Start with https://www.google.com/search?q=google+banned+all+apple+repair+ads and there it is. It appears to be mostly about Apple products and when two juggernauts, dare I write collude even if openly, we all lose.
Apple's repair system is OK when your device is under AppleCare but beyond that we see the repair price climb to levels where they essentially tell you to buy a new unit.
I've had no qualms about many third party repair companies but Apple seems to have declared war.
So I'm running a cell phone and laptop repair service in Vancouver and recently my ads stopped showing up for the keywords like:
cell phone repair
iPhone repair
Samsung repair
laptop repair and others
Google got sold to Apple and other manufacturers? What is going on? I'm not selling drugs or something like that, industry is fully legal.
Anyone encountered this?
@kashioz. You can google up Louis Rossmann to find his encounters with Apple and more. Apple has declared war (my choice of words) on the repair industry by blocking access to spare parts and now this. As to legal, I'm not a lawyer but it appears to be legal until there's a court case or legislation.
A rundown of everything that has happened with the Google Ads crackdown on third-party repairs over the past 9 months: http://phone-repairs-perth.com.au/google-declares-war-on-repairs/
https://medium.com/@bradleypenniment/google-declares-war-on-consumer-electronic-repair-service-centers-6d3d8238929a (for those who prefer not to share a repair business website)
· 31st August 2018 Google bans “third party technical support” from its advertising platform. This includes hardware repairs (computers, laptops, mobile phones) and the electronic service industry even with brick and mortar stores.
· 13th May 2019: After experiencing declining visibility for most major search terms, repair shops across the globe report the disapproval of adverts (including non-branded ad copy) due to “other restricted businesses”
21th May 2019: Still no verification program has been announced despite the claims made by Google’s David Graff that the program would be introduce “in the coming months” 9 months previously.
The article is a work in progress. I'm still looking for more screenshots and quotes from those within the industry as I believe it adds extra credibility. If anyone would like to submit any additional info you can message me or reply on this thread. Any critique or feedback is welcome. I'm sure there are grammatical and proof reading errors in the article as well, so if you would be kind enough to point them out.
For those in the industry, you can file a complaint with Google at https://support.google.com/google-ads/contact/aw_complaint The more complaints Google receives the more likely it is that the industry can pushback on google’s policy change.
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