Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Some of these have the appearance of a generic search engine and some have the appearance of a niche search engine, i.e. "Search Medical Sites Here"
Are other people observing this? Is there a reason more "search" landing pages are being used?
FarmBoy
FarmBoy
Google must love these sites because they are getting users to click on the initial adwords ad, and then on another adwords ad on the MFA site.
Sometimes I think Google is ruining the internet.
I did a search for an obscure keyword and my domain name this week. I was trying to track down an article I wrote a couple of years ago. I found it, plus about 20 mentions of the keyword on the site and about the same number of backlinks from .edu sites.
The other 1,280 sites (!) that Google indexed for my domain name and the keyword were virtually all pseudo-search sites.
What is the point of going to a search engine looking for information, and then when you click on an ad you get what appears to be another search engine.Google must love these sites because they are getting users to click on the initial adwords ad, and then on another adwords ad on the MFA site.
It's not really a search engine - it's a front. From a user's perspective, there is no point. And that's my primary complaint against these ads (even though others have other complaints) - my visitors who click end up frustrated.
I fail to see how that frustration can lead to anything other than a hesitancy to click on ads - or even text links in general - in the future. And the more it happens, the more the hesitancy grows.
And the more of these ads that Google allows, the more it's going to happen.
FarmBoy
What is the point of going to a search engine looking for information, and then when you click on an ad you get what appears to be another search engine.
As jatar_k mentioned, these types of sites have been around for years and will most likely continue to be.
In fact, I remember seeing these for the first time back in around 1997.
I fail to see how that frustration can lead to anything other than a hesitancy to click on ads - or even text links in general - in the future. And the more it happens, the more the hesitancy grows.
It didn't stop me - as a user I just got better at discerning which sites it would probably be OK to click on a link from, and what was obvious low quality garbage and required use of the back button ;)
TJ
...as a user I just got better at discerning which sites it would probably be OK to click on a link from
I think you just reinforced my point. I provide a good site for my users, including some relevant ads. Google brings in some "bad links" via AdSense and my site may end up being one of those that visitors decide it's probably not "OK to click on a link from."
FarmBoy
I'm not sure that I agree with you though. If yours is, to my mind, a "good quality" site then I feel, as a user, that instills a large element of trust.
I trust you not to link me to junk. That means that you need to control who can and who can't advertise on your site. That's your value add to me, your user.
I wouldn't tarnish you with the bad brush simply because some other site with AdSense has rubbish links/ads etc on it.
That situation hasn't changed since AdSense was introduced - that's the point that jatar_k is making.
TJ
Since these MFA's are showing my ads, why note just set up a site target for each of the MFA's, pay 25 cent per 1000 impressions. This way, my adwords ad that is displayed in the content network at a premium price doesn't get shown on these MFA sites since I already have a cheaper site tartget ad on the site. Next comes the interesting move. What if alot of webmasters started doing this to some pretty well-known MFA's that all of a sudden have lots of site targeted ads displayed on their site for really low cost. I would not mind at all paying them a quarter to have my ad shown 1000 times, thats pretty cheap advertising IMO.
Already being done.
As a means of "influencing" MFA sites, it's probably a waste of time.
Here's the part I don't understand. I've seen estimates that Google only pays as much as 80% of the revenue received for an Adword to an Adsense publisher. Since the MFA site must participate in the same auction as a seller of real products for any Adwords, why doesn't the product seller just purchase the words that the MFA would normally purchase? I find it hard to believe that anyone selling legitimate products wouldn't want to reduce their ad costs and broaden their base of words that would bring buyers to their site. This would reduce the margins to the point MFA's couldn't exist.
Something must be wrong with my logic as MFA's obviously do exist and do it on the margin between what they pay for words and that real sellers pay for the same subject area words minus what Google takes out. And this is assuming they have a 100% CTR.
Are the sellers of real products throwing that much money away by paying too much for too few Adwords? Are the sellers of real products the real cause of the proliferation of MFA's?
They've been doing this for a LONG time, and there are a lot worse than that.
I got bored with the MFA's as there's an endless supply.
The only way to bear them is to pay attention to your own backyard and build it up to the point you have critical mass and keep them so far down in the search engine they don't see the light of day unless they pay for the electricity.
The best way to keep the MFA's out of sight is to keep them out of the the link neighborhood as once they get a foothold there it's all lost.
It is now the close of the day and my ecpm has actually risen since I embarged on my MFA killing spree.
