Yesterday, I wrote about how AdSense is reporting inaccurate figures for custom channels. Well it's now the third day in a row, and with no further word from Google. They acknowledged the problem on Tuesday in this thread on the AdSense Troubleshooting discussion on Google Groups, but haven't given an update since. They also seem to have pegged that thread to the top of the group, so that everyone coming in sees it.
Still, a "we're aware of this and we're working on it," post to one thread (even if the thread is now highlighted) in the AdSense discussion groups, and nothing since then, isn't enough. Not everyone knows of or will find these groups. Google's missing a HUGE opportunity to engender goodwill by being open and communicative about this with webmasters via announcements in the AdSense reporting interface itself. Instead, they're doing what most people complain about when they complain about Google... they're not being responsive (or not appearing to be responsive) to people whose financial well being Google's problems affect.
To an extent, for a LOT of people on the web, Google is like the factory that employs half the people in town. If you're not getting money directly from them, their effect on the local economy still impacts you. So when things start getting screwy at Google, you've got a lot of people fearing for their livelihoods, either via the money they get directly from Google, the traffic they get from Google, etc.
And when things start getting screwy at Google, but Google is being tight-lipped about it, it makes a lot of people scared. Directly or indirectly, some portion of their livelihood is now threatened, but they can't tell to what extent. That creates a lot of anxiety that is focused on Google. And when Google shows callousness about that anxiety, they begin alienating people who are helping them make money. Alienate enough and Yahoo and Microsoft are waiting in the wings, looking for ANY weakness they can pounce on to steal advertisers, publishers, and searchers from Google.
And Google shorts are looking for anything they can use to diminish confidence in Google and drive the stock price down.
I believe more transparency and responsiveness are better weapons against Google's competitors and Google shorts, but Google seems to think otherwise. Well, as this problem continues to drag on and Google stays mum, we'll see who is right.
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I noticed the same problem. None of of custom channels are working. This has not worked since AdSense was down for maintenance on Saturday.
[...] After my post that AdSense was still broken, a Google rep posted to the thread twice at 4:20 and 4:42 pm. [...]