MoneySupermarket: Google never warned us about payday loan AD BAN Google temporarily pulled every single one of the pay-per-click ads of a major UK-based online price comparison firm from its search results over the weekend. According to Mountain View, the 24-hour ad-yank - which included the removal of ads comparing home and car insurance products - was a reaction to MoneySupermarket.com's …
"widespread irresponsible lending"
Isn't that what the European Central Bank does?
If you want to stop problematic payday lending, offer lending services at better conditions. But hey, we only lend to dodgy bankers with billion EUR holes, not to hard-up people with zero cash, right?
Otherwise, these practices will just go underground. There is an economic reason why they exist, bureaucrats. Think about it.
Googles alternative? Face criticism that they are advertising company's that break the law.
Just because the site that got slapped pushes themselves as "financial help" for people who don't understand the financial world (most of us I think) they still make money directly by pushing people to the pay-day loan sites as agents or affiliates.
Google do not hide these Guidelines, Money Supermarket rely on Google for massive traffic. People at Money Supermarket do this as their day job and they know the rules. We are not talking about a small operation here. Of all sites, they should be above and beyond reproach, working within the law, and within the Google guidelines.
This is an absolute joke. I have seen websites where entire adwords accounts have been banned in the past due to one of Google's 'advertising guidelines' - when in fact the products being advertised also applied with the OFT guidelines (which, I don't know if Google are aware - but the OFT's guidelines are more important than their own).
It is ridiculous that Google has this type of power to be able to pick and choose who gets to be included and who doesn't just because someone decided that the ads weren't following a specific guideline.
The medium is Google, owned by Google, operated by Google, maintained by Google, built by Google.
I think it is only fair that Google get to set some of the advertising guidelines. As long as these guidelines comply with the ASA (and any other regulations) it doesn't matter if they are more restrictive, that is Google's right.
It's Google's business, within the law they can do what they like. No one has a right to appear on a page of Google search results. The OFT's guidelines may be more important in the UK but Google are a global company.
If you don't like it then advertise on one of the competing search engines (though in the EU claiming that other search engines are "competing" is a bit of a stretch...)
By the way, I should have clarified - Payday loan companies are scum and should be banned anyways. But the point is that until they are made illegal then they are still legal - meaning that Google should not have the power to add another level of legality onto things in the form of their 'guidelines'.
#nonsense
And a pity Faceborg don't follow their example.
Facebook ads include one suggesting you convert your pension to pay off debt. These firms steal much of any yield in "fees" and then the taxman canes you, leaving little or nothing to pay off debt. And no pension when you retire.
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So MickCropper,
You believe that any legal ad should be allowed? Like some other site?
So Google can show viagra ads, herbal penis growth ads, "you may have won a Million" ads, porn ads, legal highs ads, gambling ads, etc?
Surely, like many other sites, they can decide the quality of their ads?
Oh yes, whining that Google was showing it's own services as normal search results forced them to highlight them in results... that didn't work quite the way the competition expected did it ;)
Unless they seriously believe Google can be forced to hide it's own services completely I can't see how everyone can be satisfied. Won't stop the whining though.
If Google were going to terminate a service - for whatever the reason - they should have notified MoneySupermarket first. Also if the reason they removed PPC was because money supermarket were promoting caution about payday loan sharks - that's just an opinion, not breaking the law and they hold probably refund MoneySupermarket for lost earnings. If you're advertising in a magazine, then it's possible to prevent competitors from advertising in competition to one another ... But Google is an open last form and I don't think they have the right to pull advertisers .... It's not like they even contribute much to the tax base anyway.
No, they are acting as affiliates, getting a fee for each referral.
They can dress it up as much as they like with extra fluff, but that's their business model, they are not your friend, they are there to act as a middle man and cream of a %
This is their affiliate tracking ID for one of the systems in use on their site (442966208), admittedly not for payday loans but from some other bank account, I can't actually find ANY in formation on their site now, though I didn't look through the forums (which DO contain a large amount of very useful user generated content).
@Mick Croper, yes the OFT trumps Google's guidelines, but there is nothing to say that their Guidelines are anything near stringent enough.
While Google would be forced by law to have Guidelines that are AT LEAST as strong as the OFT, there is nothing to stop them going above and beyond this.
This is common knowledge in the SEO world, and one of the reasons that Google's search is used over all other searches. Anyone saying MoneySuperMarket would not know these Guidelines inside out are ignorant of the systems that all Webmasters must have a knowledge off if they wish to do business in 2013
MoneySupermarket failed big time in their direct area of responsibility, it's not Google fault that they dropped the ball.
come on people, it's time to wake up and understand that Google is the God is that industry. They have guidelines, if you do not comply with those they simply take you out of their listings. We only hear about taht now because it's a big guy, Moneysupermarket. But every day there are small business which rely on Google and are 'banned' without any warning.
In the payday loans business the guidelines are easily accessible (http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/answer/2464998?hl=en-GB), MS was simply not compliant and their ads were paused until they solved the issue. The same happened for many other lenders and brokers (most of those for instance : http://www.allpaydaylenders.com/) and still takes place as Google continues to check the sector.
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