Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I ask you to name all the positive things that MFA's bring us. I will start with my shortlist:
1) MFA's bring huge amounts of money into the system, providing publishers with income.
Without MFA advertisers, many of us would be serving PSA's, making zero cash. Many MFA's just bring money to the system without ever breaking even. The money they lose goes to Google and the publishers. Why complain?
2) Because there are so many MFA advertisers (at least, that is what people are saying) they bring stability to the system and they are filling the gap that is growing because of new publishers entering the Adsense program everyday. We need MFA advertisers just to keep up with the growth of Adsense.
3) MFA's depend less on economical fluctuations.
If there is a crisis in a specific industry, MFA's will go on advertising since they depend less on sales in that industry. And thus publishers will go on making money.
4) MFA's bring knowledge to the system because they are walking the line all the time. Why take the risk of getting banned if you can let an MFA do the job for you?
For once folks, think opportunities, not problems.
Now give me your MFA blessings please!
- They give bored SEOs something entertaining to do in the evenings during TV rerun season, by turning them in to Adsense and watching them get dumped.
So we'll all go bust. Google, advertisers and publishers.
Nothing important, then.
The whole situation is like being a passenger in a car crashing in slow motion, and you know what's scary? I don't mind the crash anymore!
Actually I look forward to the crash to end the groundhog day echoes of ... What is MFA, Google Should do this, No Google Should do that, You are all MFA, no you are an MFA, MFA is good, no MFA is bad..
To quote Pink Floyd from 'The Wall': "AAAAAAAAAAAAA"
humblebeginnings, it's not about your post, your thread is funny, just caught me in a bad mood and I am grateful for the opportunity to vent.
It's such nonsense on a factual basis, it's not even worth going through it point by point to refute it all.
MFAs (using humblebeginnings' definition) have been around since the beginning of AdSense. Since 2003. Yet it's only in the past few months that people on this forum seem to have discovered them and decided they are bad. I don't get it.
I'm not an AdSense publisher, but I do use the web a lot. Yes, I would like MFAs to not exist, but they are something we've all learned to live with since AdSense started. They're not as bad for the user experience as scraper sites. If Google cared about cleaning up the quality of sites on the web, they would start with scraper sites (some of which are MFAs, but most aren't.)
>> repulsed by all MFA discussions
you and me both Hobbs
I love your post though humblebeginnings, there is the essence of truth in it. At least as much truth as looking at it the other way.
is an advertiser making ads leading to webpages with more ads.
describes Google AdLinks perfectly.
We see all kinds of threads and posts praising Adlinks here. And yet the run of the mill MFA gets trashed.
Seems odd to me.
You always seem to be in the dark about this issue, so to help you understand: with Adlinks you have a simple choice whether to display them or not. With MFA ads one must work hard at filtering them. Additionally, more often than not, adlinks will lead to a better selection than the MFA ads. Many of the MFA's I come across lead to pages that are not relevant by any stretch of the imagination. And (you might have a difficult time believing this but) I actually do care about providing my visitors with a better experience.
MFAs (using humblebeginnings' definition) have been around since the beginning of AdSense. Since 2003. Yet it's only in the past few months that people on this forum seem to have discovered them and decided they are bad. I don't get it.
Once upon a time they merely existed.
Now they are everywhere. It would be impossible not to 'discover' them, and equally impossible to ignore them.
Like most recent internet abuses, they exist on an industrial scale - yet more clutter on the web ...
ken_bYou always seem to be in the dark about this issue,
You noticed that huh? :)
Yeah, I know. You'd almost think I must be pumping out MFA sites by the button load.
But it's just my personal perspective that this whole MFA thing is much ado about nothing, at least nothing many of us can do anything about that draws me into these threads.
MFA is not a type of website, it's a way of thinking. The "A" part is completely interchangeable with whatever the next letter to come along happens to be. Sort of like a "flavor of the month".
In all honestly though, the more we talk about it, the more we are enlightening the lazy minded of opportunities which they might not otherwise have thought of. That makes the situation worse, so we should probably try and convert the negative energy towards MFA's and go spend the time typing up another page for our sites instead of making a post about it!
On that note.....
What is MFA, Google Should do this, No Google Should do that, You are all MFA, no you are an MFA, MFA is good, no MFA is bad..To quote Pink Floyd from 'The Wall': "AAAAAAAAAAAAA"
MFA's bring huge amounts of money into the system, providing publishers with income.
Without MFA advertisers, many of us would be serving PSA's, making zero cash.
Really? Wow. Gee. I admit, I'm new to AdSense this year -- so maybe I don't know everything -- but you're telling me that before MFA's were around ... say back in 2004 and maybe early 2005, nobody was making cash? Getting all PSAs? Shocking... Man it must have really sucked to be around in those old days - despite what everyone here is saying about things being much better.
And actually, I'd say they bring very little money into the system. At least, in terms of clicks. They write their copy so as to get as high a CTR as possible, which lowers their AdWords cost (based on how I understand the system). So they actually try to bring in as little as possible.
Many MFA's just bring money to the system without ever breaking even.
That's sheer speculation on your part, even though you chose to phrase it as fact. Or were you (are you) a MFA speaking from personal experience?
I have no issues with the concept arbitrage. I understand the economic necessity of arbitrage in financial markets. What bothers me is sites that literally add no value to the visitor, and are designed for the sole purpose of sucking up revenue. It adds no value to the system, and instead it subtracts value.
What further bothers me is Google's lack of interest in doing anything about it whatsoever - specifically enforcing their policies against sites that have no content. But their stock has been slipping lately, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they want to keep the Wall Street monster happy for now.
I predict that if Google doesn't make any significant changes by this time next year -- AdSense will be seriously broken.
Since there are thousands of PR0 scrapers linking to various pages on my site maybe once in a blue moon someone might actually click on a link to my site.
and yet another +
If MFAs drive AdSense under or drive me out of AdSense I will live a simpler life with more time for reading, my hobbies and enjoying the outdoors instead of looking for offensive ads to filter out.
1) MFA's bring huge amounts of money into the system, providing publishers with income.
Burglars and vandals bring a lot of income to the local window glass repair company.
And then the mayor asks for more police to fight the burglars and vandals and the window glass repair company pays increased property taxes.
FarmBoy
Click fraud is a much bigger threat to Google AdWords/AdSense than arbitrage sites. Click fraud causes more advertisers to turn off content match than MFAs. It's click fraud everybody should worry about and Google should focus its attention on.
[edited by: beren at 3:20 am (utc) on June 22, 2006]
Lets consider if MFA (what is MFA? I would consider MFA are ads not useful to the buyers) could contribute to this system in the sense that makes the system running more effectively? or ineffectively?
Burglars and vandals bring a lot of income to the local window glass repair company.And then the mayor asks for more police to fight the burglars and vandals and the window glass repair company pays increased property taxes.
I have a number on "MFA sites" I use for my traffic domains. I think it's better than parking pages. A MFA site with reasonable content can build or maintain traffic and PR, thus a bit of a jump start for a new site and a very effective way to sell a domain.
I have a number on "MFA sites" I use for my traffic domains. I think it's better than parking pages. A MFA site with reasonable content can build or maintain traffic and PR, thus a bit of a jump start for a new site and a very effective way to sell a domain.
Wow, you are the first one I think I've seen to admit to having an MFA site. So, do tell, are you worried about G banning you for little or no content? What kills me is how some people can get away with things that others cannot.
Just curious. Because if you are making good money with AdSense, aren't you taking a big risk with your MFA sites?
Are we allowed only 200 sites max in our competitive ad filter?
Yes, and that's something many do not understand. There are said to be 6,000+ domains that can be considered MFA (possibly many more), and we are just able to block 200 of them?!
The problem is that advertisers may advertise multiple domains under one account, while we may only block individual domains. Here are some of the worst examples from my blocking list:
1) 17 domains from that UK company that generates useless directories by the dozen, often using not Adsense to monetize, but other ad programs.
2) 7 domains from that Canadian company that has those Hitfarm style listings, with "topics" ranging from CanadianWidgetTours to ToursofWidgets and EuropeanRiverWidgets.
3) 7 domains from that company located on a very nice island in the Caribbean. When customers arrive at the landing page and actually try to use the site as intended (Widget Search), the result page opens a new window and goes into full screen mode. There is no way out but using CTRL-ALT-DEL to shoot down the window in question. Do you think this makes a good impression for my site? BTW, I do have notified Google about this several times. They are still around.
4) 10 domains from that Irish company (mind you, I like the Irish!), that at least somewhere has some usable content on their page. I wouldn't actually block them if it wasn't for the fact that they are blending the ads too much which makes the landing page look tacky in a way.
5) 20 domains from that unknown company that uses private registrations to hide. The sites are all the usual useless parked domains or pseudo directories with just ads and nothing but ads leading to more ads.
So, you see, five advertisers are taking up 61 slots in my filter list (or 30.5%) - and I have not blocked all of their pages, because I just care about my high-traffic pages these days. Whatever happens to the low-level, low-traffic pages, I would love to care about, but I simply can't. Google would not let me.
That's why we need bigger and better blocking lists.
I strongly believe in the Adsense system, but not in the current implementation of it. I see that relevant ads leading to legit advertisers is an excellent idea that is being accepted by end consumers. They regard ads as informative. We have to ensure that they don't lose trust in these ads.
There are said to be 6,000+ domains that can be considered MFA (possibly many more)I assure you that it's at least 10 times that. Our "Caribbean friends" have been very busy lately and it seems they are not stopping any time soon.
That's why we need bigger and better blocking lists.I could not agree more! Just another reason why I do not believe Google cares that much about it. Not only do I think they should increase the size to 1k or more, but a minimum payment per click system would be great as well.
And something I've always wondered. If a number of sites block a site, would that affect the blocked site's smart pricing? I hope so.
What worries me is, my visitors will loose their faith in my site if the advertisements on my site lead them to the crap.
That's why we need bigger and better blocking lists.
I could not agree more! Just another reason why I do not believe Google cares that much about it
Right now, whether it's something you like or not, they are making too much money from it to stop it. In effect, an MFA site gives Google two clicks instead of one hence more $$ for them. Until it reaches a point where MFAs are hurting their bank balance because users no longer click on ads (and I don't think this is the case yet), they won't take any serious measures against it.
Although they aren't as such 'competetive', they do tae people away from a site, to what is basically a junk site. The relevance of the click value is not IMO as important as sending a customer to a poor quality site that provides them with little or no real value.
