Can I Just Delete my Adwords Account?
In a previous article titled “You and Google: Till Death do you Part”, I talked about how everything you do with a Google AdWords account is going to be tied to you, no matter what. A common question I get when talking to clients is why can’t I just delete the Adwords account and make a new one? It sounds very logical. Anything offending on the old account would be gone and you can get a fresh start with a new AdWords score.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Google infractions are much like getting points on your license from the DMV. You can’t just get a new license and wipe your old record. You have to clean it up. If you got a speeding ticket and never paid it, didn’t drive for years, and then got back on the road and got pulled over, that speeding ticket would still be there.
Too Much Frustration?
What makes Google even more frustrating than the DMV is that you can’t get a total picture of what’s wrong with your record. You Adwords account could be suspended for just three problems or you could be suspended for 25 problems, but Google won’t tell you the problems. As soon as Google sees there’s a problem they’ll stop looking for more. This leads to a frustrating cycle of guesswork. You fix one problem, submit your site and you’re still suspended. So you look again, and again, and again. Google won’t lift the suspension until all of the problems are gone across all of your sites registered in all of your AdWords accounts.
The big reason they do this is time. It’s up to you, the user of the service, to know what the rules are. Google isn’t interested in teaching you every little reason why your account has problems. That’s why they have a terms and conditions page (that you agreed to!) and a pretty good tutorial system for AdWords. But there are millions, perhaps billions, of websites registered with AdWords and there just isn’t enough time to dig through all the ones that have problems. So, they just stick with the first reason they find. Plus, with so many people using their service, there’s no incentive for them to provide a high level of customer service if you broke the rules.
Ignorance is Not an Excuse!
That’s why there are professional services to get Google AdWords bans lifted. It’s actually better to do this sooner rather than later. If you are constantly asking to be reviewed or call in all the time, you can get labeled as someone who is just wasting their time. They will stop reviewing your account. It’s true!
I’ve actually tested this on clients that have come to me who have done multiple submissions and I put tracking software on the website to see if anyone comes after I do my first few submissions. Typically, no one from Google even comes to review the website after the first few submissions. At this point, I have to use other tactics to get them to pay attention.
Now you might be wondering how I actually find all of the suspension points on a website before I submit it to Google. The short answer is that I’ve done my homework and I’ve been helping people deal with Google for over 8 years. If you want to try to do on your own, be prepared to invest a lot of time because you’re going to have to become very familiar with all of Google’s policies and how they can be broken. Ignorance is not an excuse for Google.
It’s quite similar to being your own lawyer. It can be done, but there are so many things the layperson doesn’t know that it’s very easy to get into legal trouble. That’s why we hire lawyers in the first place. What we don’t know can harm our chances of getting a satisfactory result.
If you do want to throw everything and start over, I recommend making sure that all of your problems are fixed first. That way, if you do decide to come back to AdWords you won’t have an old account lingering around that’s holding you down. And if you do delete the account, sometimes it is possible to get it activated again so you can fix it. Again, this is where having a professional on your side comes in handy.
Get Help when Needed
If you need additional help, I’ll be glad to talk with you and tell you about what I can do to help you in your situation. Feel free to browse my other articles to learn more about Google’s policies and what to do and not to do when you’re using AdWords.
Unless you’re planning on never using Google AdWords again, clean up your account. Even if you come back after five years, Google could still hold your account hostage because of that past infraction that you had. Clean it up, don’t erase it.
