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Google Ads you are Bad At Marketing. Talk about theft.

Before 2011, Google would give us (the public) all the organic data, they would show what someone searched before getting to your website. After 2011 Google started to hide organic keyword data from us and now (almost the year 2025) we barely get any data. As marketers, that data was very useful, but hey it was free and we were not paying Google for any of those clicks.

Google Ads is a completely different story. When it comes to Google Ads, we are paying for these search terms and Google provides this list which is in the Google Ads dashboard. In the data they also provide a list of terms we do not get clicks on but do get impressions for.  Over the last few years we have managed many campaigns for clients in several industries. As with most Google tools the data is never easy to read. Google makes us jump through hoops to collect data. Obviously for SEO it is what it is, the traffic is free and beggars can’t be choosers right? Google Ads though… we should see everything we pay for. If a keyword has only one click that costed 10 cents, we should see what that click was.

Google does have an option to let them know we do not want to target a search term by adding what they call “negative keywords”. If we can tell Google we never want to get clicks for a keyword, shouldn’t we get money back on the keywords that made no sense for said business? We should but we do not! Google keeps the money!  If you pay for something like a search term, you should have the data, right? Unbelievably and with their overpowering hand.

In addition to Google not refunding irrelevant terms, as they did with SEO after 2011. They are now charging for terms we cannot see in the overall search term data. Here is an example of a 90 day campaign (click to enlarge):

This client spent over $30,000 on “other search terms”. We reached out to Google to see why they do not give us this data and here’s what they said (canned response?):

“Thank you for your response. I apologize for the inconvenience caused to you.

The data we shared above has over 8,000 search terms that did not have any clicks and in most cases only 1 impression and Google provided the data for those impressions. If Google is going to show us data that has no clicks and 1 impression, how does their reply make any sense? how come they are not showing us where 50% of our ad budget is going? Why can’t we turn off “Other Search Terms”? Are  they stealing money from everyone and getting away with it?

Here is data from one MCC account we mange:

Yup that is over $1 million in “other search terms” and we have several accounts like this. We are not lawyers but this seems like grounds for a class action lawsuit with the likelihood of an extremely large settlement.

The rabbit hole goes deeper.

When you set up a search campaign, you are expecting to be listed in Google searches. Well Google does a little more by default. They automatically have display and Google search partners added to your campaigns (unless you uncheck the boxes google “recommends” but also auto selects).  Google claims that they are targeting good relevant sites to categories we select when setting up the campaigns. We have a few clients such as more recent “luxury real estate condo” client and all their keywords and website content reflects just that. Google charged them thousands of dollars and sent them mostly traffic from Section 8 housing websites, foreign websites and websites that have nothing to do with the brand, business or website. It has nothing to do with the settings we gave Google Ads. We have tons of cases like this. Case after case of these auto selected “display network” campaigns targeting irrelevant websites.

True story: my boss fired 70% of his staff to save money.

If that sounds ridiculous, it’s because it is. After firing the majority of the staff, the remaining 30% had to take on the remaining clients. This spreads employees too thin and keeps clients from receiving what they deserve. The whole thing was “tripping over dollars to save pennies.” What put some extra cash in my boss’s pocket that day will cost much more in the future.

Sustaining healthy client relationships should always be the main priority for an SEO agency. However, many of the marketing agencies out there only care about signing on new businesses instead of taking care of our own. My old boss actually encouraged us to report fluff back to our clients when we didn’t have enough time to produce actual results for them. That’s the opposite of what a good SEO firm should do. A more sustainable business plan focuses on growing existing clients into bigger ones and garnering valuable references.

Here’s a quote from the agency owner:

“It’s all about retention, if we can keep 60% of all the business we bring in, it does not matter who gets results.”

Let’s break down that business plan. Client portfolios are spread as thin as possible across employees, so they only have time to do the minimal amount of work. As long as 60% of the clients think they are getting a good service, it doesn’t matter. Note that I say “think they are getting a good service.” 100% of clients are getting subpar service, it’s just 40% of them are smart enough to walk away.

You ever try to run a race with your shoelaces tied? Working at that “SEO agency” was like running a race with shoelaces tied. When I showed up, things were a mess.

• Clients were 3 months behind on content
• The 4 employees each spent 3 hours a day creating social media posts for SEO, despite social media having no impact on SEO rankings
• Client reports took 3 days, were inconsistent, and incomprehensible.
• Every single blog and a majority of the articles were not optimized at all, no alt text on images, no internal links, inconsistent formatting, broken pages, keyword cannibalized pages, over optimization and terrible readability.
• Several clients were threatening to leave due to lack of results.

After I signed on, I was able to clean up the mess by:

• Working with a friend with strong content marketing skills to get clients 3 months ahead of content schedule.
• Automating social media processes, freeing up time and creating better posts.
• Automating client reports with an affordable, white labeled online tool. Clients received consistent reporting and had access to the information 24/7.
• Fixed existing content to include internal links, consistent formatting, appropriate alt text, and readable content. This “SEO agency” delivered broken pages and over optimized content.
• Saved them about $200k in annual residual money by keeping clients. I talked angry customers off the ledge by explaining our improved processes and executing.

What a mess, right? If this is how the bosses treated clients, you can only imagine how internal operations were going.

I left that agency knowing there is a better way. Instead of hustling for a quick buck, I wanted to create an SEO agency different from the thousands around the country. Each marketer has a cap on the number of clients they can take on, so nobody is spread too thin and no client is forgotten. Only experienced SEO operators with best-practice knowledge are allowed to take on project management. Finally, we strive for complete transparency with our clients so they know exactly where their money is going.

This is the way SEO is supposed to be.

• Market Share of Search

• Market Share of Mobile OS

• Market Share of Browsers (us) – 43%

We don’t really have a choice, do we?

As long as links are manipulated, many businesses will fail.

When a website has bad links and gets punished for it, people can get mad.

When a website has natural links and their competitors win with bad links, people can get mad.

Website Punishment is Not The Answer

It makes no sense to punish a website for links, there has to be a better way. Punish the webmaster, not the website.

You preach for webmasters not to worry about links, however, if one can be punished by them and one can inherit a site that has them (knowing or not?), falling in rankings can seriously make people worry. Links are a webmasters responsibility, not businesses, the business should have no tie to a link profile, the webmaster should.

The way things are today when an uneducated webmaster doesn’t check a backlink profile, he’s in jeopardy of wasting a lot of time and money.

Suggestion for Google Search

License Webmasters, make webmasters take credibility for their own links. How? Make every business that wants to rank in Google, get their license to Google (Current webmaster can have a timeframe).

A license to Google should require some solid form of identity: social security number, a copy of a passport, license number, EIN, IDK something. Once webmasters are accountable for their own links, they would refrain from building manipulative links and they will think carefully before linking to someone. Unlicensed users links shouldn’t count. Google can help the search community without punishment. Isn’t the goal to create a better user experience?

Top 5 ranking sites should receive a congratulations letter with a Google Webmaster License request,

“Congratulation your website has made it into Google’s top 5 for several awesome terms in your market.

[You rank for your brand, more terms!]

Keep up the great work!

Notice: In order to maintain your credibility, Google asks that you add your Google License number into your webmaster tools account. Don’t have a Google license? Get one here”

Encourage us to do better and reward us for good work, don’t punish.

In the real world, people incorporate their businesses, it helps consumers from being cheated and protects people. In this case, it will encourage better user experience for all.

Transparency – we are with our personal information. Can you imagine working on a project for an entire year only to find out the previous webmaster created a crappy link profile, it’s a bummer.

Punish the culprit, not everyone else!

Perhaps my suggestions are not the right solutions, but I can tell you that punishing people isn’t right either.

Yours Truly.