Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Clever, eh?
Do they actually earn much money from this?
Can't they get real jobs?
But I don't see what that would gain them...
Anybody else ever seen this before?
I've seen it more and more in recent months, especially with spam blog comments etc.
When I run into a scraper I check the source code and even though there isn't any google ads showing there is large white spaces on the page and google ads on the page.
I then report them as a Google AdSense violation. If I found them in Google results then I also report them as Google spam. If I found them via a Yahoo search with hidden Google Ads and they use other spamming techniques then I report them to Yahoo also.
The last one I found (in Yahoo explorer searching for links for my client) also had a non-search engine friendly 302 redirect pointing at my clien's site and had already been booted out of Google's index but I still reported them to Google AdSense and Yahoo spam and I also reported them to their host who requires a DMCA before they will even look into it..
Google is supposed to have prevented 302 problems and this site is no longer indexed in Google so not much harm can come from it so I'm waiting to see if this site drops out of Yahoo also and if not I'll go ahead with the DMCA.
I just checked the redirect pointed at my client. I reported it Feb 1st and it no longer works. They were doing the same thing to all my clien'ts competitors, i.e., trying to destroy everyone selling that product. However the site is still up with all other links still working and Google Ads still hidden on the home page. This site has a redirect pointed at several of my client's pages that still work however so guess I'll have to report them all.
I couldn't determine how they were hiding the ads (there is no css file listed on the page although it is referenced in the code).
Here is the code for the ad with publisher ID removed:
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse;border-color:#111111;" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="50%" valign="top" style="border:medium none #EBEBEB; font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
<div id="article">
<font face="Tahoma" size="2"></font></div>
</td>
<td width="50%" valign="top" style="border-left-style:none; border-left-width:medium; border-right-style:none; border-top-style:none; border-bottom-style:none; font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">
<font size="2" face="Tahoma"><script type="text/javascript">
<!--
google_ad_client = "pub-##############";
google_alternate_ad_url = "http://##########";
google_ad_width = 336;
google_ad_height = 280;
google_ad_format = "336x280_as";
google_ad_type = "text_image";
google_ad_channel ="4804808527";
google_color_border = "FFFFFF";
google_color_bg = "FFFFFF";
google_color_link = "000080";
google_color_url = "999999";
google_color_text = "000000";
//-->
</script>
<script src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type="text/javascript">
</script></font></td> </tr>
</table>
I couldn't determine how they were hiding the ads...
Maybe their account is already banned and Google is not showing any ads, just whitespace.
You're probably right. If they were using a collapsing ad with a white background it would show whitespace instead of PSA's or that other error message in the frame.
I never used collapsing ads. When you are using collapsing ads is there a line in the code to indicate it?
Added: It appears that this line ("google_alternate_ad_url = "http://##########";") is where the alternate background line would be. Which makes me wonder why the alternate ad is not showing either.
Maybe their account is already banned and Google is not showing any ads, just whitespace.
This makes the most sense. I checked and their domain is banned from Google already. When a domain is banned then it makes sense Adsense is also.
Added: It appears that this line ("google_alternate_ad_url = "http://##########";") is where the alternate background line would be. Which makes me wonder why the alternate ad is not showing either.
If the url refers to a blank file (eg. google_adsense_script.html), it will simply show nothing and collapse. If there's space reserved in the layout it will show blank.
or maybe they know who you are....
