Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I hope we agree on that site full of links/google search results is a pure spam site, if so, WHY does google adsense sponsor such sites, there are 10000 sites like that which a sponsored by adsense, dont they want good search results any more, be cause the more they support those site, more there will be in the serps.
I refuse to beleive that its just because of the money.
What I try to say is that scraper directories in my opinion are a business model to earn money by displaying ads together with snippets of contents taken from other sites on the net. Google has the same business model: they also display ads together with snippets of contents taken from sites on the net. There is nothing wrong with this basic business model. The only difference between the two is that the Adsense content publisher gets paid by Google, but sees the scraper directories as competitor.
I did not want to devalue Google, but I wanted to outline that you can look at scraper directories from different perspectives because this was what the thread started with, the question why Google does not take much viewable action against scraper directories.
Regards,
®
I did not want to devalue Google, but I wanted to outline that you can look at scraper directories from different perspectives because this was what the thread started with, the question why Google does not take much viewable action against scraper directories.
That's a pretty farfetched argument, since there's one big difference between Google and the scraper sites: Google is doing the heavy lifting of being a search engine, while the scrapers are just lifting the SEs' results. (Copyright issues come into play here, too: Google's capturing of page titles, text snippets, etc. is almost certainly protected by the "Fair Use" doctrine, which allows excerpting for review purposes. It's unlikely that a court would extend the same kind of "Fair Use" protection to a scraper site.)
As for why Google tolerates scraper sites, the obvious reason is a need for ad inventory. It wouldn't surprise me to see Google trying to shove the scrapers down in its search results (after all, search is Google's core product and source of "eyeballs") while allowing scraper sites to remain part of a cheap run-of-network base product (the existing AdSense 1.0) as higher-priced AdSense variants are added to the network for more demanding advertisers.
Chris
[edited by: crobb305 at 7:13 pm (utc) on Mar. 23, 2005]
Google will probably do nothing. They are themselves a scraper site taking snippets and caching your complete site without first asking you. Scraper directories are not better or worse than Google.
Yes, but if you ask them to remove a page or site of yours from their search results they "must" comply. And yes, in my opinion there is a huge difference between Google and a scraper site. Google sends me 100's of thousands of visitors a month which in turn makes me money regardless of why they do it (which is to make money for themselves). A scraper site offers me "0" benefits for stealing my content.
I'm thinking this is where it's headed... they won't do anything about these scraper sites until they have to hire more help to respond to the DMCA reports or reporting due to [google.com...]
breaking that rule via PPC tracking, or duplicate content detection
What do you mean by "PPC tracking"?
Advertising on the SERPs gives them until now the most revenue, but when searchers massively go to other search engines as happened a few times in the past Google's biggest source of income will dry up in just a few months. AdSense is a way for them to diversify their income sources, even if their search engine becomes less popular. Just from a survival point of view they cannot ban too many publishers sites from the AdSense network without reason. These sites may be their only income in the near future.
Most ad companies have policies about what types of sites they allow in their networks. Many do a poor job in that they allow sites with little content, poor content or stolen content.
The sole reason for assessing the quality of a web site before inclusion in a program is to maintain the program's respectability in the eyes of advertisers. Otherwise there would be no qualifications at all and the the network could let in anyone.
Google has set certain qualifiications for entry but they are obviously doing a poor job at quality control. I choose not to speculate on their motives.
Google's capturing of page titles, text snippets, etc. is almost certainly protected by the "Fair Use" doctrine, which allows excerpting for review purposes.
Review? Where's the review part?
I would be interested in hearing his opinion on the matter.
Remember how all the now forgotten search engines used to try anything to get ad clicks - until the FTC threatened them with regulations requiring better identification of advertisements? This is just Google's disguise for the same thing. A results page full of scrapers means that the searcher is forced to hit an adwords ad either way - on the "natural" search results or on the ads column.
Will a "clean" search engine without bait and switch "natural" SERPs come along and trash Google? I doubt it. A search engine has to have revenue.
I haven't stopped using Google as a search engine. The SERPs are not usually too bad so far, and you get used to recognizing a scraper without clicking on it. But evenually this will bite Google, so hopefully they have a plan... Meantime, gosh it's surely hard to keep all the shareholder-staff at the GooglePlex concentrating on something other than NASDAQ.
the love of money is the root of all evil ;)
LOL, you could also say that the love of evil is the root of most big money ; )
It's gone...
Review? Where's the review part?
If you don't like the word "review," try one of the others that are mentioned in the U.S. Copyright Office's description of Fair Use.
Or substitute "editorial opinion," the term that a federal court used to describe Google's search results.
Why does Google Adwords sponsor scraper spam sites
Going through my URL filter on adsense I see literally hundreds of junk sites that google has let in that I have been sending traffic too .
I am going to do my part and just refuse to sell my traffic to them until they start cleaning up thier websites. Only going to sell traffic to the main advertisors.
Thanks G for the URL filter; I wish I had paid attention to it earlier .
I think advertisors should have the same tools
Is that an AdSense tool?
I wonder how many other people have found the search ads unhelpful for the same reason, and why Google thinks that allowing these sites, and the ads for directories to be so prominent at the expense of genuine adverts for products that actually exist is good for their business?
If they want to promote ad-blindness, and making sure people don't click ads, then they are certainly going about it the right way!
That why you will get rid of alot of spam sites
If you are a webmaster, then
You are expected to understand the SE crawlers exist, and
You understand that unless forbidden, they will crawl you, and
The results of those crawls will be SE listings.
As a webmaster who does not put restrictions on crawlers pulling data from your servers, you give implicit permission for crawlers to do their things.
If you restrict a crawlers activity by the use of .htaccess files or META tags or robots.txt files, you have EXplicitly restricted those activities, and violators may be liable for a copyright infringement lawsuit.
If you do NOT put restrictions in place, the SEs have every right to crawl your site and post the traditional title-description-URL as part of THEIR site's content.
Block the crawlers, if you want to maintain a lock on what little they collect from you.
Re: Scraper sites, G is actively encouraging people to sign up for their programs to get as much exposure as they possibly can. Their own services provide many of the boilerplate scraper sites you see in their SERPS, and they won't quit doing this any time soon. If you have a site with 750,000 hits/month, they will provide for your (different) PARKED domain a scraper page with sponsored links related to the DOMAIN NAME ONLY! (see msg #20 by jimbeetle). CONTENT is IRRELEVANT!
As long as there are hungry little G mouths to feed, G will seek every penny in revenue it can get ... whether those pennies come from the suburbs or from the ghetto, they still buy milk.
For the record, I'm disgusted by this policy, too.
I do, however, see a benefit to scraper sites in one particular instance: if there are no sites that are exactly relevant to the query searched for. In that instance if a scraper site shows up that has AdSense on it, very often the ads shown will be very relevant to the query, and so the visitor will get what they are looking for when they click the ad.
I see the scraper site as a two-edged sword--good for getting visitors what they are looking for if there aren't (m)any pages targetting that information, and bad if they are optimized in such a way as to out-rank the official product or company pages.
I use scraper sites to make money from adsence (point blank, take that however you like) but, here is some goodnew for all you google snitches and cry babies who have no idea what type of money there is in them...
I just got "banned" from adsence for using these types of sites so I can speak firsthand and say that they "don't like" these kinds of sites and when they find you doing this they will kill off your accounts and (probable, i will see if I get any check this month) keep all the money for themselfs.....
With that said, I made alot of money with those kinds of sites and "all" the traffic was super targetted so I say if you want real money and you ain't scared then try it, you may like it (i did). And for all you google snitches out there who are working 9-5 and hating on us real players, when you get mad from now on and want to "tell" on people and "cry" becouse you can't do what other can, just think about this...
You use windows right? well they are a doing all kinds of nasty things yet you still use them. The same goes for alot of big companies..scraper sites are not wrong or bad, they are just business, "Big business" and I can't wait intil overture comes out with there on adsence type becouse then i am going to build super fat sky scrapers and let you player haters judge that.....
P.s. for my fello scrapers out there who want to know more about how I got banned and stuff just holla.
Lets not be be sensationalist here - we all know woman are the real root ;). Or in serious, as you puruse money, you must be evil incarnate!
Actually, I do believe that scrapers are a big problem. From my own research, google is all about automation - intelligent algorithms parsing information and making intelligent decisions. Manually modifying results just seems the anti-thesis of what google is [has?] been trying to accomplish. And for those that read baked's [excellent] post on button pushing, you can ban one site, but another 50 will spring up to replace it.
>> And for all you google snitches out there who are working 9-5 and hating on us real players, when you get mad from now on and want to "tell" on people and "cry" becouse you can't do what other can, just think about this...
>> You use windows right? well they are a doing all kinds of nasty things yet you still use them. The same goes for alot of big companies..
I see the internet thugs are slowly taking on google :). Remember friends - using slang will make you appear more cool than you really are. Otoh, if you need to justify what you do (claiming something as yours when it really isn't in any way whatsoever) by stating its okay because others do it ... well shucks, surely you can blame video games and terrorists in that post too?
[edited by: AhmedF at 3:20 am (utc) on Mar. 24, 2005]
What's this talk about evil money anyway? What are you all trying to do here, make the world a better place? I am after the money and I'm going to use any way possible to get as much money as possible and I couldn't care less about your ethics towards searchers, advertisers or search engines. The thing is, there are multiple ways of making money online, scraper sites is just a quick way of raising money which involves a lot of risk and some people are willing to take that risk, that's all.
I do not encourage anyone to create such sites nor am I trying to say these sites are the way to go, its just ONE of the ways you can make money. The best strategy is to deversify, create good content sites (with the budget you raised from scraper sites) and keep making and experimenting with scraper sites. It's the money game for me, I don't know about the rest of you......
Dammit, that just compelled me to post. Ethics and money are not two mutually exclusive ideas. In fact, they can co-exist side by side quite easily. Just because one is in the pursuit of money does not mean one can lay to the wayside anything in the way of such pursuit.
Just because one is in the pursuit of money does not mean one can lay to the wayside anything in the way of such pursuit.
That's what YOU believe in. Oh by the way, I never said I would "do anything including breaking the law".
