AdSense Approval Delays: How Long Is Too Long?

Have you been waiting -- and waiting, and waiting some more -- for Google AdSense to approve your application? Join the club.

Many AdSense applicants wonder how long it will take Google to review their applications. According to Google, it's an easy question to answer: The review process should take less than a week.



A lot of applicants also worry whether Google will deem their sites worthy of an AdSense account. They can rest easy: The approval process is clear and straightforward, and most legitimate Web publishers can meet Google's standards quite easily.

The real mystery is why Google isn't more realistic about its approval process. As quite a few applicants can attest, that one-week estimate is wildly optimistic.

(Full disclosure: I have a dog in this hunt. I applied for an AdSense account more than a month ago, and I'm still waiting to hear from Google.)

The AdSense program is wildly popular, and the review process is clearly very labor-intensive. Google tries hard to ensure that its ads don't appear on sites that don't meet its terms of service. And the only effective review method still involves real people actually checking out new applicants' sites, one at a time.

So the delays are understandable. Google's failure, however, to keep AdSense applicants informed about these delays is inexcusable.

The problem is that so many AdSense applicants are waiting months to get approved, yet Google sticks to that ridiculous one-week estimate. Applicants who go looking for more information or for someone to contact at Google wind up getting dumped into the AdSense "help system," which consists mostly of forums where other AdSense users try to answer their questions.

Google employees rarely, if ever, venture into the AdSense forums to provide any officially-sanctioned feedback. That leaves other AdSense users to inform frustrated applicants that they may have to wait three or four months for a response.

Worse still, many applicants assume that Google rejected their applications and didn't bother to notify them. As a result, Google runs the risk of doing exactly the thing its review process is designed to prevent: Ruin the credibility, and thus the effectiveness, of its AdSense system.

It's time for Google to step up and communicate clearly with AdSense applicants. At a minimum, this should include:

• Revising that official one-week review estimate to something more realistic. If it takes Google four months to review a typical AdSense application, then the company should say so.
• Adding a question to the AdSense support FAQ that gives new applicants some realistic guidance about how long they will wait for a response.
• Reviewing the AdSense support forum to address applicants' concerns that they have been forgotten, overlooked, or rejected without notice.
• Occasionally sending email to applicants, assuring them that their applications are still in line for review -- and that they will, indeed, get a response eventually.

Google can accomplish all of these tasks relatively quickly, without squandering too much time and effort. The payoff -- reassuring countless frustrated, confused AdSense applicants -- will be significant.

Or Google can keep playing these silly games and deny the problem. And eventually, AdSense will pay a very real price.

The RIAA's Head Weasel Speaks His Piece

ArsTechnica recently gave RIAA General Counsel Steven Marks space to talk up his organization's goon-squad anti-piracy tactics:

It is a fascinating and challenging time to work in the music business. The record industry is swept up in a sea of change and we have embraced it. It’s a new day for the business and a new day for fans—25 years ago, it was just radio and records, but today’s music marketplace is dramatically different, with hundreds of different fully licensed digital music services and models.

Yet even with this emerging legal landscape, the rights of artists, songwriters, and record labels deserve protection. Unfortunately, there are those who seem to overlook that fact, including a Harvard law school professor, his class, and their client Joel Tenenbaum, a defendant in one of our illegal music downloading cases.

Marks is referring here to an earlier Ars piece, in which Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson basically declared war on the RIAA. Nesson, along with many of his students, are now representing Tannenbaum pro bono.

This is funny stuff, although not really in a "ha ha" funny kind of way. The RIAA, after all, represents an industry that "embraced" change only after Napster, BitTorrent, and millions of consumers chain-whipped its business model into a bloody pulp.

Today, the RIAA's "embrace" of change includes a lingering obsession with digital rights management schemes and some curious ideas about how to price digital versus physical content. Also, let's not forget the music industry's kinky habit of suing dead people, old ladies with a thang for Snoop Dogg, and various other hardened copyright criminals.

If the RIAA wants to lift its leg on music buyers and tell them it's raining, that's their prerogative. After all, this is the industry that put the term "payola" into the history books. I just hope they don't think that anyone capable of fogging a knife takes them seriously at this point.

Cesar Millan's Critics: Just A Bunch Of Bad Dogs?

Cesar Millan -- the "Dog Whisperer" -- is a pop-culture phenomenon. He is also controversial among some dog trainers and behaviorists. But are Cesar's critics barking up the wrong tree?

This article on the controversy, "Dog Whisperer, Dog Psychology and Cesar Millan," offers an interesting critique of Millan's methods:

With the recent popularity of a television show about problem dogs, the controversy over which methods are the most humane and effective ways to address behavior problems in dogs has been renewed and is dividing dog lovers all over the world.

While behaviorists, trainers and other dog professionals recognize that the show is exposing dog owners to the possibility that their dogs' behavior can be changed, the show gives the false impression that behavior can be changed within a matter of hours. Professionals are also concerned about the methods used, as many of those methods are known to incite or increase aggressive behaviors.

This article will explore the controversial issues and will attempt to separate fact from marketing. Wherever possible, additional links or book recommendations are provided as reference or to elaborate on the preceding issue. We strongly recommend those who disagree with this article read the links and/or books provided before contacting us.

I suspect there's a good reason why author Lisa Mullinax asks people to do their research before "contacting us." She probably gets more than her share of angry email. That's not fair; while I disagree with her conclusions, her arguments are well-reasoned, and her concerns are obviously sincere.

I can't, however, say the same about some of the other anti-Millan coverage you'll find online.

Consider this excerpt from a trite little hit piece published on Esquire.com:

"My position is, Millan is a poseur," Claudia Kawczynska, editor in chief of The Bark magazine, says of the ex--dog groomer. "He is a hairdresser, not the real guy in terms of being an expert. He doesn't have credentials. And it is shocking to me how easily people are ready to fall for it."

With approximately two million strays euthanized in the U. S. each year, Kawczynska sees reason to worry: "He is doing a disservice to the real experts in the field," she says. "He gives quick fixes, but they are not going to be a solution for most families with problem dogs."

Mullinax argues that Millan's critics aren't just jealous, and they aren't obsessed with defending their professional turf against a self-trained newcomer. Yet Kawczynska's venomous complaints that Millan is a "haridresser" who lacks "credentials" suggest otherwise.

And then we have this New York Times screed, in which guest columnist Mark Derr portrays Millan as a loose-cannon sexist pig, pushing a quick-fix sham on a bunch of dimwitted dupes:

Mr. Millan brings his pastiche of animal behaviorism and pop psychology into millions of homes a week. He’s a charming, one-man wrecking ball directed at 40 years of progress in understanding and shaping dog behavior and in developing nonpunitive, reward-based training programs, which have led to seeing each dog as an individual, to understand what motivates it, what frightens it and what its talents and limitations are. Building on strengths and working around and through weaknesses, these trainers and specialists in animal behavior often work wonders with their dogs, but it takes time.

Mr. Millan supposedly delivers fast results. His mantra is “exercise, discipline, affection,” where discipline means “rules, boundaries, limitations.” Rewards are absent and praise scarce, presumably because they will upset the state of calm submission Mr. Millan wants in his dogs. Corrections abound as animals are forced to submit or face their fear, even if doing so panics them.

Much of what Derr says in this article is demonstrably wrong: Millan frequently uses both praise and rewards. And while Millan can be politically incorrect, he isn't likely to upset anyone who isn't already a humorless blowhard.

Mark Derr really tips his hand, however, when -- like Kawczynska -- he attacks Millan for promoting quick-fix tactics. In fact, Millan does no such thing.

In many cases, "Dog Whisperer" segments actually show the elapsed time Millan needed to complete a task that might otherwise look quick within the context of a one-hour TV episode. If anything, the fact that Millan requires a half hour or longer simply to approach and a fearful dog demonstrates the time, patience, and effort this process requires.

Here, too, one suspects that Derr's real problem has more to do with jealousy, or at least with resentment. Or perhaps he's engaging in yet another condescending effort to protect idiots who can't separate TV and reality from hurting themselves. It's a noble but typically misguided cause.

I disagree as a rule with Cesar Millan's critics. It's a position I share, by the way, with the professional trainers, behaviorists, and vets who endorse Millan's approach. Having said that, I think many of those critics, including Mullinax, deserve both respect and careful consideration, given their professional commitment and their obvious concern for animal welfare.

Unfortunately, they're going to have a hard time getting it when they're forced to share the limelight with so many embittered, mud-slinging attack dogs.