Forum Moderators: martinibuster
A site pretending to be a keyword research tool who's content was nothing more than a search bar and supposed keyword results results that consisted of sponsered ads.
Maybe you have seen examples of blatent breaches of Adsense TOS. Some may have bordered on the cheeky, unusual or even clever side of things.
Did you report it as I have done in the past hoping that google relegates it into the bowels of obsurity, only to find it is still there some time later? Like some annoying insect?
Please feel free to share
Does G ban these guys? can we report them?
[edited by: Scurramunga at 3:53 am (utc) on Feb. 19, 2006]
As a publisher I care.
Sounds like a win/win to me.
Unless you are an advertiser in who pays for AdWords in that keyword area why would you care?
Do you never use the search engines for your own purposes? You're telling us you have no problem with spam sites clogging up the works for no other purpose than to try to steal serps from sites with content?
Many MFAs (adwords advertisers) that advertise on my site carry the same ads that are on my site anyway.
For example, if I search for a particular product, and within the search results I find a site which I go to. It happens to be a MFA site and I click on one of the ads. I end up at a site that has what I am looking for and I buy it.
That went up when I was typing the other one.
To be honest, I don't believe a word of it. If you actually did research on products you wanted online, you would have a major problem with spam MFA's, the same as any other true user (i.e. not a MFA webmaster). Imho, you're telling us we should be happy with MFA's, perhaps because you're creating them.
If I'm wrong on the above, feel free to correct me.
I sell blue widgets on my site and as merchant and a publisher I am happy to give my audience the option of going to look at my competitors blue widgets if they don't like mine.
Maybe my audience might be interested in (similar or related) red or green widgets that offer a cheaper alternative because my blue widgets are out of the visitor's price range.
As a merchant, in the absence of a sale I want to provide a quality lead to my visitors. That way if they can't afford my product, maybe they will follow a useful link and leave with the perception that my site was credible and so return again some other day.
As a publisher I know that google pays me better per click if I can provide relevant leads to a real product closely related to mine. Now that sounds like a better "win/win" to me.
1. As websites they're embarrassments, and reflect badly on me and also on the ads I show, possibly reducing my CTR in the future. The reason I started a website at all, and run AdSense in preference to the alternatives, is to provide my visitors with useful resources, not any old drek put up by ebook newbie get-rich-quick arbitrage wannabes.
2. These sites are all about getting the maximum number of clicks at the lowest price in high-value subject areas. Anyone who doesn't want to sell their clicks at 5c, when their average EPC might be 5 or 10 times that, should ban any such sites they come across.
In response to the original question, the sites I have seen the most and which I particularly hate are those "dictionary" sites whose content consists of a one-sentence definition of some keyword, surrounded by 3 or 4 blocks of ads.
Maybe I am just too new to this but I still cannot understand the problem with "MFA" sites. For example, if I search for a particular product, and within the search results I find a site which I go to. It happens to be a MFA site and I click on one of the ads. I end up at a site that has what I am looking for and I buy it.
Sounds like a win/win to me.
The only entity that "wins" is the one that contributes nothing.
"Embarrassments" is an understatement when describing these advertisers in some cases. I too chose Google because I thought it's standards were above those of get-rich-quick types.
Without the MFA sites clogging the search results, you would have found the final site in the search results and gone directly there to begin with.
The user doing the search wastes time (which accumulates with each such experience).
That's an opinion, and a very reasonable opinion, too. I can't fault anyone for promoting the idea that users may be wasting their time and not finding what they want.
However the evidence of any dissatisfaction because of a poor user experience is not showing up in any statistics. In fact, all statistics (including my log files) demonstrate that even more users are embracing Google search over any other search engine. I don't believe you would be seeing increasing market share if the search experience were perceived by the end user as being a waste of time or difficult.
The important word of course is perceive. The search experience may in fact be worse, but the perception is not showing: Similar to the way many people can't taste the difference between a jug wine and a premium vintage.
So who is right? We who measure Google with a sniff and a swish in the mouth, or the millions of internet users who regularly enjoy what some of us may refer to as "jug quality" serps?
Could the users be right, and we are wrong? One may not be faulted for assuming that Google must be doing something right if their serps appeal to the masses.
As for MFA sites, I'm more concerned with potentially offensive ads showing up on my site than a relevant MFA.
Consider this:
The user of a Filipino Womens Forum may not mind seeing MFA ads for work at home mommy websites, or asian recipes. That same site visitor may certainly be offended by seeing advertising for Filipino mail order brides.
My point is that when it comes to what is better for your site visitors, MFA sites may actually be preferable to off-target advertising because they show content that is relevant to what your visitors are interested in and after a couple clicks they may actually find what they are looking for.
Before anyone breaks their keyboard responding to my post, please note that I'm not saying MFA sites are good for you as a publisher. They may not.
I'm only saying that overall they may not be causing publishers any more harm than an otherwise legitimate (however you may define legitimate) site that is relevant and also bottom feeding your page.
As far as the user is concerned, the biggest harm may be that they take an extra click to find what they're looking for. But they're probably used to that (from not knowing how to search in the first place) and in the big picture it might really not matter.
[edited by: martinibuster at 6:31 am (utc) on Feb. 19, 2006]
Maybe I am just too new to this but I still cannot understand the problem with "MFA" sites. For example, if I search for a particular product, and within the search results I find a site which I go to. It happens to be a MFA site and I click on one of the ads. I end up at a site that has what I am looking for and I buy it.
Sounds like a win/win to me
IMHO, a "MFA" site equates to spam email. It might even be worse since there currently is no way to filter it out of the search engine pages. Fortunately, we can add them to our AdSense filter list.
It really sounds like you've never known the internet as it once was - back in the days when most sites were pure, good and sometimes bland information. Before graphics hit the net big-time. Times and things have changed, and not necessarily for the best.
That fact alone suggests that they are NOT useful OR enjoyed by those using search engines. If they had any value, there would be money in them thar clicks - simple fact.
My story is that up until last june I was seeing a slow decline in earnings per click, and overall earnings. I knew there were some MFA's on the site, but I believed what Google said about the best performing ads being shown, although I honestly couldn't see why a site that was a pure scraper paid more than a site that was advertising real products and service.
I got to the point where I had to try something to get income back on track, so blocked all MFA's. I didn't like the look of them on my site, and I really couldn't think how they paid.
Results were a drop in CTR of 60%, and - get this - an increase of 20% in overall earnings immediately. Since then I've been blocking MFA's as I see them, and the result has been an increase in earnings of up to double the pre-blocking figure. The epc has trebled, and is stable. I believe that although adsense was showing ads based on ctr, at the same time smart pricing was hammering my site as a whole because conversions from MFA's offer no value to advertisers who actually sell stuff, as opposed to syphon off traffic for arbitrage.
So MFA's don't pay is the bottom line. If they were of use, they'd pay money. Therefore any claim that they are of use to the planet is pure hogwash.
The worst of the MFA's I blocked was one that had an adlinks unit as the nav bar, an adwords unit as the content and another adwords unit bottom of the page. The back button had also been disabled.
I did report it to Google many times as both a publisher and advertiser. They haven't removed the site, or made it comply with the TOS either.
However as David points out, if you put aside the arguement that MFA's are useless to the average searcher there is always the arguement about smartpricing.
I would like to bring in another factor into play. We seem to be forgetting that many MFA's use well targeted keywords in adword campaings to trick and deceive the visitor from targeted niche to an MFA site that delivers nothing related to the wording of the original fraudulent ad. I am sure we have all seen this before. I have seen adword ads advertising a product related to my topic that lead to MFA's containing sponsered links about totally unrelated or questionable topics.
#*$!.example.com
hardcore.example.com
What ever You type in front of example.com, a shopping page for the article shows up with 2 300x250 ads.
Even if the MFA had a low smart pricing score (which may not necessarily be the case), I don't see how or why that would affect the sites that it advertises on, which is what is being implied.
I don't see how smart pricing comes into this discussion.
Well, I suppose that's thread drift for you :)
Do MFA's even have a way to measure conversions or bother to do so?
Oddly enough, how successful you are at arbitrage isn't a conversion tracking option. So you are correct - they don't.
Having said that, it's entirely debatable if G uses conversion tracking to any extent in smart pricing anyway. Most advertisers don't use it, and even if we did I have the feeling they'd ignore what worked for us advertisers. Smart pricing is not about discounting clicks for advertisers but raising cash for Google shareholders.
Even if the MFA had a low smart pricing score (which may not necessarily be the case), I don't see how or why that would affect the sites that it advertises on, which is what is being implied.
IF smart pricing works, it should know what clicks work for advertisers. Let's assume that smart pricing does work for the purpose of the argument.
Why on earth would a scummy MFA site with no content work better for advertisers than a site full of content? Simple answer is that it can't and the business model of arbitrage is also doomed to failure. For adsense to work, SOMEBODY has to flex the plastic and buy something. Without this there would be no adsense. MFA's don't sell anything. Therefore the site with customers lined up for the advertisers selling things should be the ones to do well out of adsense. That being the case, MFA's are bound to affect smart pricing on your site adversely. I think the target bot and smart pricing clash with each other, but hey - G is a big company with lots of departments at war with each other - typical large company.
If smart pricing was of any use, it would give MFA's a low score, and to be honest that seems to be happening. I'm also seeing a lot less of them these days, so something is on the move.
IF smart pricing works, it should know what clicks work for advertisers. Let's assume that smart pricing does work for the purpose of the argument.
Smart pricing doesn't work at all as described or intended. If it did the results wouldn't be so seemingly random or fluctuate so wildly.
It took you to an MFA landing page with no content, just ads.
After several complaints from users who felt they had been tricked. I talked to the AS people, the basic response was to block their domain. They really wouldn't say anything else.
It just pissed me off that somebody can trick people like that, and Google doesn't care (they get their money, why should they I suppose), because it reflects poorly on the site the ad is on (in this case my site).
