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A few weeks ago, I got a rather blunt email from Google telling me that they had shut down my Adsense account for fraudulent clicks and returned all advertiser money earned. At first I thought they had sent the email to the wrong person, since over the past 3 years, I’ve only made not much more than $100 from the account. Sure enough, I went to login and got a big fat denied message and a link to a FAQ on why my account was shut down. I was around $20 shy of another payment that would have been nice.
Just great I thought. Why in the world would Google think a little tiny web guy like me would have bad clicks? I thought about it for a few, and realized that I’ve never clicked on my own ads or encouraged others to do so. So why did Google turn me off?
When I went to the FAQ page to figure this out, I saw a link to a form where you could request that your account be reactivated. They ask all the regular questions like name and account ID and whatnot, but towards the end, there are a couple fields to list why you think your account may have been turned off and then another field to paste any server logs to weird visitor activity which may have caused it.
Without a flinch I started to look through all of my visitor logs, and sure enough for one day in February, someone pinged my site hundreds of times trying to do a massive save of one of my sites with Adsense on it. This had to be the problem I thought and quickly copied some of the log events and explained my case into the Adsense form. After submitting, I was messaged that I would hear a reply within 48 hours.
After a week and a couple days, and another form submit stating my claim, I get an email from Google saying that they were sorry for the inconvenience and that my account has been turned back on. Awesome I thought. They mentioned the ads might take a few hours to re-appear (which wasn’t the case, they were already back on when I checked) and asked that I read through another FAQ on how to protect my ads in the future.
I check my sites and the ads are back, so I then log into my account to read this FAQ and sure enough, my balance is now zero. They cleaned the entire account out. I couldn’t believe it. They knew they messed up, and still took all the money I had earned since the first (and last) payment.
I couldn’t believe it. I’ve emailed them a couple times since asking what is going on. If they want to reimburse their advertisers for bad clicks, I’m all for it - but only for that one day in February that caused it. If there was another problem, take 5 whole minutes and give me some sort of explanation.
So my ads are back on, I’m back to square one, and Google won’t get back. I wonder if Adsense is even worth the trouble. They sure aren’t paying enough for the headache they’ve caused and a little more insight would be nice.
If I don’t hear back within the next week, I’m deleting the account and stripping the ads. Adsense just isn’t worth it.
Update
So nearly 3 weeks after posting this entry, and about a dozen emails to google, I finally got my balance back to what it was. I literally kept resending the same email asking what happened to my balance every 3 days or so up until a few days ago. On the last email sent, I prefaced the email with the question if I needed to drive down to Shoreline Drive and start pestering the adsense team myself to get some sort of an answer.
After that email, I got a short reply, and the balance went back to what it was before. Lesson learned: 48 hours to google support really means about 4 weeks.
Oh, and just to top it off, my page rank dropped a point after my balance came back. Awesome.
I just put a few new patterns up at DinPattern. “Dirty Vintage” looks like rundown 70’s wallpaper with some nice grungy orange hues. “Queen’s Quilt” is a subtle, royal style pattern. And finally “Veerle!” which is a scale-style pattern based on Veerle Pieter’s color palette of her blog.
There are few times where I recommend a movie to others. The last movies I got a real kick out of was Stardust and Bourne Ultimatum. But a few nights ago I saw a movie, and heard a soundtrack that blew everything out of the water.
I don’t even know where to begin. “Once” is a modern musical - a story of two musicians pushing each other to be greater and (almost) falling in love in the process. It’s a story of a guy (that’s the credit) and a girl that randomly run into each other in Ireland somewheres. The guy has broken up with a girl a year back, and the girl is an immigrant from the Czech republic. Both being musicians, they start to play together and dig deeper into each other’s lives unintentionally. They create a record, push each other to be better musicians and people, and make some of the best music I’ve ever heard.
The director knew that the story revolved so much around the music that he insisted the actors be real musicians rather than actors that could sorta sing and appear like they could play and instrument. The film is also shot in an almost documentary style - which makes the film feel all the more real. In fact, on the DVD extras, the director and actors mention they have been asked about the character’s current lives - assuming they’re real.
I think the main reason I liked this movie so much, was simply the male lead Glen Hansard. This guy is one of the most talented individuals I have ever seen. The emotion that comes through his voice and body language during a song is amazing. I really have no idea why he doesn’t have the same fame as a band such as Coldplay or the Verve, because he is as talented as they get.
After seeing Once, I don’t think I can watch any other music-centric movie without thinking “Once is better.” On a side note, I’m right now watching “Across the Universe” but contemplating turning it off because Once just blows all of these movies out of the water.
It’s been quite some time since I watched any movie worth writing about. Well, in one week I’ve seen two DVDs that were a couple of the best flics I’ve seen in ages. “Stardust” and “Bourne Ultimatum.”
Jason Bourne has always been a favrorite character of mine, and the latest in the series “Bourne Ultimatum” is not only the best, but one of the best action flics I’ve seen in a long, long time. Ultimatum is so well done, it’s ridiculous. Every scene keeps you glued to the film - it’s such a completely fresh take on spy style movies, it’s what the next Bond movie should seriously strive for. The character of Bourne himself has evolved so much that it makes the pace of the film so much quicker; but completely for the better. I don’t think there was any spot in the movie where events died-down in a sense. YOU NEED TO SEE THIS MOVIE.
Just tonight, I watched another flic that I had heard of when it was in theatres, but didn’t think much of it. I so wish I had sean this movie in theatres now! “Stardust” is an incredibly well-written, well-directed, acted, entertaining movie that I just couldn’t pull away from. Every actor in the movie is so engaging with their characters that you can’t move from your seat. Claire Danes, DeNiro, Charlie Cox, Jason Flemyng, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Kelly and the rest of the cast really bring a huge amount of life to this movie. On top of it being so well-written and done, the producers and directors brought in the perfect cast for this movie. If you don’t see any other movie in 2007 or 2008; you HAVE to watch this flic. Written by the master himself; Neil Gaiman (MirrorMask, The Sandman, Death: The High Cost Of Living, Mr. Punch), it’s an incredibly well-done movie. CHECK IT OUT NOW!
My latest theme; “Royal” is now available for download. It’s another bare-bones style theme along the same lines as “Humidor” and “Gotham Nights.”
Feel free to hack it anyway you see fit; all that I request is that you keep the logo (or link) at the bottom of the site.
To switch from logo to link, simply rename “footer-link.php” to “footer.php”
Also, there are a few different color versions of the shield up top for you to choose or manipulate. Just grab the one you want, tweak it and rename it “shield.gif.” Drop the new version into the images directory to change.
I just had a quick question for all of you. I’m hard at work on another WordPress template/theme and I’m pondering the user of a couple 3rd party plugins with it. Specifically “Related Posts” and possibly something else.
What is your quick take on this? Should I leave my themes bare-bones so that it will work without the use of plugins? Or does everyone feel comfortable with the addition of them as long as I document everything within the download?
I just got done wrapping up another theme called “Gotham Nights.” This theme/template is a bit more basic in layout compared to Humidor, but has a nice little tabbed section to organize site content. It uses some jquery effects, and is easy to modify and edit as you see fit (just make sure to keep the link-back in the footer).
One of the main reasons why I wanted to re-design this site, was to make the previous design available as a wordpress theme. That’s right, the design that was seen in Smashing Magazine’s “50 Beautiful CSS-Based Web-Designs in 2006″ is now available as a theme for you to use. Feel free to edit it, add to, remove parts, whatever you see fit.
The theme has a lot of parts already built-in that can be edited pretty easily. For instance, one of the most popular elements of the design was the tabbed menu towards the top. By default, only the front page (home) tab is shown, but with some minor css and html tweaks, the image used for the tabs also has an “about,” “contact,” and “archives” tabs.
I know it’s considered old school nowadays, but I’ve been thinking of getting some targeted business cards printed up. Why? Well here’s the scenario… I run into random people quite often in need of design help. Sometimes it’s a someone from a new startup needing some work, or a band or some mom-and-pop shop that needs some help. I like working on a variety of different projects - it keeps me sharp and sane.
The only issue is, I don’t have a business card that works across all audiences. My card right now is very generic, trying to cover all bases and impress anyone enough to pick up the phone and give me a call.
I went to a concert a few weeks back, for the sole purpose of checking out one band and talking to one of the members specifically. It’s hard to be prepared to chat with someone at a show - it’s usually total chaos and hard to pin anyone down. Then when you do, good luck finding a pen or a scrap of paper to write down any info. I can’t write on the back of one of my cards, cause whoops, it’s printed double-sided.
So for bands, I need something much more sturdy, easy to write on, illustrates music in some way, and can pass handwritten info to others. For start-up clients, they usually just want an email address, and they’ll usually contact you by that medium at first.
I figure I need 3 cards, one geared for the hi-tech industry, one aimed at the entertainment industry, and one general one for potential clients that don’t fall in either scenario.
I guess the only issue is… carrying all of these cards around.
But, it was time to update the look and feel. Since the last version of this site; I have learned all sorts of new ways to develop and design. It’s pretty eye-opening, when I look at the previous design compared to this one. There is so much that is different; that I hadn’t learned.
This version has been built to scale. Both in design and “components,” or the modular sections of content that I can switch in and out and not totally break the layout. When I first sat down to develop and design Hellbiscuit - that’s when my eyes really opened to what WordPress could do - and what I had learned since. I was able to navigate around the code quicker, and had a better understanding of how it worked under the hood.
I’ve also stumbled across many “add-ons” that would work well in the site. You’ll find twitter feeds, links to recommended resources, accounts I have at other sites, and I’ve finally added in that flickr badge that I’ve been meaning to work in since 3 designs ago.
I do hope you enjoy this version however. There is a ton of new portfolio pieces to check out - plus this site will become much more personal, and be updated rather frequently. This is me; so I better keep it moving as fast as I do in the offline world.
