I never thought this would happen. I posted about laptops being stolen from the coffeeshop that I am using wireless Internet from. Well, the theif was so brilliant that he came today (2 days later) and was ready to try his hand at stealing more laptops. This IDIOT must be really dumb because he was videotaped stealing a laptop 2 days ago. Habib the owner watched the videotape, and I guess he remembered the guy as he walked through the door today. Good lookout Habib, he called the police, they took about 5minutes to get here and the bald assh*le junkie was arrested right away. Apparently the junkie was scoping out laptops as Habib was on the phone with the cops. The dude looks like a 45 year old science teacher, slim and balding and nerdy looking.

He will be easy to convict as he was caught on tape which has now been handed to the RCMP in Burnaby, good work!!!

Chilling at Starbucks, and I just realized how insane what i do is. I mean I can work from anywhere in the damn world at anytime of the day. I have no boss, all I need is a $500 laptop and a wireless Internet connection and I’m off to the races.  People sitting next to me probably think I’m some student, little do they know the power of an affiliate marketer. 10 years ago affiliate marketing never even existed, I was a cabinet maker 9 years ago, I had no idea where I would be today. I am soo grateful for hooking up  with the right people and the events in my life that lead me to affiliate marketing.

I absolutely love what I do and I had post about how gratetful I am for the opportunity that the internet has enabled me to have. It’s a hell of a lot of work but worth every minute of stress I have ever had.

Logging into my account AdWords account this morning and I see that I have 0 impressions. I then do a quick search on Google.com for some of the keywords that I pay for, they are not there. I get a little worried but at the same time I think it might be one of Google’s little glitches. I then contact an adwords specialist via AdWords online chat.

I explain to the person on the chat what is going on and I wait a few minutes as they are “checking into the problem”. Unsure of the what the problem is, the person then “escalates” it to the “AdWords technical department”. I wait 2 day to get a response back (still no traffic) and I get this lovely email.

Google’s email

“Thank you for your patience. It has come to our attention that your
Google AdWords account does not comply with our terms of service and
advertising policies. You have repeatedly submitted ads that violated our
Affiliate URL policies in a related account. As a result, this account has
been suspended, and your ads will no longer run on Google.

As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to
terminate advertisements for any reason. To view our Terms and Conditions,
please visit  https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder.

We appreciate your cooperation.”

I almost had a heart attack, after I read this seriously. I have a family to feed and Google just turned off the waterfall of money. I admit it was my fault, but it was unintentional really. I never meant to break their rules, it’s just that their rules are so vague, they are seriously hard to interpret. They could at least have some suggestions on how I could fix my landing page so I wouldn’t be violating their terms. Their only suggestion was that I direct link to the affiliate company, basically scrap my landing page all together. Is that a good idea, I don’t think since it limits my ability to control how the user interacts with the page. Basically my landing page was designed to convert with a big “click here” button, with some basic information about the site in bullet points,  something they don’t like as it is an “affiliate bridge page” in their eyes. It’s tough to make AdWords happy and at the same time have a profitable campaign going, that converts into buyers.

I emailed back stating I was truly sorry and it would never ever happen again.

This is their response

“As mentioned in our previous email, your Google AdWords accounts have been
suspended due to multiple policy disapprovals. We are unable to revoke
your account suspensions, and we will not accept advertisements from you
in the future.

Please note that our support team is unable to help you with this issue,
and we ask that you do not contact them about this matter. If you need
more information about our content policy guidelines, please visit
https://adwords.google.com/select/contentpolicy.html.”

I then called then and pleaded my case, still no go. The AdWords specialists decision is final… ( like a judgement from God). I cannot do anything, I am banned from Google for life, FOREVER. I explained that I was truly sorry and also explained I spend roughly $45,000 per month with them on advertising, no go. $45,000 x 12 months=$540,000 per year that they are saying goodbye to. I am truly in shock that they would let that amount of money disappear, for such silly “violations”.I got kicked to the curb, and I was completely shocked as you might imagine.

Google is my business without it I have nothing. This to me is like life and death, honestly. It’s how I support my family and how I planned on retiring.

So Now What?

Well I started researching online for “banned by AdWords”, “suspended by by AdWords”, “AdWords suspension” and so on. It seems like Google AdWords teams like to ban people very frequently and easily. For the time being I am relaxing and remaining calm. I am still in shock as to how they treated me, I wasn’t trying to advertise porn, it wasn’t gambling. I made the mistake of not designing my affiliate landing page properly (which they call a “bridge page”). I didn’t realize how to create the right design for an affiliate landing page so as to not break Google’s golden rules. I was wrong I admit it, but do they need to ban me forever for advertising for such small mistakes. Even criminals get second chances. We are human and we make mistakes, don’t you Google??? Have compassion for people, it would do you a world of good.

In any case it’s their company they can do whatever they like. I would love to know what amount of advertising income is derived from people like myself, affiliate marketers? They hate us, but how much money do we make Google AdWords? I would love to know………

I did find numerous posts from people wondering if they can create a new AdWords account. Apparently this is a difficult task to do, to say the least. In order to create a new Google AdWords account from what I have read you need to do the following:

1. New business name
2. New address
3. New name.
4. New credit card
5. New websites
6. New computer
7. New IP address

That is an insane amount to do for being banned from AdWords, to get back in. I guess it would be worth it to do, but seriously I’m too stressed to even bother. Maybe I’ll get my real estate liscense and forget AdWords and their Nazi attitude. It’s amazing how poorly they treat people., but what comes around goes around. No one can stay on top forever, especially if you bit the hand that feeds you…..

Ok, the title is dramatic, sue me, lol.I had a few minutes to spare before I head over to my parents place for Saturday night BBQ.

What has been going on with me the last few days?

1. I sold my 4plex in Winnipeg, so I celebrated last night by buying a bag of Doritos chips and a bag of that Smart food popcorn stuff  from 7-11, yah, yah, yah!
2. I planted grass seeds 15 days ago and they are growing and filling in the blank spots I had on my lawn, yah!
3. I have the SpiderMan 3 move as well as the Fantastic 4 movie downloaded and ready to be watched tonight, yah!

Next Weeks Agenda:

1. Start checking out investment condos in New Westminster next week for under $220,000 (Ozzie Jurock recommended New West condos as a good buy, I agree) Ozzie says, “We particularly favour New Westminster, but investors have to be careful. There is a lot happening in the Royal City and despite a “benchmark” price of a typical condominium at $304,000 in May, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, we had little trouble finding condos for $200,000 or just slightly above. Warning: you will see listings in New West for condos as low as the $150,000, but most of these are clustered in three leaky condo buildings. (Eg: low-rise 312 Carnarvon - $1.5-$2 million in repairs needed - realtor’s estimate) and two high-rises on Agnes St. (assessments to $100,000 per suite for repairs).” But there are renovated older New West condo buildings (watch for listings on Ginger Street) that offer good value in the $200,000 and less range, according to veteran area realtor Doris Gee of ReMax Central (604-432-7888). Example: 340 Ginger Ave. 830 sq. ft. 1 bedroom, no restrictions, strata fees $159 per month: Asking price $189,000.“
2. Increase sales on my pay per click campaigns, I will not be stopped! I want my 20 investment properties, 17 more to go. Big dream maybe, but even bigger reality.
3. Pray for more sun (Today is sunny, but will it remain???)

Random pictures I took while were downtown this morning:

Joe Fortes Car on Robson St & Thurlow St, Vancouver - June 14, 2008

Joe Fortes Car on Robson St & Thurlow St, Vancouver - June 14, 2008

city/sky shot on Hornby Street / Smithe Street, Vancouver - June 14, 2008

With gas prices going higher every day, I thought I would share how you can save 6.5 cents on every litre you purchase. In Vancouver, B.C., SuperStore has gas stations located on two of their properties, one at the Grandview SuperStore and one at the Marine Drive SuperStore. You buy your gas at the SuperStore “Gas Bar” and then you get a redeemable receipt that you can use you get free groceries inside SuperStore. So if you buy groceries already then why not save a few bucks? I ended up saving $5.22, it’s not much but it’s right there so why not take it.

Save 6.5 cents for every liter you buy at SuperStore

These gas companies are posting record profits but the price just goes higher and higher. I see a few things happening from this situation. Obviously people won’t be travelling long distance vacations in there cars nearly as much. Prices of food and everything else will go up. There will be full scale truck strikes like they had in Portugal. Once trucks stop running then everything stops moving, no food, electronics, and anything else that get shipped, basically everything.

All of this can be avoided with a REAL push for hybrid cars and trucks, that are priced the same as regular cars, not $10,000 more expensive. But there is no push for these type of engines for one reason that we all know, oil companies still wants your money. Hybrid cars mean less profit for oil companies and they are in bed with the car manufacturers. Will this change, I think it has to eventually.

Oh and guess how much it costs to fill up my Escalade on June 12, 2008, $114.75. Luckily just like the gas companies I am making record profits as well, so their gas prices don’t mean anything to me. But it still pisses me off. I hate being ripped off, like everyone else.

$114.75 cents to fill up my Cadillac SUV

$1.42 a liter for gas in Vancouver at SuperStore on June 12, 2008

Oh and stay away from the Esso on Grandview Highway and Rupert Street, they are always more expensive than SuperStore GasBar, which is right across the street. Today there were charging 4 cents more just for all the suckers who like to pay more.

A great example of Esso greed