Where to Find Google Product Help

One of the things that frequently occurs in the AdSense Help Forum are posts from people looking for help for other products that Google Supplies. I expect a lot of this might be due to the fact that the AdSense forum is first on the list of help forums on the Google Support Forums listing page. I imagine lots of other help forums run into this problem too because the AdSense forum gets lots of posts moved into it from other forums.

I'm not sure why this is such an issue - the the support forums listing has direct links to most of the help forums for Google products, but there are several related forums that currently don't have their own help forum (AdMob doesn't have an active help forum; Google Accounts doesn't have a help forum), and I guess when people just want to complain about anything related to Google they'll post on the first forum they find ... fairly often it's AdSense.

So, to that end ... here's a list of forums and what help they offer.  A lot of these products also offer the ability to use Adsense with the product itself, so it's understandable if someone posts in AdSense instead of the product help forum. It's hard to know which place you need to post for help.

In some cases, like YouTube or Blogger, if it's a technical issue that relates to the actual function of the product (like a channel, or video, or blog or blog post), you'd need to ask for help at that product forum, rather than Adsense. If it's an issue that is specifically Adsense (ie: your payments, earnings, or AdSense account, or creating ad codes, etc.) then you'd ask at the AdSense forum.

Google Analytics Forum:
-referral and event spam discussions/help
-implementing GA code, tracking issues
-GA account issues, help with reports and data
-features and discussion
-bug reports
-feedback or suggestions

Webmaster Tools Forum:
-crawling, indexing, and search ranking
-security, malware, help with hacked websites
-image and video content indexing
-Webmaster Tools search console help
-website verification
-removing content from search
-internationalization
-help with sitemaps
-help for structured data and rich snippets
-app indexing

Gmail Help Forum:
-gmail problems
-tips for using gmail effectively
-peer discussion group
-feedback on gmail
-account access, security, safety
-composing or sending messages
-reading/receiving messages
-how to manage settings in gmail
-contacts and syncing

YouTube Monetization Forums:
-learning and understanding video monetization
-help with videos not showing any ads after monetizing
-disabled monetization
-issues related to youtube-adsense linking and earnings
-payment questions (bonus, pre-adsense monetizing)

YouTube General Forums:
-problems with playing and watching videos
-uploading, managing and handling your videos
-setting up your account, sign-in information and troubleshooting
-the homepage/channels, socializing and subscriptions on youtube
-using YouTube Live
-information on YouTube for non-profits

DFP Help Forums:
-help with setting up and getting started with DFP
-account administration
-creatives
-inventory management
-tagging, reporting & traffic forums

Google Custom Search Help Forum:
-creating, editing, and implementing your search bar
-indexing and results from your search bar
-troubleshooting and bug reports
-suggestions

Google Chrome Browser:
-reporting issues with the browser
-troubleshooting help
-providing feedback on Chrome

Google Play Forums:
-help for apps and games
-help for google books
-help with movies, tv, music (radio?)
-Google Newsstand section
-other Google Play contents
-provides tips for product uses; help to fix an issue or problem, share feedback and suggest new features, and discussion forum

Google Business Listing Help Forum:
-help with incorrect business information on the business page
-verification help
-technical issues
-announcements relating to Google Business
-advice from the community

Google Chromebook:
-report and get troubleshooting help with chromebook
-discussion forum

Chromecast Help Forum:

-how to questions and answers

-technical issues

-discussion and feedback

-chromecast set up

-casting from apps

Google News Help Forum:
-help for google news users
-help for google news publishers
-discussion forum

There are still several other products that have their own help forums (see the link in the first paragraph for the rest) but most of the time, the ones above are the ones we see questions for in the AdSense help forum.

As with any form of help, if you ask for help in the right place, you get better help, faster. When you go from forum to forum looking for the right place you can become very frustrated about being bounced around.

posted by J. Gracey Stinson

Adsense, Blogger, Gmail and Google - Disabled Accounts

In recent months we've seen a couple of round of wholesale account removals by Google. Their automatic spam procedures have nuked hundreds (possibly thousands) of accounts; some rightfully so, and some in error.

How it works isn't something I'm going to go through in-depth, but if you really want to understand how this happens, read this article by one of Blogger's most prolific Top Contributors. He explains how the spam detection system works, and why some ordinary blogs and/or accounts get caught in the filter. He also explains how to get your account back, but - the final review is...the final review. If your account is still deemed as spam and not restored, it will be because humans have reviewed it manually and still found it meets the qualifications for spam.

When you login to your Google, Gmail or Blogger account and see this:"Your account has been disabled" you need to click on the "contact us" link provided. That should take you to a page explaining that your Google account has been disabled. Read the information on the page, and follow the instructions - follow the instructions precisely. In other words, review the Terms of Service and be absolutely certain your account(s) follow those terms before you submit any other form. There is a contact form at the end of the page - if your account meets the terms, use the contact form.

If you were caught in the spam filter accidentally, there's a pretty good chance you will have your account restored.

On the other hand, if your blog contained any of the things Blogger considers outside of their policy, or is seen as spam, you won't get your blog(s) back, and you probably won't get your Google account back either.

Some of the things considered to fall outside of the terms of use on Blogger/Google are also some of things Adsense considers to be unsuitable for displaying ads, so if you use Blogger and Adsense, then you need to pay attention to this. If your blog contains the following type of content - you may be caught in the next round of Google nukes.

• Affiliate marketing.
• Content created with scripts and programs, rather than by hand
• Auto-generated contents
• Content or links referencing GPT, PTC, PTS, 'Make money from home', 'Make money fast', or other referral-based activities
• Link Farms
• Content scraped from other sources, duplicate contents
• Copyright Infringement
• Large blogs with multiple, unfocused / unrelated subjects.
• Links to Illegal Downloads / Streaming / Torrents.

An explanation of Blogger's Content Policy is found here: Blogger Content Policy

If your blog contains these types of content, you better start cleaning them up now. Sooner or later, Blogger or Adsense, or even Google will remove your accounts if you don't.

WHY LOSING YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT CAUSES BIGGER PROBLEMS

Losing a Blogger account usually means...well, you lose your blog. Losing an Adsense account means you can't monetize with Adsense any longer, but you might still have your blog or other Google Services. Losing your Google Account is a much larger problem.

A Google Account is like a giant umbrella over all of your other services provided by Google. The Google Account login allows you to login to any Google service you've signed up for - it's much like the key to the filing cabinet. Without it, you can't get any of the filing drawers to open.

If you lose your blogger account, and only your blogger account, you may still have access to your other Google services.

If you lose your Google Account, you literally lose access to any other services you had under that umbrella. This is important - so pay attention. This is not just "when Google disables your account". The same thing occurs if YOU delete your own Google account.

We see this frequently in the Adsense forums. Someone decides they want a new Google Account (for whatever reason) - to use a different name, or to only use some of the products, or just to organize their accounts a little better.

The first thing they do is go "delete" their Google Account.

Then they wonder why they can't access any of their other Google services. They can't, because by deleting the Google Account, they've just thrown away the key to the cabinet. Without the Google account, you now have no access to anything else under that umbrella.

If you plan to move your blogs, or gmail or adsense account (or any other Google service) to a new account, you need to request help in the appropriate help forum BEFORE you delete your old Google Account.

• Adsense Help Forum
• Blogger Help Forum
• Gmail Help Forum
• All Other Help Forums