Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I along with a ton of others who have been shown the door from google's adsence strikly becouse of building scraper sites.
I have tried to get back in but, have been told (through email as I don't have a adsence phone number to a live person to call) that my services are no longer needed.
My question is (to all here and to any "offical adsence members" from google here on webmasterworld as well): Should getting banned for building scraper sites get you kicked out of adsence for "LIFE"?
Anyone else here that has been kicked out for building scraper sites (and) who actaul got back in, please share you input here as well as those people who are in my shoe's.
There is one other thing to consider. The people who have been banned from adsence, once ypn becomes aviable, we will all be going over there (along with thousands of other PO'ed webmasters who can't even call a adsence person on the phone to get a answer, even though they are doing thousands of $$$$ in biz monthly). Now don't get me wrong, I am not going over to ypn to do scraper sites (i have real content sites for ypn and for adsence if I could get back in for that matter) but, the "EX" scraper site builders are infact brillant seo's and know how to bring trageted traffic to advertiser's, why would adsence want to just throw "us" in the garbage can and watch there market share shrink when they should be looking for ways to stay on top. Heck, I would even be for a "pobation peroid" for offender's like me but, I "LIFE TIME BAN" (as in never ever again).....
Teeceo.
The criteria for placing the links on the page and in what order and based on what criteria, plus the way they are presented.
Hence, "no value added" becomes as impossible to litigate as, and perhaps synonymous to "no redeeming social value".
My dad 'BANNED FOR LIFE' anyone caught shoplifting in his little store in our small town (he knew everyone) and I really don't see the difference here if you ask me.
Besides, they were lucky he just didn't use the pistol in the desk or the shotgun in the back room and make it the death penalty ;)
If it does, Google itself would get banned. ( Think of it )
This would re-fire the debate on - what is a scraper
Try to find a single case where a site whose description falls under #3 being successfully sued for copyright violation.
A web site provides its meta description and title for the purpose of being copied by search engines and directories.
I happen to operate a directory that would fall under the #3 description...
In the three and a half years that I have operated the directory which now contains well in excess of 50,000 listings, I have gotten exactly TWO requests to remove a listing and daily get dozens of requests to be included.
I do add value by eliminating junk sites and for any given keyword that I cover my result page is superior to Google's simply because I've hand-picked the results...
I also add value by identifying physical location and customer service phone numbers that are usually difficult to locate on the sites themselves.
Oh, back on topic, doing business with Adsense is a lot like building a credit rating, abuse it and you get banned. Rebuilding is tough not impossible.
I think the "lifetime ban" is all in one's point of view. When my site was banned from the index I had to treat it like a lifetime ban, Google wasn't kind enough to tell me, "oh, we're going to lift this ban in 54 days, just sit tight."
Some on this forum did offer that advice.
Besides, referring them quickly to the Legal Dept. might have other implications.
I think something else is afoot here.
My answer: Maybe yes. But Google should give a warning before they excute an excution.
Now those who have already caused this problem want Google to spend more time and money to give them another chance someday. Does Google set a fixed amount of time like 6 months or a year or 5 years and then check to see if they've cleaned up their act? For all the web sites banned, they now have to spend more money tracking how long they've been banned, checking the sites, and deciding to continue the ban or not. Then they have to continue to monitor the owner's sites because once he's let back in, he may be tempted to revert to his old ways.
Why should Google continue to spend money and resources for that? There's no business sense to it and it is easier and more cost effective to ban them for life.
Not "to document the world's information that is available," but actually to organise it.
That includes the web.
Getting rid of scraper sites across the entire web would be a good start on cutting down the signal-to-noise ratio.
Not only should scraper sites get a lifetime ban from Adsense once discovered, but, if at all possible, they should never be let in, in the first place.
The bottom line is, they shouldn't even exist. They are worse than junk mail and almost as bad as moronic spam email.
People only write scraper sites to make money. The sites themselves are not providing services that have value and therefore generate money. Instead, they just siphon off money.
They are like beggars in a souk who take you by the arm and lead you to where you are going anyway and then demand payment.
That's probably why Google (and many others) would like to see scrapers gone from the web.
"EX" scraper site builders are infact brillant seo's and know how to bring trageted traffic to advertiser's
Yes I am sure Yahoo is just salivating at the thought of all the genius seo's coming over to their network.
Why can't Google just ban the sites that are made with certain software that is the most prolific in making scraper/scam sites?
There are a lot of good wysiwyg's out there for those who don't know how to code and everything else for hand coders. Don't say it takes too long as that is a lazy statement for lazy people.
I hand-coded my last website in 2 and a half weeks, about 200 pages of hand written, researched, content. Time included making my own templates and the utility I used is Homesite.
I just sent the URL to DMOZ this morning and alerted some key sites I use for networking that it was going live.
So YES, it can be done. If Google would go that route you would see a lot of those sites out for good. After all, they did it with some other programs involving link farms.
Ann
Why can't Google just ban the sites that are made with certain software that is the most prolific in making scraper/scam sites
Because they are database driven sites using inhouse software but use mod rewrite so the output is html pages, to an automated robot it's difficult to tell the difference between a ligit site and a scraper site
Ann
For me it is similar to if you were at the Olympic games and were caught using performance enhancing drugs after you won the gold medal.
In particular:
- You were using them to gain an unfair advantage over others,
- The others that had worked hard to get to where they were may never recover from the loss, and may not have another chance to participate.
- You are damaging the reputation of the whole event, and potentially turning away future spectators.
-You've set an example to others that cheating does pay.
You now say you want to be given a second chance and promise to play fair. Can't see you getting much sympathy from other webmasters.
What about the people that worked hard in the first place to provide good content, and found they had to shut up shop because they couldn't make enough out of AdSense to keep their site running. Will they get a second chance?
If I could press a button right now and make all scrapper sites vanish from the web "for life" what reason would you give me for not pressing it? ... Oops, too late, I just pressed it ;-)
Matt
This way they kill two birds in one shoot:
- they made we all belive there is some scrapper banned (you can do any kind of google search to verify how untrue it is)
- they are measuring the feeling on the webmaster community about the rejections/bans.
Remember: black and white, earth and sky, night and day, AdsenseAdvisor and tecceo...
This way they kill two birds in one shoot:
- they made we all belive there is some scrapper banned (you can do any kind of google search to verify how untrue it is)
- they are measuring the feeling on the webmaster community about the rejections/bans.
I do not think that Google actually goes that far. All they have to do "to make us believe" is to ban a decent number of medium-sized scrapers. Some of these will show up here (or elsewhere) to whine.
And to measure the feelings of the WW community, they just need to read the threads here. They don't need to make up a new identity to do that.
Maybe this post (and the poster itself) comes from someone paid by Google in another public relations exercise like those GoogleGuy and AdsenseAdvisor.
Everythings a conspiracy, does suck getting duped though, better to be a skeptic. I am skeptical to the idea of being a skeptic about everything though.
GG and ASA are IMHO just the public relations (white) branch of the Google marketing team.
Do you think is so hard to believe there is someone expanding some vague news/rumours?
if that's what Google wanted to achieve? It's not like they're hard to find
You know that and I know that but it seems the more brain power you have got between your ears and the harder it is to locate them, if the likes of us mere mortals even go to the trouble of reporting a scraper site you get a canned response and nothing changes....sigh
Your scraper sites are causing me endless chasing around and you are stealing my money.. (ok, the bosses money, but I treat his money better than my own.)
There are too many honest people in the program for anyone to give a <snip> about those <snip> who make life difficult at every turn. People banned from Adsense should also be banned from the AdSense forum, IMO.
Thank you Google for every attempt at making AdSense a quality program.
<self-snipped for language>
but it seems the more brain power you have got between your ears and the harder it is to locate them
Do you really think so?
My theory is that they were able to suss scrapers with a fair degree of accuracy and that they did collect all the reports people filed. I also believe that given the will they could have wiped scrapers out of SERPs over a year ago.
Why scrapers have persisted to dominated some search results and "stolen" a lot of your traffic is something that Google may be best placed to explain.
This problem of the scraper sites is far bigger than just a small handful of sites, every man and his dog is jumping on the band waggon with the automated process of mass producing sites but they are so easy to find, they really are that easy so why can't some of the 4,000 staff at google do the same...come on its not "rocket science" is it.
You could type any word you can think of at google and you will find a scraper site in the first 3 pages, you don't need a "PHD" to do that....hmm or do you?
They could tackle that with automated removing of mass produced sites to such a point where auto-generating scrapers becomes a waste of time. In such an approach there is always the possibility of collateral damage... but if Google accepted large amounts of collateral damage with the 301 issue we know they don't have a policy against collateral damage per se ;)
The answer to (a) has to be 'yes'. Even if you take twist's sceptical view, it is ultimately in Google's interests to do so, to protect their position in the market against competitors such as YPN.
However, the best strategy for getting rid of them is less clear. Identifying and banning scrapers is a 'negative' strategy, gets Google involved in the detail of each case, is labour-intensive and perhaps has the potential for legal challenge. Also, creators of scraper programs and sites are technically innovative (akin to creators of viruses) and would keep inventing more techniques and sites that add to Google's problems.
Changing algorithms to give priority in SERPs to original content is a more positive strategy, and ultimately will be more effective and much cheaper. The problem with this approach is that it is too easy for white hat sites and directories to lose out as well. Therefore, they have to take this very slowly to avoid throwing out the dinner plate with the dishwater.
"Positive" and "negative" strategies (if there are such things) are not mutually exclusive.
I think you are reading into my post some things that were not there and disagreeing with points I did not make. I wasn't suggesting that scrapers sue Google for tweaking their algorithms. Like you, I don't see how this could reasonably happen.
Any legal challenge would be against a (made-by-human) decision to expel individual scrapers. Although in their T&C Google reserve the right to terminate participation in the Adsense scheme, I'm not sure under law whether that gives them complete carte blanche. It might be argued that there is an implied contract, that expulsion is in bad faith, and/or there has been some form of illegal discrimination. I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but lot of the boundaries of internet law remain untested and I expect Google would only want to choose battles that are worth fighting.
>I do not agree with the labour intensive claims either. Most
>scrapers have footprints, fingerprints and even DNA all over
>them.
Any expulsion from the Adsense scheme would require investigation by a person - or are you suggesting that scrapers could be expelled from the Adsense scheme purely by some automated process? I would have concerns about the latter approach from both an ethical and legal viewpoint.
>"Positive" and "negative" strategies (if there are such things) are not
> mutually exclusive.
I agree (negative strategies try to stop problems happening, positive strategies try to create something different that moves away from the problem).
My point is, however, that positive strategies tend to experience fewer hurdles and be more effective/productive in the long term - there's lots of research in many areas to support that, from dog training to child development to playing golf to business success.
This doesn't mean one shouldn't engage in any negative strategies, they are still necessary (and evidently from this thread Google are expelling some scrapers). But the point is that putting one's main focus on positive strategies is a much more effective investment of time.
I'm all for this positive strategies thing. It has my 100% backing. :) As does automated cleaning of scrapers from SERPS. Which could have happened a long, long time ago ... but just didn't. So, the first time scrapers reared their head blame the scrapers for "stealing" your traffic. If they continued to do so after the first few days blame both the scrapers and the SE. If scrapers created over a year ago are still "stealing" your traffic, blame the SE.
If I was able to remove scrapers a year ago - and didn't - I wouldn't feel I had to moral authority to dish out lifetime Adsense bans purely on the basis someone created scrapers. Though it's probably completely legal to impose such a ban.
