hyperkik - 11:52 am on Aug 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

Since you would rather not go against your ethics you try to FORCE others to abide by them. Who is worse? You or the spammer? Since you would rather not go against your ethics you try to FORCE others to abide by them. Who is worse? You or the spammer?

Oh, that's hard. Let me think for a minute. Wait - I've got it! The spammer is worse! [insert eye roll here]

First, while the type of spam site at issue may be the "fast path to easy AdSense money", I and others here can attest that it isn't the only path to making decent money with AdSense (and I know some here with legitimate sites make a *lot* more than I do.) It's a slower growth curve (and a lot more work) when you create bona fide content, as opposed to slapping up keyworded spam garbage, so I can understand why opportunists aren't interested.

At least from what has been posted here, it is my present impression that Google is accepting the spam sites with their "made for AdSense" garbage pages because they want to, as much as possible, exhaust their inventory of ads - and they can't presently come close without those sites. If the body of legitimate sites continues to grow, or perhaps after they go public and they are less concerned with a temporary drop in AdSense revenue, they may well become more stringent about the "made for AdSense" sites.

I am reminded a bit of one of Google's other projects, Google Answers, where I am reluctant to recommend the service to people I know because Google isn't (in my opinion) sufficiently diligent about firing bad researchers. I personally feel the same way about AdSense, given the types of sites under discussion (and even the misleading way ads are now displayed on some sites with decent content).

Whatever Google's plan, with this discussion it is fair to assume that they and a lot of AdWords advertisers are aware of this issue.