How to determine MFA on my site?

[paul_g]

I've been reading about filtering out the MFA ads that display in your sites ads. How do I find out which ones are MFA's?

thanks

[Jean]

You look at them (but you don't click on them in order to do so) and use your judgement.

[paul_g]

Ok, I'm new to this.

How do I tell? What do I look for?

[icedowl]

Most of the ones that I've found have one short sentence surrounded by the maximum allowed number of adsense units (adblocks, adlinks and search for adsense).

Be sure to use the preview tool to look at them. This page is all about the tool:
[google.com...]

[Jean]

Most of the ones that I've found have one short sentence surrounded by the maximum allowed number of adsense units

and if they have more text it is often not original or not informative.
Rule of thumb: if the content is negligible (either in quantity or quality) and surrounded by ads it is MFA junk.

[paul_g]

Can you post an example?

[david_uk]

You can only really tell by using the adsense preview tool and checking, or if it doesn't show up in the tool, right click the ad and click "copy shortcut". Then open a new browser window and paste in the url. Strip out all the crap except for the landing page which is right at the end (and strip away the bit right after that contains publisher number!) then you can safely visit the landing page without causing an invalid click.

By just looking at the ads you see you can usually spot them. They often have enticing text such as "You really need to know this", or "We've found the top 3 sites in (insert niche)", or "Before you buy (insert product) read this".

test two is to look at the url in the bottom of the ad. The MFA's ad urls always have a spammy look about them. maybe this is something you need practice on before you get the knack.

I have found that real advertisers in my niche usually have dead dull ads, and url's that dont shout "Spam" at me. I always check out new ads I've not seen before, but in 95% of cases, the ad copy and URL will tell me accurately what is, and isn't an MFA.

Now this may not work for everybody, or in every niche, but it certainly works for me.

That's how I spot the ads on my site that may lead to an MFA landing page.

On the landing page itself, my acid test is "is the site selling a product or service" - I.E. something that can be paid for by credit card on this site. Or is it a genuine information site - I.E. has useful information and content, and usually does not have more ads than content.

If the landing page is a directory site, has more ads than content, has minimal content that is just enough keywords for the bot to use in targetting then I class it as an MFA.

[Nitrous]

Just block all that dont directly sell a service or product.

If it has ads its buying your traffic cheap so it can make money on the back of your content and is your direct competition.

[fredw]

Nitrous: this goes back to my question about those advertisers who give you something for free for participating in a survey. They don't directly offer a product or service, but nobody here spoke up to say they regularly filter them... I get these a lot in one of my niches...

[edited by: fredw at 7:47 pm (utc) on Mar. 16, 2006]

[makes a little sense]

paul_g,

Google won't let us post examples of these sites. I have to wonder why.

[Nitrous]

I dont block those "win a free widget" survey sites because they are genuine paid (by prizes)sites. And I dont know that they pay badly.

There are market researchers out in the streets. They get 20 dollars if they get someone to fill in a detaild form. Same on websites. I think they are legit.

[danimal]

some of the free widget sites are indeed legit, and it's part of a trend that you'll be seeing more of in the future.

still, if there's no address or phone number, they belong in the filter, because there is no way to seperate the legit surveys from the scammers.