UPDATE: Thanks everyone for the support, really means a lot. I was pretty damn depressed earlier but my spirits have been lifted. It’s definitely a huge setback for me in the short term but the donations will buy me some time to make it work in the long run. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
I’ve been using Google ads for years now as the site’s nearly sole source of income. Suddenly I get hit with a policy violation for not having original content, the only problem is according to their vague guidelines this would make almost every news website on the Internet that uses Adsense (and the vast majority do) out of compliance. Hard not to see that I am being unfairly singled out, almost certainly because of my political views. I wouldn’t be surprised if lefty trolls have been reporting us to Adsense, it wouldn’t be the first time.
We’re now left dead in the water until I can find a suitable replacement, if that’s even possible. Google runs the Internet, especially the ad market.
I need everyone to please contact Google, be polite and courteous, and ask them to reverse this decision. If they are coming after me then it’s only a matter of time before other sites are taken down.
Update: (New email contact)
Corporate PR
David Krane
+1.650.623.4096
[email protected]
If anyone has considered donating to WZ now is the time (donation button is on the left sidebar). You can contact me at [email protected]
This was an on the record conversation:
Stephanie D 1:32 PM
Basically it is against policies to copy the majority of your content from other sites, even if you include a cite of the source
me 1:33 PM
I only excerpt small portions of articles and link back to the source. AP, Retuers, AFP, CNN all encourage me to do this because I drive them traffic
Stephanie D 1:35 PM
According to our reviewers, it is too much And just looking at your home page, every blog post is basically a snippet from another news source with very little original content
me 1:36 PM
It’s a manually done news aggregation site.
Stephanie D 1:36 PM
AdSense policies require that you add a significant amount of rich, original content to your site in order to monetize it.
me 1:38 PM
I see tons of sites that aggregate nothing but news and they almost all use adsense. They don’t even do it manually, I’m adding commentary. Are you guys going to crack down on all news agg sites?
Stephanie D 1:39 PM
Our policies are uniformly enforced across all sites. If you notice another site in violation, I strongly recommend that you report it here: https://support.google.com/adsense/troubleshooter/1190500
me 1:40 PM I’ve been using you guys for years, why is this suddenly an issue?
Stephanie D 1:40 PM
Our reviewers manually review hundreds of thousands of sites per year. It’s not uncommon for policy issues to go unflagged for a period of time. We generally trust our publishers to stay in compliance.
me 1:41 PM
But according to these rules every news site with the exception of the home sites of AP, Reuters etc. are not in compliance. Why am I being singled out?
Stephanie D 1:42 PM
I can assure you that you are not being singled out or targeted.