I received the following email today from Google regarding the expiration of my Google Adwords Professional status.
Email Notice
We are writing to alert you that your Company’s Qualified status in the Google Advertising Professionals Program has lapsed. This has happened for one of the following reasons:
At least one required exam for a Professional associated with your program has expired
Your spend for client accounts has dropped below the 90-day requirement
Log into your Google Advertising Professionals account here to learn more.
Your Company account pages at the Google Advertising Professionals Program site have also been updated to reflect this information. Please log into your account to learn more about how you can correct this problem as soon as possible.
Your authorization to use the Qualified logo has been revoked, and you may not link to it or use it in your promotional materials until you have regained your Qualified status.
To learn more about program qualification requirements, please visit the Help Center.
Sincerely,
Google Advertising Professionals Team
You have received this email because you are an Administrator of a Company account in the Google Advertising Professionals program. As such, we send you alerts and notifications when critical events take place that require your attention.
_________________________________________________________________________
Indeed, my Google Adwords Company summary page has had my portion of its account’s history scraped, however the number of days since I created my first Adwords account and my 90 managed spend data are still visible.
As I wrote about previously, I actually created my first Adwords account in March of 2002. I don’t know why this isn’t correct within my account’s data.
Qualified Status
As mentioned in their email, Google has disabled the link to the Professional status badge I previously linked to.
For those of you keeping track – Google does this on the 30th day after an individual’s status expires.
Adwords Professional Lapse
I was one of the first 25 people in the world to pass the Google Adwords Professional Exam – a long time ago.
When the Adwords Professional program was launched, there was no mention of having to retake an exam every two years to remain qualified.
Being asked to retake their exam isn’t unreasonable – its just inconvenient.
I am not sure when or if Google ever officially announced Adwords Professionals had to take an exam every two years to remain qualified but for those of you who weren’t aware of this requirement – in addition to the Google Adwords minimum spend requirements – you do.
Yes, I did receive notice from Google in My Client Center account about my Adwords Professional status expiring – fourteen days before it expired!
Adwords Pro Messages
Maybe its just me, but I need more than 14 days advance notice to plan for, schedule, take and pass a test – particularly one I hadn’t planned on taking.
How about this Google Advertising Professionals team: Can Adwords Professionals get 30 days notice prior to an Adwords Professional status lapsing instead of fourteen?
I am sure a majority of the other 1,000+ Google Advertising Professionals in the world would second and ratify my motion.
This would surely help those of us who spend all of our time managing Google Adwords accounts instead of spending our time taking tests to prove we know how to manage Adwords accounts.
Search Marketing Communications 
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