Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Start with something pretty obvious, like a site offering widgets that consists of nothing but links to widget shops. Most of us would call that an MFA. Google call it a 'parked domain'
OK, say I do the same thing, not with a domain name but instead I buy in AdWords clicks for 'widgets' instead (arbitrage site). That's definitely an MFA? (Don't worry, it will go bust pretty quickly)
But suppose I know that people often ask for a 'bodger' when they really need a widget. Then I put up a site that simply explains the difference between widgets and bodgers with a load of widget links. Is that an MFA?
IMHO it all comes down to added value. If your site gives something reasonable in return for the profit it generates on inbound/outbound traffic, surely you earn the right to the non-MFA halo.
Now define 'reasonable' ;-)
If the AdSense ads were not present, would the site still have value for the visitor?
If the answer is yes, it's not an MFA site.
EFV's litmus test is a good one:
Does the site advertise to exist, or exist to advertise?
If the latter, and is covered in AS ads, and has little useful (non-stolen) content, then it's an MFA, IMHO!
Rgds
Damon
PS. Of course there is a technical exemption from being an MFA, ie if your site existed before AdSense existed. I have so far failed to upbraid Brett for overlooking this in another thread. B^>
Ok go build them, just give us your domain names, I still got a couple of seats vacant in my filter list.
And Hobbs, I am being serious. If you look at the number of adverts for MFA sites for sale, we are looking at a probable explosion of bad sites. Yes, they will die, eventually, but Google don't seem to care how much damage all this is doing in the meanwhile. Without proper guidlines, fully enforced we just have the old Wild West without the benefit of being able to lynch the rustlers.
It suggest that the desire to make money is fundamentally wrong. Very noble, but you could tar every popular magazine with that brush.
disagree. a magazine only survives if it attracts enough readers. readers don't buy a magazine solely to read ads. instead, they buy it to read the content and look at the pictures between the ads.
same as websites. it all comes down to content. adsense is no content. links are no content. scraped snippets are no content. so, if your website only consists of the above mentioned, that is if you have no *real* content, then it's mfa. useless and a waste of time for your visitors.
to achieve serious longer-term earnings with contextual ads, unique content is absolutely necessary.
If you look at the number of adverts for MFA sites for sale, we are looking at a probable explosion of bad sites.
it's already in full effect. dark side of adsense boom, since most people are incapable in building a proper website and have no clue of marketing.
I can't really accept that's a Litmus test Damon.
It suggest that the desire to make money is fundamentally wrong.
No, it merely suggests that a site without intrinsic value to users isn't something that Google or advertisers want. It's also a violation of the AdSense TOS.
Nobody's suggesting that the desire to make money is fundamentally wrong, by the way. However, some of us obviously don't agree that it's legitimate to make money by violating the terms of a legal contract with Google.
If the AdSense ads were not present, would the site still have value for the visitor?If the answer is yes, it's not an MFA site.
Now, maybe some people think that MFA sites are a legitimate business model until or unless Google steps in and cancels the owners' accounts. But that's a whole separate issue from whether those sites are, in fact, made-for-AdSense sites.
What, even Watchtower and the US NIST Standards Gazette (or whatever it is)? That position is unsupportable and blinkered. Sure, if you keep your eyes tightly closed then everything will seem dark.
Not each and every one of us has money as our PRIMARY motive. My company is due a 7-figure investment early next week, but I work to live, not live to work. Making money isn't bad at all, but making money purely for its own sake is venal and shallow and, IMHO, unsatisfying.
For the record, I have been the editor of a worldwide commercial technical journal, and I have also been running my primary AS site since LONG before AS existed, indeed probably before G existed (I don't remember the relative dates), and it is a not-for-profit pro-bono project. It is *not* MFA and to imply that it must be such is extremely rude, frankly.
Sorry, a little bit of a heated response after one-too-many coffees this afternoon, but please don't tar everyone else with your motives.
Rgds
Damon
There seems to be an idea that MFAs exist (within the TOS) that are draining revenue out of respectable sites but I have yet to see anything that wasn't clearly contra-TOS or obviously doomed from a marketing perspective. I think it's a bogey-man, let someone pull one out of the cupboard and show it.
[edited by: martinibuster at 6:08 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] TOS #21 [/edit]
Yes, there are freebie magazines (just like the old student days eh?) But that isn't what we're talking about. This is about the ethics and legality of competing business models.
[edited by: martinibuster at 7:57 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] Language. [/edit]
The 'net is now -except for a small percentage- a commercial broadcasting medium. It exists in much the same way cable television exists: to generate business through the offering of information or entertainment.
In that light, EVERY AdSense site is a MFA. There are exceptions, but they are few.
Nothing wrong with doing a little business.
I put them up so I'd get adsense money out of them.
I bet most people here are doing the same.
At the same time I think most of us have a rough idea of what we mean when we abuse MFA sites.
All you need to do is to put yourself in the position of the web surfer landing on a site. Will they find value there and maybe stay and read, or will they almost instantly close or click away?
Ah, a bit of business sense. Yes, all our sites are MFA in a way.
If you happened to be one of the lucky ones with a site up and running when Google dropped the golden egg in your lap, fine! You got lucky. Don't pretend you have some moral high ground just because you were there first. You are still frantically tweaking your site to make it more AdSense profitable.
Like it or not, this is business and the nature of business is competition. But competition without rules is anarchic chaos.
Define evil.
My vote for public enemy number one goes to parked domains.
Unexpectedly a prospective advertiser approaches the fanzine editor and makes an offer to pay for some relatively unobtrusive advertising to be placed on some of the pages of the fanzine.
The fanzine editor thinks about the advertising, notes that it is relevant, useful to readers and as the advertiser says, relatively unobtrusive. The editor decides to accept the offer.
Suddenly the fanzine exists only to show advertising?
Oh, come off it.
On another note entirely...
AFAIK all national newspapers in the UK make a loss. They certainly don't exist to make money. They exist to broadcast the opinions of their owners - even if it costs those owners money.
<added>Another thought...</added>
[edited by: ronin at 9:30 pm (utc) on Feb. 24, 2006]
Yes, all our sites are MFA in a way.
You are still frantically tweaking your site to make it more AdSense profitable.
I think the simple test of whether or not a site is MFA is whether or not the site would exist if AdSense didn't exist. Did the person create the site just to take advantage of keyword advertising, or did the person add AdSense as a way to monetize the site that would have been put into production anyway?
You got lucky. Don't pretend you have some moral high ground just because you were there first. You are still frantically tweaking your site to make it more AdSense profitable.
Even if that's true in many cases (it certainly isn't true inall cases), the only issues that matter from an ethical perspective are:
1) Whether a site has value to users and the Web;
2) Whether a site conforms to the AdSense TOC and Program Policies.
Comments like "every site with AdSense ads is an MFA site" represent poor thinking or attempts to obfuscate. ("Everybody does it" is a tired old argument, especially when it isn't true.)
A farmer raises cows, which he sells to a supermarket as beef. Now, who must he satisfy? is it the supermarket or the cows? Obviously he must raise the cows as best he can to get the best product (lot's of interesting articles to read - sorry, eat) but the money is handed to him by the supermarket - THAT is his customer.
there you have it. you have to do the first step before the second. how do you satisfy the supermarket? by providing it with good beef. you can't come empty-handed and expect money to be thrown at you.
primary objective: care about your readers. you cannot presuppose that - it's hard work! only then the money will follow. this is pure business sense. that means satisfying the advertiser through user satisfaction! not the other way around.
in an online environment with contextual advertising, that is all the more evident. there is little shortage of advertisers in most areas. your commitment is to deliver quality clicks.
EVERY AdSense site is a MFA.
nope. my sites are made for users in the first place. i assume this is not only my philosophy. success proves me right.
[edited by: martinibuster at 7:54 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] Removed reference to a deleted post. [/edit]
Now. if you want to know something, at best you can find someone willing to sell it to you.
What Google have done is to hand a little bit of the power back to the little people for a moment (for their own profit) but I just wonder how long it will last.
There are huge powers gathering out there. Sooner or later Google will do a deal with Exon, BAT or Microsoft and all of this will vanish into the corporate coffers.
Signing off.
Now. if you want to know something, at best you can find someone willing to sell it to you.
That simply isn't true. It's a nice example of hyperbole, though. :-)
1) My main site *gives away* its content with no strings attached: it has and always been pro-bono, and AS has helped me expand it to 5 servers from the original one slow one. I still heavily heavily subsidise it though.
2) I was one of the first ISPs in the UK, and had to write a paper letter (no email) to the NSF to ask for permission to send "commercial" and other traffic across the then backbone. It cost me up to GBP7000 per month out of my own pocket to help open up the UK Internet market. In those early days on the Net, if you were in this country and weren't on a uni network then the chances are significnt that your traffic came through me paid for by me. I haven't demanded even that you say thank you, and all my AS revenue ever hasn't scratched the surface of that decade-old cost!
Please Show a little respect for the large RANGE of motives of other people here. We're not not the cardboard-cutout demons of those student magazines!
Rgds
Damon
[edited by: martinibuster at 7:15 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] TOS #19 [/edit]
Bottom line, Please your VISITORS and the money will come.
what is all the fuss about anyway? Sure I was here before Google even showed up but I am NOT knocking the bucks that are coming my way.
MFA, no not the major site but have to admit the last site, although helpful and full of good information, was made to try and earn even more but not just from Google.
Ann
MFA sites are in the eye of the beholder. Sites that have been created after adsense started could generally fall under the definition if adsense was considered in the site design.
However people also would define mfa's by value to the user. Again a very subjective definition. So the line in the sand is impossible to define.
As I have posted before I do not agree with the use of certain mfa business models for myself but will not critisize those that use it. Google by not taking any action has said this is a legitimate business model to use. Only conclusion I can draw from this is that google's definition of a MFA is far more leniant than many on this board.
Since it is their TOS, to answer the OP's original point we don't know. However for those making money with this business model I say go for it. Apparently it works and who am I to say you shouldn't make some money from it. That response belongs with Google not me.
An MFA is any site that didn't run Google Ads before the AdSense program started, or depending on your point of view, 'Any AdSense site except mine'
My opinion: The TOS don't appear to specifically ban sites created to run AdSense (that would be insane)
What they appear to ban is : -
a) Pages where the content is so deliberately poor as to mess up the targeting. - That would give random ads sorted with the highest PPC first.
b) Pages that contain only advertising, whether or not that advertising allows the target algorithm to function. Presumably that would generate something too close to a SE results page to be tolerated.
Now, I'm not a lawyer (though I did once sue someone and won) so it's up to the individual if he/she wants to test these conclusions. Personally, I value my AdSense account too much to even get close.
The ethics of it I see as a separate issue. I think parked domains are unethical. I think scraped content is unethical. I think people selling MFAs to newbies is unethical along with all the Get-Rich-Quick scheme merchants. Google embraces all of these.
[edited by: martinibuster at 10:05 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2006]
[edit reason] TOS #24 [/edit]
Nevertheless, you're entitled to your well reasoned opinion, just as others are entitled to theirs.
;)
