Tom Doyle

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Posts Tagged Google

Google Suspended my Android Market Developer Account

Sep 12

Posted by Tom Doyle in Android Apps, iPhone Apps, Mobile App Development

Android Market

Image via Wikipedia

For the past month, I’ve been playing heavily with developing Android Apps to see if there is any opportunity for an Irish company to make a decent living by creating and selling apps through the Android Market.

After weeks of research, I opted to develop apps for the personalisation category of the market as it appeared that this area was the one that most people who used the Android market were likely to part with their cash. It took a couple of weeks to get going, but when it did, I was very impressed.

When I finally figured out what would sell, I was making over €100 per day. This run lasted for a solid 12 days. I was very content that there was a living to be made out of the market, but it was still such early days that I was still pretty much testing the water.

Unfortunately, my run ended late last night. I got an email from Google which said:

“Your Android Market developer account has been suspended due to prior developer account suspension violations of our developer agreement and policies. “

One of my strategies was to offer free apps, which I would use to cross sell my paid for apps. This was ultimately what I thought led to my account being suspended.

I had stupidly used a copyrighted image in one of my free apps. Thinking that because my free app was benefiting no-one monetarily, I thought it would be OK. But I was clearly wrong. My free apps were suspended.

Well that is my assumption of course. Because three of my free apps were suspended prior to me receiving the notification of the account suspension. When I received those suspensions, I spent hours making sure my other Apps were 100% compliant with the Android Market Developer agreement and policies.

However, it turns out that I was not in fact banned for this – but in fact, it was that Google believe I have had other accounts suspended in the past (which I don’t) and I was trying to beat the system by creating another account.

Looking around the web for others who were banned, it seems that Google have a very strict, no retribution policy. It appears that it’s a waste of time to even question the reason for this suspension as I’m unlikely to get a response. Of course, I have tried to get in touch, to no avail as of yet.

But what does that mean for anyone trying to make a serious go at becoming an Android Developer?

In one foul swoop your whole business could be taken from under you, without any explanation from Google. Google don’t seem to offer you the chance to prove your innocence, nor the opportunity to change anything that is against their  Android Market Developer agreement and policies.

The fact that they believe my account is another account by someone who was suspended before is quite frightening. I have an idea how they have come to that conclusion – but I will keep that to myself until I know they are not willing to discuss it with me.

The sad reality is that I had hoped to build a business in this area. Creating jobs and an export market for the haggered Irish economy.

I would be extremely worried and cautious as to how viable it actually would be when you take these actions into consideration. Can you imagine walking into your workforce following a suspension by Google and saying “You’ve lost your jobs, Google has suspended our account because they believe we had an account before… Oh and they won’t respond to our requests to reconsider.” ??

The initial attraction to the Android market for me was its openness. Unlike the Apple App Store, you didn’t have to go through an approval process before your app appeared on the market. This was appealing as it allowed you to test the market before putting a huge amount of effort into something that just isn’t going to work.

Of course, from a user experience, the Android Market process isn’t ideal. It means that there is a lot of low quality apps available on the market. But on the other hand, it also means there are a lot more free apps available.

I’m now at a cross roads. I’m half way through an app that I believe will do really well on the Android Market, but not sure if I should change my focus now to iOS. Obviously, I can’t open another Android Developer account so I will need to partner up with someone on that front – but it really has left me with a dilemma.

Another issue is the fact that they didn’t just ban apps they felt were in violation, but also apps that were perfectly legit. I had some basic apps outside the personalisation category that were doing quite well and now they too are not available.

How Google think this is a good way to treat their Android Market Developers is beyond me. They should at least offer an appeal process or change their terms and conditions to allow people open more than one account.

Maybe if they brought in an approval system similar to the Apple App Market it would prevent users uploading apps that they shouldn’t be.

Either way, I’m extremely dismayed by the whole episode. It would be really nice to get some feedback from Google and find out exactly where it all went wrong. We can only learn by our mistakes!

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Sencha Touch, Admob & Phonegap

Jul 27

Posted by Tom Doyle in Android Apps, Mobile App Development, Mobile Phone, Online Marketing

Android Market

Image via Wikipedia

I recently created a small Android mobile app using Sencha Touch & Phonegap. The app was always going to be free as it does  little more than give website owners the ability to check how their website is performing from a SEO and Social Media point of view.

I thought I might as well try and make a few bob from the app (oh the app is called My Web Performance and is available on Android Market) so the obvious option was sponsored adverts. And no place more obvious to use for sponsored ads, that Google. Google offer a program for mobile developers called Admob. Admob works pretty much along the same lines as Google Adsense in that you place Google Adsense on your website and you earn a % of the amount the advertiser is paying to place their ads on Google. Admob does this for mobile websites and applications etc.

The dilemma was that I couldn’t find out how to get this to work with Sencha Touch and Phonegap. I figured out a little hack in the end that seems to be working out for me so far. So for all you Sencha Touch users, here’s how I did it…

  1. Admob Set Up
    In Admob – when adding a site, choose “Smartphone Web App”. This will present you with Javascript that we can use later.
  2. Sencha Touch
    Ok, the idea is to basically create a new toolbar that uses an iFrame to pull in a separate html file that contains the Admob code. So firstly, create a new HTML file called adverts and paste your Admob code into it.Then in your Sencha Touch application js file add the iFrame code where-ever you think it will sit best. My panel looks like this:

            var content = new Ext.Panel({
            fullscreen: true,
            id: 'content',
            scroll: 'vertical',
            dockedItems: [{
                id: 'status',
                xtype: 'toolbar',
                dock: 'top',
                title: "My Web Performance"
            	},
				actionPanel,
				{
					title: 'The Latest',
					html: '<iframe src =\"adverts.html" width=\"100%\" height=\"48\" frameBorder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"></iframe>',
					id: 'feedTab',
					border: false,
					dock: 'bottom',
				}
			]
        });


  3. Phonegap
    There’s really nothing out of the ordinary to do here – follow the usual steps and you should be laughing!

Enjoy!

 

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SEO : the biggest con of the 21st Century?

Jun 9

Posted by Tom Doyle in Online Marketing

It seems like an age now since Eoghan McCabe of Contrast wrote his controversial “SEO is Bullshit” blog article back in 2008. That article was followed up a few weeks late with an article titled “SEO is Still Bullshit” which included discussions and comments from some of Ireland’s most respected SEO experts.

At the time, Eoghan’s article and subsequent comments irked me quite a lot. He, like every other SEO sceptic totally ignored the value and definite “need” element of SEO and focused purely on the usability issues that were generated by poor techniques used by most SEOs in order to get websites ranked in the Google search results.

In hindsight and after many more years in this business, seeing the rise (and fall) of (too) many so called SEO expert individuals and companies; I’ve finally woken up to the fact that SEO is in fact total bullshit.

Yes that may sound quite alarming coming from someone who has sold the importance of Search Engine Optimisation for over a decade. But the simple fact is that SEO has probably one of the biggest cons of the 21st Century.

I say this with complete sincerity and assure you that this is definitely not an article designed to create linkbait as was suggested at Eoghan’s reasons for his original article.

Let’s look at the very basic facts surrounding SEO.

  1. Ranking a website is easy!
    Yes believe it or not it’s quite easy to get your website ranked on Google or any other search engine. Granted, the more competitive the key phrase wish to rank for, the harder it is to rank.

  2. Google wants to find Good websites with relevant content
    A very simple fact of the matter is that Google wants to rank websites that are relevant to the search being performed. Searching on Google would be a waste of time if the sites it ranked in the top results were not relevant to what you were searching for. A simple rule of thumb is to build a website that a user likes to visit and is easy for a search engine to find relevant content. That’s not rocket science is it?

  3. SEO is not Rocket Science
    I’m sure you’ve been there before, discussing search engine optimisation with a so called expert and he/she talks in riddles and makes SEO seem extremely complex. Well it’s not – there can be quite a lot to it if you are targeting a competitive key phrase, but in most cases it’s pretty straight forward.

  4. SEO only drives traffic!
    One major misconception I come across with people who know a little about SEO is that they sell SEO as a way to drive business through your company. Well the fact is that all is SEO does is drive traffic. Of course with more traffic, it should in turn produce more sales – putting more effort into focusing on building a website site that will convert as many visitors to your website as possible will in the long run be more useful than having a website that only a search engine can understand.

  5. SEO does not Educate!
    A lot of SEO’s sell SEO as the holy grail in terms of marketing your business. The fact is that SEO only targets people who already know about a service or product you provide. If you have a brand new concept or product that n0-one knows about – SEO will not help you get in front of the people that are likely to buy your product or service.

  6. SEO is just Good Web Design
    Every website we build now includes FREE on-site search engine optimisation – we just call it building search engine friendly websites. A lot of SEOs like to class themselves as elite God like beings that are more important than Web Designers themselves. But they’re not and the reality is that you should be thinking about making your website search engine friendly from the time you start building your website. I used to be shocked at how little HTML knowledge a lot of SEO experts actually have. Iif you don’t understand how a website is built under-the-hood, how the hell can you really understand SEO??

  7. SEO Forums / Blogs aren’t always right and are often taken out of context!
    One of my pet hates is discussing SEO with someone who has read up a little about SEO and automatically assumes that the information they have read is the Bible truth. If you happen to be reading an SEO article online, please check the date the article was published. Chances are the information you have is incorrect or well out of date.Also, please ensure you are taking everything in context and not just jumping at conclusions without testing. SEO is all about trial and error – NEVER assume anything!!

    For a classic example of how unconfirmed theories send shockwaves through a whole industry, read this article – a prime example of an out there theory… http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/7594-is-email-reputation-now-a-google-ranking-factor

  8. Matt Cutts is not an SEO
    Yes I’m sorry Matt lovers, but have you ever seen any websites that Matt himself has personally performed a search engine optimisation job on? Well I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t of course! 

    Yes, one thing he has got over us all is that he has inside information. How much is questionable as he rarely seems to throw out anything more than the obvious.

    He’s constantly being taken out of context, with a lot of people taking what he says as “fact”, without reading into the actual meaning of his comments in the overall picture of things.

SEO? The bottom is that anyone can can do it. That sole reason is why we now have a market saturated with SEOs that claim to be God’s gift to Number 1 rankings on Google.

The SEO industry has become one that preys on vulnerable companies who will never truly understood how the web nor search engines work, but believe the hype that is discussed at length at nearly every business seminar across the country.

There’s no doubt SEO is important, but its value in most cases has been greatly over exaggerated. For any website to be a success, you must create a search engine friendly website at the very least – whether you should go further depends very much on the competition in your field.

SEO is in the gutter as far as I’m concerned – from the companies that offer you “guaranteed No. 1 spots on Google” to companies who offer “link building services” from websites with little or no value. And of course we have the SEOs who think 301 redirects are the solution to all your problems, it just gets more ridiculous as time passes.

Maybe Eoghan saw all this long before the rest of us, one things for sure… he certainly seen it before me.

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My response to your emails about Web Design & Development Costs

Apr 7

Posted by Tom Doyle in Web Design, Web Development


I recently turned our Google Adwords campaign on to get 2bscene out there and drum up some more business. It’s not that we’re not busy, but more the fact that I’d really like to see us grow this year after being too worried about consolidation last year. The more business I get in, the more staff I can employ and the feel good factor of that would be just amazing with all the doom and gloom that fills our lives because of the recession.

My Google advert states clearly “Professional Web design from just €1,499″. There are a number reasons we push that price. The main one is that it’s a very competitive price for a professionally designed, custom website and the other key reason is to stop people that aren’t serious about their web presence from contacting us.

I’ve outlined in detail many times before how we cost our websites and why they cost the price they do. But for some that message doesn’t seem to sink in.

Now, more than ever before, we get the “is that really how much it costs? You know we’re in a recession don’t you?” response when someone is presented with an estimate or proposal on the costs involved in developing a website.

The reason for this is simple. Most people just don’t fully understand what is involved in designing and developing a website. The work a professional company puts into designing a custom designed website is not comparable and cannot be compared to a website that costs €300. They are just two totally different things – it’s like comparing apples with oranges.

Some sad person is so ridiculously consumed by it all, feels it’s his duty to inform me that websites can be purchased for as little as €300.

Already he’s filled in the form on our website twice to let us know how he feels about our charges, the economy and how backward he thinks we are. Yet unfortunately, both times he has left non-existent email addresses, which means we can’t respond to him.

We’re pretty confident we know who this person is, I just hope he reads this… so I can let him know that I understand my business, the market place and that we don’t and don’t want to compete with those cheap and nasty web design firms.

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Google Keyword Tool goes mobile

Mar 2

Posted by Tom Doyle in Mobile Phone, Mobile Search, Online Marketing

Google announced last month that over the past two years, mobile searches have grown five-fold. An even better indication of growth in the use of mobile devices for searching is that in the third quarter of 2010, mobile searches jumped again by another 130%. This is a clear indication of the massive and rapid growth of the mobile internet.

I have in the past discussed how I feel it’s time to get your website mobile to make it easier for users to use your website, but more importantly, it’s probably time to start optimising your website to be found in searches by mobile device users.

Google are already a few steps ahead of us all and have added a new key feature to their much loved Google Keyword Tool. You can now use the Google Keyword Tool to build keyword lists for targeting mobile users. As part of the new feature the have given the ability to search for keywords searched for by “mobile WAP browsers” and “Mobile devices with Full Internet Browsers” or of course, just any mobile device at all.

Google Keyword Tool Mobile Search Options

Without doing proper analysis, I can’t tell you for sure if there are many differences in how people search by mobile device compared to a PC. I’d assume there are some significant differences and plan to do some proper research over the coming days.

One things for sure, it’s time to take mobile seriously….

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