot justify the effort of adding content just because of that.

I do hope that Google rethinks but to avoid further problems I'd hope that even on this site, people aren't allowed to post content unmoderated until admin says so. Infobarrel does it and nobody seems upset. I doubt Mr. ISellPills is going to be around writing 10-15 quality articles just to be able to post a link to his real website once he's approved.

Best of luck and thanks for all your hard work, I can understand how you feel now :(

Totally understandable! I hope that you will let your existing content continue to earn for you here at Seekyt with the new ad programs that are coming out soon.

And you are exactly right - only the people who I deem fit to publish unmoderated will have the privilege to do so.

This is my first website and I've learned a lot from it - both good and bad things. I know what I will do different to ensure success in the future. Without the millions of dollars that bigger sites had, or a partner to help me through the process, it's been a one-man administration with thousands of "employed writers" and it's been an exhausting job. But, now I've learned not to waste my time on certain things that shouldn't even be given my attention.

This is directed at your other comment about backlinks - I allow backlinks when they are useful, but Seekyt's method of differentiation from other websites is to try and create an authoritative home-site for people. This means I intend for Seekyt to be the number-one website for people to earn money, and not a place to promote their other websites.

With that in mind, it's always acceptable to include backlinks when they are useful and helpful - in other words, if you're writing an article about tractors, a link to John Deere or "My Tractor Site" or even "My Article on Infobarrel About Tractors" is suitable. But if you're writing an article about tractors, using anchor text to link out to "My Money Making Scam Affiliate Product" is not suitable or useful at all.

I also think you will find that nofollow doesn't mean the backlink is useless. Instead, it just means Seekyt won't give up the authority of all of the backlinks built to that page to another website - and this is mainly in the form of the "related articles" linking to most articles on this website, which creates hundreds or more links to many different pages, giving away all of that internal link juice to other websites. In my opinion and experience, No Follow just means a link won't help your Page Rank - It can still help your SERP rank!

Oh right, I was uneducated in that part of Nofollows. Because I only ever use my links to link to the same subject I never thought of pointing it at a daft article. You have to think about that though.
Hope work on site 2 is going well.x

I am sorry but... nofollow means: Search engine, ignore this link. It may help your traffic, because people still get to see the link, but it doesn't affect the SERPs. I've been doing this for a while :)

Wouldn't it be easier to just say 'links that are unrelated to content will get your account banned or article unpublished' and adding a report button to posts?

But again, it doesn't matter. AS the owner of a site, you will find your value proposition and people will or will not add content to the site. Whether it's backlinks, awesome Adsense conditions or reputation and glory ala Huffpost, there's a site for everything.

Great comment :)

I have personally used linking sources that are no-follow and Google Webmaster tools (and even just a good ol' Google search for sites who link to you) almost always show those nofollow links as backlinks. I just personally feel that they are still valuable and useful links.

From my point of view, watching more than one million different linking pages point to this site from over 35,000 different websites, nofollow links are just as good. But, you hit the nail on the head - I actually do unpublish all content from "new" members with unhelpful links or spammy links, or even too many links. It's been an impossible, and in my opinion unfair, task to do that to existing articles and writers.

Thanks again for your opinion and input on the linking rules. I'll keep that in mind with the new site and the rewritten content guidelines.

Give us a report button and all those spammy links will be discovered and reported, even if they were written 3 years ago. Nobody likes them :)

I have to agree that nofollow links still may help your SERP rank ,and I know this from my own experience. Just take a look at backlinks from Yahoo Answers. They're nofollow, yet they count as backlinks (seen this by analyzing my competition), they can draw enormous traffic, and help you climb up in the SERPs.

As for this subject, one thing is clear, nofollow links system is not beneficial to people whose aim is to get backlinks from Seekyt in order to increase PR of their external web pages, but it is very beneficial to those who aim at making their Seekyt articles their primary source of online earnings. Seekyt made an official statement about the aims of the website as a whole, so it's only natural that it does all the necessary steps to help those who use the site as their priority site. It's that simple.

I don't envy the balancing task. Too strict, you die because nobody wants to write for you. Too lax, and it becomes a cesspit.

Though I am sure it was just a problem of somebody overreacting at Google. I just don't see how others such as Snipsy keep their accounts intact.

About that report button GoingOnline just mentioned in his comment above - cheers to that!

Is it safe to say that we all had a hand in getting our adsense removed? We thought we were all doing right and we were actually doing something wrong? For instance my last article is on the Google help forum for Adsense as an example of an adsense error. I had no idea what I did wrong, Tyler told me it was my image, it was too close to the advertisers....I had no idea that my image placement was in violation. Tyler suggested long ago that I remove from intro area and I did, put it in the body...come to find out that was a violation. Tyler was awfully nice to me, because he knew how upset I was, he told me that there were many images from other members that were in violation. So that is why I say, we all had a hand in getting the violation...we just did not know that we were doing something wrong. I

I think going forward with the new website that we need to fully understand what is right and what is wrong according to Google adsense.

I'm going to check whether I've got images placed near advertising space right now. If so, they will be removed from those positions.

HubPages displays the "insert photo" capsule near their advertising space, and I watched a video a while back in which one of the top AdSense earners explained on-page SEO including placing ad units near a video. It seems she was recommended to do this by someone in the Google team (and she thought this was not allowed). I think that image placement shouldn't be the problem (although I'm not at all sure), but it depends on what the image shows. If the image violates AdSense policy because of what it shows, that's something else.

I like the idea of image placement box. I learned that image violates adsense due to the placement being too close to advertisers. Image can violate adsense if it is sexual...Example: my herpes article, this article with the image was medical, educational and informative it was not pornography...Tyler approved it, and that is all I needed to publish it. Graphic sexual content violates adsense. My article I suppose was a fine line, however it is medical.

The article in question that adsense posted on the adsense appeal forum is this one Zazzle Stained Glass Floral Coffee Mug Review

Take a moment to look at the image placement....my adsense for this page was Top....it is really hard to understand why this article violated adsense...so I think the image boxes would be helpful, going forward.

I don't think that was actually a problem - take a look at the other email I sent to you. I think they were just using your article as an example of a page with AdSense on it, not an example of a violation.

Okay I found the email....:) I understand, thanks for explaining. We will all know better in regard to the images at the new Adsesne website.

UPDATE:
Previous comment deleted. Qutoes from the Google AdSense Help forum:

Q: Is it ok if my website contains scientific, medical and education about sex, sexually transmitted diseases and so on?

A: It's in the gray area which isn't technically defined to handle these questions. You may or may not be banned for this.

A: Generally speaking, those materials will fall under adult / mature, therefore not suitable for AdSense. If you're qualified to talk about these issues in a professional capacity, e.g. a medical doctor, certified psychologist, then it may be different, but I would still seek clarification from Google (http://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=policy_clarification) before proceeding to add AdSense on such pages.

* * *

Q: I want to know if google will allow me to put ads on pages with pictures of diseased genitalia on my site.

A: Its highly unlikely to be acceptable given that sites with Adsense require family friendly content, ie suitable for young children. The program is also policed by bots who wouldn't understand the context of such images/supporting text so the ads would soon get switched off even if the account wasn't terminated for unsuitable content.

I don't think it's that you can't have images near ads, I think you just can't make it look like the images are part of the ad, or perfectly inline with the ad. Their example may be confusing, but they show small images inline with a text ad that make it look like the images are part of the ad to increase CTR.

The only violation here would have to have been with the middle rectangle on the default template, or the skyscraper on the banner template. I don't see that as being a true problem, though, since hardly anyone used banners, and it was difficult to get anything inline with the middle rectangle on the default template.

We will never know for sure. I just know that on the next site I use AdSense on, I will play it safe with images.

I publish a lot of relationship content that deals with marriage and sex. Those articles do not have adsense and I earn from up front payment. The thing is, if Google thought that my content violated adsense my article would have had no advertisers. But that was not the case...I had Google ads that pertained to herpes, treatments. My article did not fall under adult content...because teenagers age 12 and up are the ones who are getting the virus. Again, content that violates Google adsense does not have ads...the page is blank. fine line between sexual content and medical. If you write about SEX, sexual...= no ads...sexual in medical terms...with treatment you will have adsense. I have never received a warning....

I wrote an article on HP about beating candida albicans with nutrition. I used about a dozen related medical terms and the ads on that page were disabled until I removed them. I decided to move away from such content because you never know...Like admin said, we'll probably never know why it came to this, and the member who did recieve the notification probably won't even look in his (her) inbox to check!

Inbox where???? If I've done something. I want to know. I like Seekyt!!!

Angelgirlpj, go to your adsense account and look on your sidebar for messages. Click on the that and if you have a violation you will see it there. That is where you get error codes when the bots have a problem on your page...if you need screenshots of the page let me know and I can share on facebook or email them to you so you will know where to look...okay. I doubt seriously if you have a message, but it is always good to know where the message box is. :)

Don't forget, everyone, that if you make Google a lot of money, they may make you a premium publisher. That means you no longer really have to follow the majority of their rules: custom ad sizes and fonts, write about any topic you'd like, insert more than 3 ads on a page, choose your own revenue share, etc.

A revenue sharing site can NEVER have a premium account if they share revenue the way Seekyt does - that is, by switching ad owners instead of directly splitting the value of a click with you. This is because sites like Seekyt use old-school AdSense code, and it would be impossible to have a custom sized ad with this type of code.

Good to know! Although it's too late and not the issue in question, I removed the images in articles displaying them more to the top.

I have always thought that if one decides to write on sexual topics even if it is for medical information that it should be put on a website that is completely focused on that niche.

It doesn't seem like it is a topic that would fit well on a multi-topic site. Many of the health related websites like Medicinenet, Mayoclinic, and Webmd only have articles about treatment, causes, symptoms etc for those particular diseases and conditions.

So if writers want to write on these subjects maybe admin could have a separate blog for the articles to be posted to, that way the right kind of ads can be associated with them to avoid violations.

For instance affiliate programs like MarketHealth.com or CPA offers would be good. Just a thought.

Infobarrel, Suite101 Yahoo voices, ehow.com to name a few websites all have content that relate to STD. CC not sure what websites you were referring to but do know that respectable sites have content on the topic, and it is not hidden in a separate area. Here is an example of multi-topic websites content:...

View genital herpes articles with photographs on infobarrel with adsense: http://www.infobarrel.com/Vaginal_Herpes_Pictures

Suite 101 genital herpes: with adsense: http://michael-koger.suite101.com/genital-herpes-a387248

Yahoo voices genital herpes with adsense: http://voices.yahoo.com/genital-herpes-common-sexually-transmitted-8331699.html?cat=70

Helium: http://www.helium.com/items/1372886-genital-herpes-symptoms-and-treatment

All of these high quality websites have articles with Google adsense on genital herpes. They are not in violation of Google adsense because they are not Lewd or provocative images, nor are they Crude or indecent language, including adult stories, Sexual tips or advice, Sexual fetish sites (e.g. foot fetish content), Adult toys or products, or Ads or links to external sites containing adult content

I think it is a needed medical category...as long as it is written well.

Well bummer, I like it here at Seekyt as you take time to answer my questions where so many other sites simply don't care. I just published an article on Seekyt and wondered what was going on.

Sorry Pam! Don't worry though. There is still plenty of opportunity to do well with Seekyt. New ads will be up within a couple of days, and all the details about earning with them will be posted in another journal entry.

Earning with a new program may involve applying to a new advertising network, but it will be worth it for you as an author in the long run to diversify the ways you earn money. Hopefully, everyone has learned from this experience to not put all of your eggs in one basket!

i am fairly new to seekyt and love the community and the admin. i dont plan on going anywhere other than to follow you to your new site.
i appreciate all of your hard work and am sorry that it has come to this. i believe that you will succeed in whatever you plan to do next based solely on what i have seen so far with this site.
will you invite those authors that you have identified as quality to the new site? have you considered inviting them and with acceptance also inviting their referrals if they are up to par?

It has been considered!

I am definitely going to be inviting Seekyt authors to the new website. In fact, I'll probably invite everyone, and instantly approve new authors who I know are up to par. Any author who I have ever had to question will be moderated. This will not be an automatic "publish three and you're free" moderation. It will be permanent, requiring manual review and it will protect all users of this new website.

The referrals are a different story. Since I'd have to manually look through and compare email addresses (since you could sign up at the new site with a different username), it might not be logistically possible - not to mention what it would take to determine who is referred, who isn't, by whom, etc.

One thing I've been wondering: if you referred someone to Seekyt who broke Google's rules, but your ads are being displayed on their articles because they are your referral, Google might decide to get you in trouble instead of the referral. With that in mind, the new moderation process along with a report button on every page will be used to ensure everyone's safety.

I'm not sure whether I'd sign up for a new site. I'm thinking that starting my own blog would be a better option. There are quite a few requirements this site would have to meet if I was to join: have writers write on one specific niche, moderate everybody's content and edit, strict content guidelines including formatting, make all external links nofollow right away, allow only one link to the same external domain on page, forbid including links to the same domain across many articles, etc. It all depends on what one considers to be high-quality content. I'm not sure that such a website can depend on one person only.

You are just about right on topic with what will be done with the new site, except for forcing certain niches. Instead, I will have categories that you can post to, so you can write on multiple topics or niches, but have them at least categorized.

Although "high quality" can be speculated against, it's going to be quite a bit tougher than Seekyt. Also, there will be limitations on what can and cannot be posted on the new site - more than likely, articles will have to be non-fiction.

The linking rules will be strict, and they will be nofollow right out of the gate.

Finally, don't let what I do at Seekyt or with Seekyt's rules influence your opinion on what the rules will be like on a new website. I have learned my lesson with Google, and I'm not going to just create another Seekyt.com with a different name.

Whether or not you choose to create a new blog and not write for Seekyt or a new site again is respectfully your own decision, but you would be missed if you choose not to come along with us!

Comment deleted.

I am still in contact with Google, as are a couple of other people helping me out with this. They do not offer a phone number and usually just bounce the emails back to us.

Unfortunately, an AdSense volunteer was able to tell me that Google can and will ban an entire domain because of one issue - once they become aware of a single problem, they have enough reason to ban your domain without having to look for more problems.

I do not believe that this means only one article at Seekyt is in violation of Google's rules - but it only takes one good violation to bring the whole thing down. Google AdSense may have human beings behind the scenes, but they use a sophisticated program to find errors and violations.

I am 90% confident that whomever Google contacted about the violation was also given a period of two or three days (or maybe even just one day) to correct the violation. Google does that a lot - you have a chance to correct the problem - all problems.

I agree with you about the "bringing down 5000 people" thing, because that's what has me scratching my head too. I don't understand why they would choose to ban a domain without contacting the owner (or making an effort to contact the owner), but the simple truth is that they did this and would do it again.

The new program officials I've been speaking to at Infolinks and Chitika have been very helpful and kind. They are also human beings who have manually had to review this website, and Jamie from Infolinks even wanted to discuss my website and see if Infolinks might be a good fit for us.

I have always been a huge Google fan and an advocate for what they stand for, and I still am a fan. I'm not blaming them or anyone for MY mistakes, I just want to say that Google AdSense, at least, has become a bit too cold and robotic for my personal taste, and I'm surprised that they won't at least send me an email from something other than an automated server to tell me "Sorry we won't help you via email." I understand that Google would be inundated with impossible-to-meet quotas of calls and angry publishers if they used real people to handle all of their customer service issues, but it would at least be a kind gesture to have a person tell me the exact violation that was found, and give me some insight into their decision to ban us without warning ME first.

A new website is not going to have the same ad structure, and even though it will resemble Seekyt (i.e., no sidebars on article pages, comments will work the same, I will use the same software, etc.), it will be much different in terms of what is and isn't allowed to happen. I think with very strict moderation combined with community moderation that alerts me instantly to violations, I will be able to create a website that is, in essence, free of any violations.

I agree. I was a fan of Google, too until I saw how they treated Seekyt. It doesn't seem professional or fair. They should have contacted the owner, and ban the publisher in question instead of the whole domain.

Quote: Admin: A new website is not going to have the same ad structure, and even though it will resemble Seekyt (i.e., no sidebars on article pages, comments will work the same, I will use the same software, etc.), it will be much different in terms of what is and isn't allowed to happen. I think with very strict moderation combined with community moderation that alerts me instantly to violations, I will be able to create a website that is, in essence, free of any violations. End Quote)

I like the sounds of the new website, but I am certain that you will need help in moderating and editing the content as well as software to check copyrights.

Prior to publishing online I submitted editorials to our local newspaper as a guest columnist. I have gotten rusty in ap style of writing but as I recall I did enjoy writing editorials. I am looking forward to the website. I will probably continue to publish product reviews and fun articles here at Seekyt, but plan on publishing more professional content at new website.....

Admin: This is off topic....but I think it is helpful and maybe something you should consider. Speaking of the content on Seekyt. There are many authors that do not command the English language and their content read as the same sentence over and over again. I think that this may be due to the translator? Since Seekyt offers world-wide writers and because the Spanish language is the most widely spoken language other than English would it be wise to have a mirrored website in Spanish? Now I am not sure how this is done but do know that Demand Media has eHow.com English and Spanish. I have no idea how technical this is to do, but it is a thought...simply because Seekyt has writers all over the world...Not sure if you can offer all languages or just a few....such as a translator on the Seekyt website?

This might be a consideration down the line - I've thought of it before, but I would need to be able to hire a Spanish-fluent webmaster who also spoke fluent English (programming and communication reasons).

I will look into this when the time is right. It's definitely a great way to expand our user base.

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Oh Jasmine: Congratulations....I had no idea you had been promoted to administration status...of course it makes perfect sense with your academic background. (My post to admin and you responded)

Like I said I have no idea how technical or expensive translator software is but when a website is worldwide I think the English written articles may suffer because of different languages. I like you, know many people that are well versed in many languages and speak/write English perfectly...but like Tyler (admin) noted that Seekyt was for all types of writers not just language experts. Tyler (admin) speaks of the guidelines for the new website...and well I would hope that all content would be from authors that command the English language...I do not think they are at fault for poor English grammar but do think it is the translation.

True. I'll consider this seriously though once I have the money for this investment. DelSeekyt.com

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Dear Admin,
I just joined Seekyt a couple days ago at the advice of my husband. I was very excited about the opportunity until I logged into the AdSense message shortly after sign up.

After reading the entire post, the issue encompasses quite a bit of emotion, uncertainty and opportunity. For what it's worth, I would like to throw in my two cents. If I offer anything that hasn’t been suggested and you make your first million – buy me a cup of coffee next time you’re in my town. *winks*

Shannon
---------------------------------------------------------------

Education
==================
Many of the article websites that I frequent offer an academy, a forum, FAQs and a variety of other methods to keep information on what’s allowed on their website. While they make great repositories for information on a variety of topics, I believe that each writer should have a basic level of understanding on what is acceptable on a given article site.

What I haven’t seen is a proficiency test. Using oDesk as an example (bare with me... I know they have their flaws), I had to complete an oDesk proficiency test to become an “oDesk ready” contractor. It was an open book test where you could search through their FAQ system to find the answers to basic policies and practices that oDesk felt contractors should know. I am sure after running an article website for a while your list of common new writer errors is long. (Maybe all caps, overuse of hyphens, etc.)

Another area that is of utmost importance is Google AdSense knowledge. Therefore, having writers pass a proficiency test prior to allowing Google Ads on their articles may help alleviate moderation work.

In the end, the idea of educating new authors is to decrease the amount of moderation work you have and to decrease turnaround time. Both of which are important especially for timely content on current affairs.

Moderation
==================
While I think it is admirable for one person to moderate all the content on an ongoing basis on any content sharing platform, I believe that it is unreasonable.

One of my biggest frustrations with other article sites is the lag time between article submission, review, (possibly correction), and posting. This is not to say that I don’t value or welcome moderation. Moderation is a very necessary mechanism for an article website (or any type of website).

However, to be realistic, I think you need to consider a team of people to review content.

Option 1 - Tiered Volunteer Team

In the case of Dmoz, they use human volunteers to review directory submissions. In your case, you may consider a tiered approach where volunteers review the content prior to it reaching you. If well trained, the volunteers could sort out problems and offer meaningful feedback to moderated writers.

Become a Dmoz Writer - http://www.dmoz.org/help/become.html

Option 2 – Tiered Team of Paid Review Staff

Very similar in idea. Use a tiered team working to weed out repeat / simple problems, help improve writers on the site, and provide meaningful feedback. One possible way to fund or entice staff members is to give them a small percentage of the AdSense revenue, which can be divided by the time invested. Or pay them hourly. If you choose to pay hourly, using a system like oDesk to monitor workers might be helpful. oDesk takes random screenshots (snapshots) of the screen / person to make sure that workers are working on content and that they are indeed at their computer. If a screenshot is deleted, the 30 minutes for that time is deleted. (See what I mean about their proficiency test? I learned a lot while taking the test.)

Flagging Option - Love it. A watchful community can be your best defense. Again, having a tiered team to review flagged material prior to your approval would help balance your load and turnaround time.

Conclusion
===============
Ultimately, you need to have the say as to what is approved and what is not approved. It’s your investment of time and money that’s at stake. Yes, writers have a stake as well but they walk away with their content. You walk away with … what? Empty article website? Cool domain name?

I wish you the best of luck and will keep an eye out for which ad revenue you decide to use and information about your new AdSense website.

All very good points. Thank you for your input!

Inappropriate comment. Deleted.

Our PR was never a 4 - we've never been higher than a 3. I don't know who is spreading this rumor or where you learned that information, but it's not true.

In fact, Seekyt just had the most traffic its ever had two days ago, in the middle of all of this going on. Just because we don't have ads doesn't mean our search engine traffic is going anywhere. In fact, it means our search engine traffic will improve according to Google's newest algorithm which punishes websites with ads above the fold.

Making content standards more difficult for authors to publish would make my life easier, because I would be denying more content than I approve. The approval is the part that takes work. Denial is automatic - delete the article, it sends an email warning - break the rules again, account is banned.

I'm starting to get confused by your comments which seem to compliment me and insult me all at once - Compliments to Seekyt and its accomplisments (positive?) for making your pagerank go down and for losing AdSense (negative?) and for not being able to properly moderate content in your own language (insult?). I'm not really sure how to respond because they seem to sway wildly.

Plus, I don't know how you would know that our standards of quality differ. I've never once required a high-quality article from anyone. I require articles in readable English of 400 words or more that aren't written solely for backlinks, and even those requirements have only been in place for a couple of months.

Being a member of an online community is a great learning experience. Good to know about the PR. A negative critique is not an insult (sorry you understood the comment that way). As for the quality of content - my bad; you've been pointing that out all along and I must have been sitting on my ears. I learned a very important thing today - you disagree in the comments - you are a know-it-all narcissism member. Interesting!

I think that this conversation is getting off topic and out of hand. I never meant to incite an argument with you. Simply put, you are one of Seekyt.com's biggest voices in my opinion - you have written so many valuable tutorials and Seekyt-related articles that I have found your contributions influential to many members of this website. Not to mention the challenges and community participation that you have personally contributed to have been amazing.

I think that some people will always take my side in a disagreement just because I am the admin. Others might just see it my way because of their own related experiences. I am always open to friendly conversation and criticism though, and you are more than welcome to disagree. My only intention was to express my confusion at your comment and to correct the PR thing. I did not mean to come across as arrogant or angry with my previous comment. I just wanted to correct the PR thing and inform you and everyone else about content policy at Seekyt.

I still consider you a friend and hope that this debate hasn't angered you too much. When I said "you will be missed" during our other conversation, I simply meant that the new website would be missing a great contributor without you on board.

edit: replace stricken comment with "argument hasn't changed your mind about Seekyt.com or my own demeanor"

Angry (smile)? No. Friends, yes.

Hang in there, Tyler. No point in wrestling with know-it-all narcissism. You're doing fine. Google's a bully we have to live with. So, let's just get on with positive ideas, such as you've already proposed, for doing it.

I agree davestone13,....Tyler there will always be arm chair webmasters that think they know it all...they will tell everyone how to do things, however they themselves have never done anything close to what you have done. You have accomplished greatness in a short time. Seekyt views highest in last 2 days!

Fact is Google has changed, and finding out about the changes is like finding a needle in a hay stack, they do not send out emails to people as in newsletters...you find out when it is too late, and then it is really hard to fix it because the communication channel to Google is limited.

Tyler please don't pay attention to members with know it all narcissism. They have no idea what it like to be a webmaster or a blogger, Google can be a bully to live with....

I think it is time to close the door on the negative crap and open the new door...that is positive and a new beginning.

Thanks Dave and Susan. Positivity all the way!

The truth is, I don't think it will take very long to get our new website up to par with Seekyt in terms of Page Rank and traffic. A significant portion of Seekyt's traffic comes from an insignificant number of articles, and a new "High Quality Only" place for AdSense publishers will provide opportunities for success, and far fewer chances for failure. Plus, with some new options like "Categories," each writer can learn to focus their talent and creativity into categorized niches and become well known for those particular topics if they want.

I have heard from many of you that Seekyt.com was your highest earning website you currently use. That was not a fluke, it was the result of careful tinkering and months upon months of testing to get our earnings system just right. A new website without all the junk can only be better.

Trust me, everybody, I don't want this to happen again either.

AMEN AND AMEN. You go Tyler you have been so helpful to me and I really do appreciate it! ;0)

Hey Tyler, I found a new niche I want to try out.

So I was wondering how many profiles can we have on Seekyt?

As many as you want :) I just ask that you don't refer yourself.

Okay Thanks!

I have been wanting to write on a different subject from the one I am currently doing and I think having a new profile will work out great.

I hope that my suggestions didn't come off as being self absorbed. That was not my intention. It's easy to complain about how things went wrong but it's much more challenging to try to offer solutions to avoid repeat pitfalls.

I used to work for a director that said, "Don't come to me with problems, come to me with solutions." I think that's a very valuable statement.

More than likely I should have just privately emailed my ideas to the site admin instead of sharing them here. I had hoped that creative people who are experienced webmasters (or project managers) might take the ideas and offer even better solutions.

As a side note, I don't agree with Jasmine (at least without a lot more information). In terms of "grade school level" writers. H.G. Wells, Jack London, Jim Clark, and Peter Jennings received a grade school level education. Yet, they are well know for their writing abilities.

I had a lot more to say but decided it was better served in a private email to the admin. I didn't want anyone to use it for flaming me or anyone else.

Please do not worry so, you have very valid opinions. You express them in a correct manner and are polite. Anyone who incites an argument from that would likely be dealt with by other members and admin. Admin is one guy called Tyler *waves*, he is who answered you above your last post.
Welcome anyway and thank you for thinking about solutions as you say.
Emma x

@theonlineanswer, I can not speak for everyone else but I felt your suggestions were well received and that you have contributed value to the discussion.

As you have already seen Google is a sensitive subject nowadays especially after the Panda updates that happened around this time last year.

Sites like Hubpages were slapped so hard that they decided to introduce their own revenue model called the (hub ad earning program) which offers pay per view and minimizes adsense.

Plus there were other content farms, crowdsourcing or multi-user writing sites that also felt the wrath of the Almighty G.

Now a days it is important that if a site is going to use Google Adsense they must be really strict on the type of content that is published as well as diversify with other payment models.

I feel Tyler is providing solutions and has a handle on the situation and I am sure he appreciates your input.

Thank you for the friendly reply. I was getting a bit worried. I am fairly new to article writing online for money. (Not new to writing - editor in chief for two offline publications.) Anyhow, I still feel there's a great deal of talent here and look forward to the opportunities.

You are very welcome here with open arms, and all comments and critiques are welcome. If I don't agree with them, I will almost always let you know in a polite and honest manner. There is nothing to be worried about!

@theonlineanswer: Absolutely no reason to worry, of course! Looking forward to your articles. Enjoy the site :)

Did this just turn into the eHow forum or something?

(lol)...maybe these members only journals should be private...what goes on at Seekyt stays at Seekyt.

Hey Tyler what do you think of having a Forum?
It seems like it would be a great way to keep people engaged on the site.

I do love the idea. I just need to find one with an SSO option that works with Seekyt. I think there is a very good possibility in the near future for this.

Okay that will be great.

Why not start your own advertising network?

That's definitely a great idea! I think I'll need to rebuild our site back up first though before anyone would take us seriously.

I would love to have a website where advertisers could pick and choose articles to advertise on at a set rate of $30 per month, per ad slot, and split the revenue with authors on a 70/30 basis. It just involves getting a lot of cool software built that can link up with PayPal accounts, etc.

Anyway, that's definitely a great idea that I'd be very interested in when the time is right.

I agree with the advertising network idea because it seems like there is lots of ads for coupons, groceries, household items etc.

Yeah I like the advertising network idea because if it works, it's guaranteed income! 70% of 30 dollars (21 dollars) a month for an article would be AMAZING.

I was just reading about bloggers in Silicon Valley that have millions of readers to their blogs are bypassing ad networks and instead are asking Venture Capitalists for Angel funding which is significant because that is the kind of money that usually goes for small start-up companies.

The interesting thing is that the bloggers posts can be pretty biased if they are writing about the companies they received investments from. Its almost like the VC's can use these high profile bloggers as their own paid writers in the media.

You can read about it here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/22/ethical-or-not-silicon-valley-bloggers-hit-up-vcs-for-angel-funds.html

You must have had a coronary when that happened o.O but maybe it will work in your (our) favor. I'm very happy to stay around. Chitika, Yahoo or whatever I'm more interested in the community atmosphere and quality of the site I use. If it's a good quality site the money will come with it in whatever manner. (Ironically today I was just thinking that I wished Seekyt used Chitika I guess I got my wish - or though not in a manner I would have guessed.)

It's members like you who make sites like this one successful, because you find more value in Seekyt than just AdSense. I'm glad that you appreciate the community here, and I hope that I can get Chitika up and running very soon.

Thanks Tyler, I have learnt a great deal from the other members on Seekyt and would much rather write for a site that has a sense of community than one that is merely focused on income generation. Most of my traffic (and I think all the traffic that clicks on ads) comes from search engine traffic. I think Chitika could work very well in this situation :)

Wow, I had no idea this was happening, but I just recently noticed that Seekyt had stopped generating Adsense earnings. Guess now I know why.

So, if I'm understanding all of this correctly, Seekyt lost Adsense because a member failed to respond to Google's warning letter. I thought that Adsense bans people, not sites? In this case, Google pulled Adsense approval for Seekyt because the infringing content was here, however I'm assuming Tyler wasn't personally banned, right? That just seems crazy.

I do recall reading something in the Adsense terms about a site owner being responsible for everything that is on their site, so even if the infringing content was written by someone else, the website owner bares the burden to ensure 100% compliance. (not meant as a slam to you Tyler, just a statement)

What implications does this have when it comes to rotating an Adsense ID? It seems that a fairly minor incident turned major (by not replying to G) and financially crippled an entire site. I know I'm bummed, but I'm also feeling a little hesitant because it seems like there is a bigger risk of getting caught in the crossfire of someone else's mistake/carelessness/accident.

I think losing Adsense sucks, but there's money to be made with Chitika and other advertisers. I'm not a big fan of InfoLinks though.

Also, I'm not jumping ship.

Oh yeah, Tyler, this comment is taking on too much responsibility: " If there was a violation, I should have been in charge of it - this is my sole responsibility..."

Yeah, it's your job to lay down clear content guidelines, but it is EVERY ADSENSE PUBLISHER'S RESPONSIBILITY to know and follow the Adsense terms and rules. If any of my content violates Adsense terms it is MY fault, not yours.

Just because there isn't a flag option doesn't mean the community shouldn't let you know about sub-par articles.

Just my 2 cents!