Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Basicly I think a lot of the users on here are looking at this whole adsense scheme the wrong way, and that their greed, lack of imagination, and haste simply halves their chances of success, and adds yet more trash to an already saturated internet. Less greed = more success imo. Does anyone else agree with my little rant or am I all alone with these thoughts heh?
Carl.
Do you really think the scrapers and MFAs submitted their scraper and MFA sites for approval? Of course not. They put the AdSense code on their scraper and MFA sites after they'd been approved for legitimate sites.If the entrance standard had been higher, some of the more impoverished and illiterate scraper/MFA applicants might have been kept out, but the serious or (or even semi-serious) players would have simply paid college studnts and other cheap writers to create enough "useful content" to pass the entrance exam.
This is the root of the problem. Google should have NEVER allowed AdSense publishers to put AdSense ads on any old site once the initial site was approved. Each site should have to be approved individually just like many other affiliate programs do. Yes many sites would have produced just enough "useful content" to pass the "entrance exam", but there still would have been a lot fewer MFA scraper sites out there.
Google has the ability to clean up or at least reduce the problem with junk MFA sites and these sites polluting their SERPs by simply raising the bar for entrance into the AdSense club. This would probably be a lot more effective means of reducing SERP spam than their current algo changes that constantly catch legitimate sites.
[webmasterworld.com...]
and yet anotherThe development of content is too time consuming for myself. We have in place a system where our regular users submit news stories to us (in return for user points on our site which allows them to 'buy' their avatars, sigs etc on the forums etc). This system allows us to rapidly gain news content, as we get so many articles submitted a day, for which the moderators then check over, tweak, add images etc and make live. Voila. 5-15 article/content pages per day and i dont lift a finger. The initial setting up takes longer but imo it works well.
I've had to issue DMCA take down notices so many times to these types of sites that when I find one of these sites now I take a few extra hours and sleuth out who really owns other articles posted on these sites and inform the other copyright owners of the infringement of their copyrights as well and provide them with all the contact information they need for the site's owner and web hosting provider so that they can issue DMCA take down notices of their own in hopes that the web host will terminate the account of the website. Call it vindictive if you want, I call it due justice because I shouldn't have to spend so much time and money defending my copyrights from the lazy creeps who create these sites that are magnets for plagiarism and stolen articles.
This is the root of the problem. Google should have NEVER allowed AdSense publishers to put AdSense ads on any old site once the initial site was approved. Each site should have to be approved individually just like many other affiliate programs do. Yes many sites would have produced just enough "useful content" to pass the "entrance exam", but there still would have been a lot fewer MFA scraper sites out there.
Absolutely. I completely agree Ken. The quality sites would be the majority not the minority, revenue would be better for those publishers, ROI would be better for the advertisers with something real to sell (and that includes good affiliates who can sell a product much better than many merchants) and google yahoo and msn organic results wouldnt be swamped with pages containing only adsense ads above the fold, scraped results below.
Blame google, you know it makes sense.
Each site should have to be approved individually just like many other affiliate programs do.
That wouldn't have worked, because a site can be constantly evolving and open-ended. Google would have needed to require approval of individual pages.. Even that wouldn't have been a perfect solution, because any page can be changed at any time.
Of course, the easiest way for Google to have maintained quality would have been to be extremely selective in picking sites. For example, Google could have:
- Accepted only sites of a certain age and traffic level;
- Accepted only certain types of content;
- Had a probation period between the time of acceptance and the time ads could be displayed;
- Automatically expelled publishers whose sites converted poorly for advertisers, based on whatever conversion-tracking tools were available (such as "stealth advertiser sites" set up by google for tracking purposes).
Of course, if Google had put such stringent measures into place, this forum would be much less active than it is, and most of the threads would be about how Google was being unfair to mom-and-pop publishers who couldn't get into the network.
Just because Google is generous enough to welcome no-name Webmasters into its program doesn't mean every no-name Webmaster is being forced to game the system.
You said earlier
Certainly AdSense and other PPC programs deserve criticism for not being more aggressive in policing the problem
Theres no point saying oh it's those bad people that are at fault, those people arent actually doing anything wrong! They are allowed into a program by google, and are using it to their benefit, as are you albeit in a different way.
Who's to say which sites are good and which are bad? You? Me? We both know which are the "bad" sites, the ones strangling the search engines. Google? Google dont care, they all make google money. And google are the ones who can do something about it.
So dont blame it on webmasters who worked out they could make a few dollars with MFA sites legally and without a whimper of objection from google.
That wouldn't have worked, because a site can be constantly evolving and open-ended. Google would have needed to require approval of individual pages.. Even that wouldn't have been a perfect solution, because any page can be changed at any time.
While specificly approving individual sites may not be the perfect solution it would have dramatically improved the situation and would have been feasible. Periodic or random quality checks could have helped maintian quality.
Who's to say which sites are good and which are bad? You? Me? We both know which are the "bad" sites, the ones strangling the search engines.
Ive been quite active around here in last few days and am shocked by how many queries revolve around ‘writing articles for more income’. It seems like every man and his dog are trying to simply dump articles about anything and everything in the hope of earning a few bucks on the internert.
I think your view might be a little skewed by the fact that this is, in fact, the Adsense forum. This little corner of webmasterworld is about just that. Discussing ways to improve income and helping others with adsense tips and suggestions.
There are lots of other areas of webmasterworld that talk about content creation, community building, web development, page design, domain names.
It's not all about making money via Adsense.
Plus, as another poster put it. Many of us have had websites long before Adsense (or even Google) existed. So we are past the create new sites part and focus more on the marketing/optimization of income aspects of our business.
Nothing wrong with that :)
The idea in the OP that condems so many in this forum -with little or no knowledge of who "a lot of users" are- is ignorant arrogance. This isn't a rant: it's whining.
Here's an example of one of the worst MFAs I've seen. This is a page I found while searching for the site for the Antique Motorcycle Club of America. The following is the text of the page below the four AdSense ads. Bet you can't read the whole thing without laughing:
<no quoting even if it's generated junk - jatar_k>
I told Google about it and the page no longer shows up at the top of the search results. Every page on this domain that I looked at is as useless as this one. So why doesn't Google stop them from putting AdSense on the site?
[edited by: jatar_k at 1:54 am (utc) on Aug. 26, 2006]
I told Google about it and the page no longer shows up at the top of the search results. Every page on this domain that I looked at is as useless as this one. So why doesn't Google stop them from putting AdSense on the site?
I had never clicked on "Ads by Google" before.
and thats the point isn't it, they should be policing adsense, so why do you keep arguing against it?
I'm not arguing against it. I'm simply arguing that blaming the problem entirely on Google or its admission policies in 2003 (as some here insist on doing) is intellectually dishonest, won't solve anything, and is ultimately a waste of time.
Personally, I'd love to see Google take far more aggressive measures to police AdSense and encourage more responsible behavior by publishers. For example:
- Why not have a monthly percentage cap on impressions and/or revenue growth, to discourage computer-generated sites that flood SERPs and add little value to the Web?
- Why not have waiting periods for new publishers, domains, and pages, just to discourage the get-rich-quick crowd?
- Why not have a "quality score" algorithm like the AdWords landing-page QS algorithm, with a sliding payout scale that's tied to the quality score? (This would be separate from "smart pricing.")
- Why not restrict the number of ad units on a page and forbid ad blending?
- Why not forbid click arbitrage outright?
- If a publisher is tossed from the AdSense program for a violation, why not have that trigger a penalty in Google Search as well? Similarly, if a publisher received a penalty from Google Search, why shouldn't that trigger a probationary period or penalty (or, at the very least, a manual review) on the AdSense side?
All of these ideas are easily scalable (with the possible exception of manual reviews for search penalties). Would they be popular with everyone here? No. But I'm sure they'd help to raise the overall quality of the AdSense network.
That is very likely a trend, an union of quality authority publishers would release their own ads space and policy to serious advertisers only.
[edited by: GoldenHammer at 12:43 am (utc) on Aug. 26, 2006]
I just did. Thanks.I had never clicked on "Ads by Google" before.
I hope more people get in the habit of reporting these types of scraper sites in this matter. I almost think of this as a way we can actively protest the permissiveness of AdSense.
Think what would happen if hard working web publishers who used AdSense and AdWords advertisers reported MFA scraper sites like this to AdSense. It would not only help AdSense find and weed out these types of sites but create enough compaints that Google might actually start to really start to address this issue.
Google is a public company, one off its primary duties is tomake a decent return for its owners, plus , it also has to operate within the law of the various lands it operates in
I thought free trade was part off the culture of the USA!
Methinks Google has judged its actions remarkably well
I just hope the other search engines spend more time catching up with googles tech
That computer generated content was really funny, thanks for that :-)
When I find a deceptive ad on Google's network that annoys me sufficiently for whatever reason then I report it to G via the "Ads by Goooooooooooooooooooooooogle" link for exactly the same reason that (1) I reported to the police last night the kids trying to break apart a parking meter possibly to extract money (2) I will report the fools who left out a large plastic vat of highly-toxic old sump oil (on a public path, where the local young kids could get at it) that my cat fell into and nearly died (3) I will report the kids who laughed at my partner bringing our cat back from the vet's.
Why? Because antisocial and mindless/thoughtless behaviour should be discouraged, reported, and *possibly* punished.
Rgds
Damon
In fact, Google should had spent their effort in fighting with spammers and improving the quality of the network instead of introducing the SP.
Who would you report this to? The police?
- most likely the most clever and nasty mfa spammers are among us in this forum, so that they can anticipate even more. you know that they need to be always one step ahead in terms of gaming the system. there's no stopping them. never ever.
- what made google so big? allowing everyone and his dog to participate. pure mass mobilization. no judgement here. adsense and adwords is one big invitation for everyone with a computer and internet connection to try out. entry barriers are incredibly low. so the overwhelming majority of participants must fail sooner or later.
- quality content is always a sustainable long-term strategy. it is endlessly harder, but in a few years, if you're able to hang on, it finally pays off. and it's ethical. for some it's important, for some sadly it's not.
- what is quality? why do mfas exist, if they are such crap? would you click on them? certainly not, but there seems to be a crowd of people who do. why? get used to it. you are not tne average user. many people simply can't distinguish between quality and crap. there is a market for everything. sad but true.
what can we do? participate in sustaining a bit quality on the net. being angy about 80% spam on the net and keep on fighting against it. being innovative and always one step ahead of our competitors. care for our users. being proud of our job. living a decent life. and causing no one to spit on our grave.
The smart pricing is a wrong direction, it is an administrative directive from the system (not from the market itself) that affects the market effectiveness.
Smart pricing isn't an administrative "directive," it's an administrative mechanism in the same way that the AdSense network itself is an administrative mechanism. The AdSense network doesn't let advertisers bid for clicks from individual pages or sites; instead, it aggregates clicks from large numbers of pages and sites, allowing the advertiser to bid an average figure.
Smart pricing is simply an attempt to restore "market forces" by tying the cost per click to the click's perceived true value. What's more, the existence of smart pricing is a response to market forces: Without smart pricing, there would an excess of supply and a dearth of demand for AdSense inventory, limiting the pool of revenue for both Google and AdSense publishers.
Smart pricing has been with us for two years (2/3 of the time that AdSense has existed as a network), so there's no reason to believe that it will go away.
ADDENDUM:
It's also important to remember that Google is a company whose "value add" comes from algorithms. Anyone can put a simple auction system in place, but not just anyone can put together a system that uses contextual targeting, smart pricing, etc. If anything, Google is headed toward more administrative mechanisms or directives (choose your own term), to judge from the growing importance of "quality scores" on the AdWords side, where advertisers' landing pages are now being evaluated algorithmically in the ranking and pricing of ads.
Building/writing good quality websites is hard work, but it pays in the long run. A lot of people do not understand that, or don't care, and are just in it for the short-term and to line their pockets as fast as they can. They are, in my opinion, helping ruin the web. If it becomes nothing but junk, people will stop using it. As usual, the honest people will be harmed by the scammers and crooks.
Sure I like that, I'd be a fool not to like it. But the price I have to pay might not be worth it as it associates me with a lot of scams and the shift is for the worse unfortunately.
Those who would not exist - are junk - and don't tell me about hosting fees and server costs - there are cheap ways to publish fan sites and profesional ones.
Presumably
the maker of the "free" website is subsidising said website with income from other sources
or the maker of the "free" website is reliant on others for their food , hosting costs, cost off getting online, contribution to society in form of taxes for the maintenance of roads etc.
Does this mean that website of merit are either extremely likely to be produced by the truely well off,,
or by the determined freeloader :-)
an SEO site might be utter rubbish to an abstract artist.
an abstract artists site may be pure junk to an accountant...
who's to say this or that (not counting MFAs) is a 'quality' site'.
to each his (or her) own!
to each his (or her) own!
I don't think we are talking about gray areas here.
I, at least am talking about pages that contain absolutely zero content other then links and advertisements.
As it has been said: Google - start policing yourself, or someone(s) else will, and you will not like it.
[edited by: Tapolyai at 4:22 am (utc) on Aug. 27, 2006]
I spent twenty MONTHS working on the current version of my site before taking it live. I wanted to make a comprehensive resource and I also had to program several features I've never seen anywhere else before.
You don't find that kind of work mentioned in any of the get-rich-quick eBooks a lot of people are following.
