An Important Note About The Ads

[Scott Greczkowski]

As you might have noticed SatelliteGuys has been Ad Free since November 1st. This was not by choice the ad service to us was turned off due to what I am told was a "glitch" by Google Adsense.

This ad outage could have killed SatelliteGuys. We rely on each dollar we get to keep the site running, to upkeep our software, to pay our monthly server maintenance, to pay our domains, SSL certificates, etc.

Thankfully this morning our ad serving was restored! This was a nightmare for me, I haven't slept well since the ads went off on November 1st.

Now that the ads are back we are currently using a new format from Google called "Auto Ads" where Google automatically places the ads where they thing will earn the most money. For the time being I will running those ads for Unregistered users and see how the earnings go. However for registered members today I will start working to bring in structured ads, instead of just having ads all over the place, like the unregistered folks see. In addition the number of ads should be less as well.

If you don't want to see the ads we urge you to become a supporting SatelliteGuys Pub Member. The cost as low and helps us pay our costs. For more information about becoming a Pub Member please check out https://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/account/upgrades - You guys have seen the real speeds of the site while we have been without ads, and we hope that you enjoy and learn enough from the site to want to support it. For those who are Pub Members already you can now Gift Pub Memberships to others as well!

In addition as you might have noticed we have upgraded software this past weekend, this change has required us to purchase all new addons for the site, we needed to purchased over 25 addons to give our members the features they wanted. This wasn't cheap and drained the savings we had built up for SatelliteGuys. January is coming up quick and its one of our most expensive months for operations as many things need to be renewed and we could really use your help. If you have been around here the past 16+ years I don't like to ask for money, but at this time we could use your help.

Again to become a Pub Member please check out https://www.satelliteguys.us/xen/account/upgrades for details.
If you are a Pub Member and want to help out (and you are under no obligation to do so) then please visit this link - https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=N4QADUDPUKLMW

For Registered (non pub members) I will start working on the ads today and try to make them not appear everywhere. We need the ad revenue but we don't want it ruining your SatelliteGuys Experience either.

Remember if you are logged in, you will see less ads. Also remember if you are a Pub Member you see no ads at all and get the full speed experience.

Thank you for your support and for being SatelliteGuys!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So what happened to the ads anyways?

Well its a long story...

On November 1st all ad serving to SatelliteGuys was shut off to us by our ad partners Google Adsense and others. We were not notified of the shut off by any of them and if I checked our accounts we were told are accounts were in good standing. I then went into the Google Adsense support forum and found that this happened to a good number of other sites on the same date of November 1st.
I contacted our other ad agencies and was told we were shut off because Google shut us off and they are members of some ad association so if one shuts a site off for violations then they all shut us off.

I went to the Adsense support forums and found that quite a number of other sites had the same thing happen to them at the same time.

Well then I started bitching to Google, and was told our account was in good standing and there were no issues with our account. so I kept on bitching and was privately contacted by someone at Google who has been a user of SatelliteGuys over the years and gave me an email address to contact which I did. And got no reply.

One of our other ad partners started reaching out to Google as well through different channels and they started getting bogus answers of why we were shut off. They kept going through their channels and every other day would get another bogus answer back of why our ads were turned off. (Again all the time our account said we were in good standing with no violations.)

Then finally I got a reply to my email I sent to Google and they came back and told me a reason why, and that was because we had a group of ads that were auto refreshing themselves. I removed them although they were not in violation of Google Ad Policy since the ads were being served that way by another ad agency not Google Ad sense. I wrote back and explained this to the person from Google.

Another email came back and was told that we had an sticky ad at the bottom of the page where it could possibly block other ads from being shown. So I removed it. But again to appease the Google Gods I removed it.

The other agency was still getting bogus answers,including Google wanted us to go through all 4 million posts and remove all the links in the post which no longer work. I replied back I wasn't going to do that. SatelliteGuys is a 16 year old running, living encyclopedia of the Satellite Industry, there was no way I was going to go back and edit that history. That ad agency wrote me back saying they agreed with me but couldn't help me any longer as they used all their resources. (Which I fully understood, they were going out of their way to help us, and I appreciated it)

Then on Friday I got an email from Adsense, that after further review the ad ban on SatelliteGuys would be lifted and ads would resume within 48 hours. Well 48 hours came and went and no ads. The person from Google (Harvey) was updating me each day saying he didn't know why the ads were not running but he would keep working on it.

Well the ads came back this morning! And with that all the ads started working again from the other ad agencies!

I am so thankful, as I was VERY...VERY stressed out... add to that the worrying about upgrading SatelliteGuys to Xenforo 2.1. I didn't sleep much and its been eating at me more and more each day. Ask my wife how bad I was.

But we made it through this issue. And I hope to never have this issue again. Thank you to everyone from the ad agencies for help us, as they understand that if we don't make money, they don't make money. I have always worked to keep SatelliteGuys compliant.

Thanks again to everyone for their support. We have been here for 16 years and I hope we are around in another 16.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is a note I just sent to my Google contact who helped to get our ads back.

Hi Harvey,

Good news, ads have resumed this morning and I am so grateful to have them back!

I always work to have us in compliance with Google Adsense terms and will continue to do so, all's that I ask is that if we do something wrong to be notified. It was so frustrating to be turned off without warning and have our account say the entire time on our account that there were no issues. if I have issues, then I want to fix them, but I can't fix them if I am told there are no problems.

Thank you again for your help, it was sincerely appreciated.

Scott

 

[Voyager6]

So is Google going to compensate SatGuys for the 19 days without ads due to their error?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So is Google going to compensate SatGuys for the 19 days without ads due to their error?

I would probably have better luck buying a lottery ticket.

But with that said I would rather them back on with no compensation then not having them back on again. I couldn't even just remove adsense and and use other ad agencies as their agreement with the NAB (or whoever their advertising group is) where all members follow each others bans / suspensions.

Just HAPPY to have them back!

 

[Juan]

I wonder if it was the political talk on the pit that did it. Many right wing news site lost google ad support too

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I wonder if it was the political talk on the pit that did it. Many right wing news site lost google ad support too

Nope. The Google bots can't even see that forum.

 

[TheKrell]

Nope. The Google bots can't even see that forum.

And furthermore, you had mentioned a lot of other websites besides SG lost Google ads at the same time. I personally think Google massively screwed up and aren't admitting it.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

And furthermore, you had mentioned a lot of other websites besides SG lost Google ads at the same time. I personally think Google massively screwed up and aren't admitting it.

I would have to agree with that.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

For our non pub members who are logged in (which in the forum software is considered "registered users") I am trying to work on the ads for you.

I feel the Google AutoAds are putting in way too many ads and they put ads in places where its hard to tell what is content and what is an ad.

Unfortunately I screwed up and when I first setup AutoAds I checked a box telling them optimize existing ads. Existing ads are ads that are hard coded to show in specific places. With that option turned on while it places ads where they are supposed to go, it also turns on the AutoAds as well, even though I have now turned off the AutoAds for registered members.

I have turned off the Optimize your existing ad units option, which will (should) turn off AutoAds for the Registered User Group, but yet the ads remain. I am told the reason for the auto ads still showing is it can take "up to a few hours" for the change to take effecton Googles side.

So now I am waiting for Google... again.

While we need ads to pay our bills to keep SatelliteGuys running, we don't want to scare off our members with too many ads.

Hopefully this is fixed soon, and then I will start hand placing ads in the places where I want them, not where Google decides they should go.

Thanks for your understanding!

 

[Jallen0]

I understand the need for ads but I am seeing two giant ads every 2-3 threads. It's almost unreadable. Is it supposed to be this way?

 

[HipKat]

I wonder if it was the political talk on the pit that did it. Many right wing news site lost google ad support too

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

Really? Which ones?

 

[raoul5788]

Really? Which ones?

Jallen0 isn't a pub member like you are so he will see a lot of ads compared to you.

 

[HipKat]

Jallen0 isn't a pub member like you are so he will see a lot of ads compared to you.

Huh?? I quoted Juan

 

[raoul5788]

Oops! Sorry, I thought you were quoting the post above yours. Mea culpa

 

[raoul5788]

I understand the need for ads but I am seeing two giant ads every 2-3 threads. It's almost unreadable. Is it supposed to be this way?

They go away if you become a pub member.

 

[dare2be]

Oops! Sorry, I thought you were quoting the post above yours. Mea culpa

You must have the person he replied to on ignore like I do.

It's always validating to see an ignored post quoted, and the response to that post being "Really?".

 

[HipKat]

I just took out a loan to buy a new truck (not brand new but new for me), and I’ve been thinking about updating to lifetime supporter instead of just a yearly member. Since I’ll have a little extra left over after I buy the truck, OK a lot extra left over, maybe I’ll do that and help the site out at the same time

 

[raoul5788]

You must have the person he replied to on ignore like I do.

It's always validating to see an ignored post quoted, and the response to that post being "Really?".

No, I just read it wrong.

 

[JSheridan]

I just took out a loan to buy a new truck (not brand new but new for me), and I’ve been thinking about updating to lifetime supporter instead of just a yearly member. Since I’ll have a little extra left over after I buy the truck, OK a lot extra left over, maybe I’ll do that and help the site out at the same time

I do both.