Genuine1 - 3:54 pm on Jul 6, 2007 (gmt 0)

Not true.

Of the 200 original pre june arb sites in my filter about 160 used adwords>adsense

This takes a cut of the adwords spend and costs advertisers google and publishers money. It takes money from the google ad system which advertisers and publishers dont like. Just another layer costing everyone in the system money.

Now after REFILLING the filter from scratch recently (very easy as it happens) there are just as many arbs in total if not a few more but they are mostly using adwords>other (overture etc?) VERY FEW adsense ones left. And once the few remaining ones are weeded out then there will likely be even less still. At the moment its down to about 12 or 15 out of the original 160.

This Overture/other ads thing actually ADS money to the google advertising system instead of taking it out. Google system still gets its advertising budget from the arb crowd, but now its at the overture/other advertisers expense... So likely they will ban them next!

Win win for google though and for publishers as well as advertisers.

Unfortunately I still have to filter them because they offer my visitors nothing. They will not click on the ads even if they ARE interested in the end. So the user experience has not been improved at all which was the original claim by google.

[edited by: Genuine1 at 3:59 pm (utc) on July 6, 2007]