Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Prior to starting the blog, I had been blocking URL's for ads that appeared on my site and were misleading, MFA's, etc. out of a concern my visitors would become frustrated and not be as likely to click in the future.
The blog is getting good targeting, but it's revealing a number of misleading, MFA and related "junk" ads/URL's that I haven't seen before and thus weren't blocked.
There have been a few times when I've seen an entire skyscraper filled with ads of this type.
Trying to get rid of these ads really is like playing a game of whack-a-mole.
Sometimes I wonder if it's even worthwhile to bother with putting anything in the competitive filter.
FarmBoy
Surely visitors aren't going to blame you for where the ad takes them.
How would you feel if you clicked on an ad and ended up in pop-up hell, or on some MFA site that has no content?
They may not blame you, but they also may not trust the ads on your site after one or two of these.
I have found a few places where the ads really suck - rather than mess with the filter, I stick in an Amazon or Chitika or other very specific ad block, that's relevant to the topic on hand. Maybe I don't make as much, but I'd bet it was a much more pleasing customer experience.
From the posts on these boards, it just seems that the ones who complain most often about low earnings and MFAs are often also filling their filters to the max level, while also crowing that filling the filters jacks up their earnings by 20%. I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to be up AND down at the same time. Something doesn't smell right to me.
It's all about the potential of a site. If someone works hard to create unique useful content (pretty much like a print publisher does, just in online space) and you want to monetize that content using ads (again, like most print publishers do), then you have a serious interest in ad quality.
Just out of curiosity, I pulled up my filter list and looked at the breakdown of site owners blocked by me:
private registration 11%
Adv1 3%
Adv2 3%
Adv3 25%
Adv4 2%
Adv5 2%
Adv6 2%
Adv7 6%
Adv8 9%
Other 40%
Of course, the real names/owners are known to me, but I present them here anonymized, just to adhere to the TOS. Main point being to show the scale of the problem.
So, Adv3 holds 25% of my slots, and this is no surprise to me as they currently operate 100,000+ domains with all of them carrying the same useless "directories" that are in reality Overture sponsored listings (see other thread for details). 100% spam. Not a single word of content. All script-created. All sitting on the same IP address. 100% useless, wasting the time of my visitors. Only Google knows how many of their domains are being advertised through Adsense right now. It does not surprise me that the Google search team does not list any of this crap (so at least THEY know how to deal with such sites) on Google SERPs.
Adv8, another MFA outfit with some content but otherwise fully blended Adsense ads across the sites, is also using domain names galore (with similar/identical content) to spam Adsense. Again, no wonder that they rarely show up in Google SERPs.
Adv7, an outfit that sits on some nice caribbean island, treats their visitors badly: one wrong click on the landing page (easy to do for visitors) and browser navigation elements are GONE. The ONLY hope for an exit is a click on a sponsored link. And even then, navigation elements are not restored. ONLY Ctrl-Alt-Del and manually shooting down the browser will solve the problem. Now, how nice is that?
So these three guys take up 25% + 9% + 6% = 40% of my filtered positions. I would not want to send any of my visitors to them, at any given time.
It's also interesting to note that about 5% of the slots are assigned to sites that are badly targeted with no connection to my theme AT ALL.
I think that those who are filling their filters don't do this because it's fun or it's cool. They do so because they see the long-term value of their sites endangered by letting such ads be served by Google. Some of the previous posters pointed this out.
In general, there are very few threads that go along the lines of "I released my filter list and my earnigns jumped". However, the other way "I put sites into the filter list, and my earnings increased or became more solid" seems to be posted more often. This is just a gut feeling - I have not done research on this.
Those who use the filter are seeing better/more solid earnings, and their sites grow organically because they care for their visitors (just imagine I sent someone to Adv7 above, and this guy has now a hard time figuring out how to get control back over his browser for half an hour, maybe including calling some hotline? What will he think of the site that sent him to the site right before his PC went havoc?).
Still, these publishers have all the right to complain, because they see the =potential= of their sites. We know so little about the ads and advertisers on our sites, it's shocking. If I had an easy way to block =everything= from adv3, adv7 and adv8, I am sure my earnings would increase, and also the web would be a better place. Put in all the "best" "info" "directories", and the improvement would be ubiquitous.
But I understand that not everyone here (or at Google, FWIW) wants such an improvement, because the implications would be dramatic: Less advertising customers, less ads, less revenue, less SMO customers, a bubble bursting. For some, this would be indeed "evil".
Web quality aside and measuring success the martinibuster way: more clicks and higher earnings, you might see a jump in CTR and earnings on an empty filter, but it's that last beep before the flat line, year after year, and I do this almost regularly, it is a matter of time before you lose even that higher ctr, epc and earnings to smart pricing or visitors that do not trust your site anymore.
My problem actually is not related to blocking scum or not, it is already settled in my mind and satisfying on both personal and professional levels, my gripe is that like many of you, I neither have the filter space, tools nor the time to effectively eliminate all scum. Very frustrating.
10 hours ago I cleared my 198 listings, I do this regularly in order to make room for new scum, catch the latest lice, and shock the system when it needs a good shaking.
My problem actually is not related to blocking scum or not, it is already settled in my mind and satisfying on both personal and professional levels, my gripe is that like many of you, I neither have the filter space, tools nor the time to effectively eliminate all scum. Very frustrating.
Completely agree with you, Hobbs. We should be focusing on the content and NOT on chasing scum and lice.
I also used to clear out the filter list every once in a while, only to find me chasing (and finally blocking) the same advertisers again and again. In my example, the three companies using up 40% of my filter list are coming from that bunch. So in this regard, my filter list has become quite static.
The Google person who visits this forum doesn't ever seem to address the concern. Jensense, who seems to have a lot of inside information on AdSense, seldom addresses the problem.
It seems obvious to me it's not going to change until some good competition comes along and forces a change. If Yahoo or MSN would give me something reasonably good to work with, I'd be glad to start giving them some of my pages instead of AdSense as one man's effort to force the issue.
But Yahoo and MSN haven't pulled it off so far. I'm beginning to think they need to park outside Google's offices and recruit employees with cash in hand.
FarmBoy
Here is the assortment of replies that you are likely to get:
1- I'm not suffering from MFA, it must be your site's content (somebody else's problem)
2- Google is definitely aware of the problem, but they know everything and have all the numbers (you guys must be a minority)
3- Google is in on it and making money from perpetuating MFA (Conspiracy theories)
4- MFA actually are like manure, they help the content network grow (I am out of names for this manure)
5- Stop complaining and be grateful you are in the program, if you don't like it, leave (take it or leave it speech)
6- What MB said, and I honestly don't want to go there again.
There you go, I've just made this thread 10 pages shorter :-)
your humor is unbeatable, really. :-)
Oh, and I made this thread one message longer again.
Since then, my epc and overall earnings have increased significantly. Prior, I was getting about X epc and now it's 4X epc.
FarmBoy
did I get this right? You removed the filter list, saved it to a file on your hard disk, and then, like, 36-48 hours later, put the identical list back in, and then EPC and earnings went UP?
Now, if this is repeatable, it certainly is interesting and worth a try.
did I get this right? You removed the filter list, saved it to a file on your hard disk, and then, like, 36-48 hours later, put the identical list back in, and then EPC and earnings went UP?
Yes, that's exactly what I did except the time period was shorter. From the time I cleared out the filter until I put the same URL's back in the filter was probably more like 18 hours.
FarmBoy
