MFA ads appearing with no content on landing pages

Wasn't the change in quality score meant to stop this?

[21_blue]

I noticed a ridiculously low EPC on certain pages today. The cause? Zero-content MFA (cleverly but dishonestly worded, so probably attracting a very high CTR, and I guess conversion rate was manipulated to get a low PPC). The preview tool showed two MFAs, but plenty of other bona fide advertisers who pay reasonable advertising rates.

The MFA landing pages had little or no content at these sites, just search boxes that then presented more Google ads (and a few links) in the results. This has been a problem in the past, but I thought the 'landing page quality' should stop this type of thing happening.

I wonder if the MFA website owners are using something like cloaking to deceive the Adsense bot, just as the ads deceive the web surfer? If so, is there anything us publishers can do, apart from monitoring when new types of this site appear and banning the sites?

[david_uk]

Complain to Google if you want, but it's usually a waste of time. I'd say blocking the MFA is the best way of dealing with the problem personally.

[danimal]

>>>I noticed a ridiculously low EPC on certain pages today. The cause? Zero-content MFA<<<

imagine that... google doing something that causes your earnings to go down.

you can forget about complaining to adsense support; been there done that... their final line of defense is that they'll forward your complaint to adwords support :-/

[Nitrous]

This is the reason my filter is so full that I have had to spend 5 hours adding new, deciding which I will have to let go, and so on yet again. Same happened last month.

Its getting rediculous. I have no wish to share my income (the advertisers budget) with any other site that has no income apart from its ads or aff links.

These mfa sites will soon cause google ad blindness. Then we all suffer. I want to show my visitors genuine links to useful products and services. Not more links.

[Scurramunga]

I've seen many MFA's with absolutely no content. I have complained to Google, but after revisiting them weeks later they were still there.

Some contained search boxes thatyeilded results presenting the visitor with more pages containing ads and links. One of the cheekiest was masquerading as a keyword tool for webmasters.

There is is one going around at the moment targeting various niches including mine. It claims to find the best four sites on a particular topic. You have probably guessed that the four sites are nothing more than four links on a content-less page

[Nitrous]

I have a hundred of those fake search things "you searched for #*$!" when I did nothing of the sort.

I have also rather a lot of other sites that display nothing but aff. links.

If they dont actually sell a product or service, and have a phone number, then they are all basically splitting the advertisers money with you. Whatevers left that is after 2 splits with google.

These things cost us, the advertisers, and googles credibility. Directly.

Think about this. If they pay 10 cents a click, then they must be paying google more because of the split. Even if HALF the visitors click an ad they have to be earning 20cents plus googles cut again to make any profit. So they are obviously paying you less than the real advertisers (which are the same as the ones on your pages) do.

Indirectly they will destroy the adsense system because people will get sick of clicking ads that lead to ads, that lead to yet more ads... And advertisers will be sick of the cost.

No wonder the advertisers turn off the ads on our sites or just pay less.

We need the damned things gone. And the best way to do it is to spread the word about checking all your ads and pages and binning them. And to complain in mass to google, and to keep asking for bigger better controlled filters so we can get rid of more of them.

And of course if you see any obvious ones on your travels (like Information on widgets bla bla bla) then click them. When they dont make money they will be gone.