Forum Moderators: martinibuster
For this day (17 May), does it mean that they will pay for April 1-30 earnings, or for May (1-18) also?
According to TOS I can't quote the message I've got from Google.
unfit business model
Aaaaahhhh... MFA or arbitrage sites. Google is finally doing something about those...
There *are* reasons for disabling, and I concur with them
And why do You not simple make websites within TOS?
I think there must be some type of automation involved because several people last month got the axe as well all on the same day....but those accounts were canceld within 24 hours from what I understand.....not given a two week notice.
Perhaps they are finally looking at conversion rates for advertisers and kicking out sites based on data they collect..... or perhaps they are just looking at landing pages and saying "This page stinks" Two adsense blocks on top of each other ......
or perhaps if your CTR rate is very high.....above 30% you get canceled......
It does indeed look like they are doing something about arbitrage....
heyday
Good luck on your other endeavors.
Ann
It would be nice if they'd give you the option of not using advertising to send visitors to the site
I will be the first to admit that I have been running substantial arbitrage and MAF sites. They have just grown exponentially lately due to all the efficient AdWords tools. Yet, MAF and arbritage is not a breach of TOS in and of itself right?
I admit that they are not the greatest user experience out there. Yet I do believe they do comply with the specifics of the TOS, there are no blatant breaches. I run dozens of sites/domains with AdSense and I have been careful to abide with the specifics in the letters of the TOS.
I have now begun changing my business model to comply, what else to do? I am closing down anything I assume could be the trigger of this. I will scale down my efforts to a comply-safe fraction of the current system. I will then plead and beg the AdSense team to please reconsider.
I am also closing down my UPS club sized AdWords campaigns (someone must be missing this cash I assume).
Please AdSense team. Please give honest (at least non-breaching) webmasters a chance to straighten things up and stay in the program. I for one have gotten the message that a redo is needed, I urge for a fair chance to fix things. Thanks.
someone must be missing this cash I assume
Anyway, it IS too bad the account is being terminated altogether. However most MFAs require more fixing than simply changing the source of traffic. They're highly optimized in order to have no reason to exist except to show ads. Great for ROI, bad for users who inadvertently end up there.
Not webmasters. Most don't want MFA's advertising on their websites in the first place.
Those same Webmasters may be surprised and unhappy when they discover that disappearing MFA ads won't necessarily be replaced by higher-paying non-MFA ads--at least not in the short run. Over time, though, a tougher stance by Google against click arbitrage should work to the advantage of both advertisers and real publishers.
My main sites were not built as arbitrage sites as such (old 2003 domains), rather I have split-testes and optimized, split-tested and optimized again until the sites have become somewhat like shallow one page MAF/arbitrage sites.
I am puzzled as to what to do and what to tell the AdSense team on Monday. Apparently there are no serious blatant breaches as I am getting a UPS-club check for May. Yet I am left out going forward, through a canned message.
Working in the blind as there are no reasons given in the email.
Will a significant scale-back effort be counted for something?
Any ideas for how to work this out is much appreciated.
I agree with that. A system for dealing with this is needed. Yet, the solution right now can not be to throw out the unwanted webmasters en mass. If I had gotten just one serious warning email - I would have done anything to comply, of course.
This hard line is like saying one is inherently a bad webmaster.
I agree with that. A system for dealing with this is needed. Yet, the solution right now can not be to throw out the unwanted webmasters en mass.
Why not?
Unwanted = not wanted = we don't want you = please go = please leave us alone = go away
You have admitted that you have been slowly exploring ("optimizing") ways to increase your Adsense revenue, knowing all too well that you might reach the grey area of "over-optimization" or MFA (and yes, it's MFA not MAF). And you reached that line and crossed it. You exploited the system regardless of statements made by Schmidt & Co. that they see arbitrage as critical.
From Google's view, if you have optimized your Adsense pages in the past over a longer period, then you will probably do it again in the future. If they do not want to see that kind of behaviour, why would they still let you in?
Interesting, though, is that we are seeing parts of the bubble bursting now. Less MFAs = less Adwords revenue = less Google profit. This decision must have resulted in serious fights over at The Plex.
That sucks.
I am grateful for the open way they've told their story, without hiding that they knew they were walking over the line. None of us is perfect when it comes to making choices.
Less MFAs = less Adwords revenue = less Google profit. This decision must have resulted in serious fights over at The Plex.
Not necessarily. The proliferation of arbit. sites is to dilute the Adsense brand and compromise the expectations of any ads for everyone. The public's loss of confidence in Google ads leads to fewer clicks and less revenue.
It doesn't happen overnight, but confidence gradually erodes, and eventually people not only don't click the ads, they don't even read them. After their time was wasted on so many previous occasions, they aren't interested.
Google's market dominance, stock price, etc., put it in a position where the king is comfortable making this radical change now.
One development that will follow which I'll enjoy is less spam sites. The SERPs will be purged gradually of junk arbit spots.
For those who've been making money off arbit, if you're honest with yourselves, you must have known you built your business on sand, and guessed this time of hard rains would eventually come and wash it all away.
Enjoy the money you made, but move on to something else more useful and of higher quality online which doesn't waste the public's time and doesn't dilute anyone's brand.
Good luck,
p/g
Less MFAs = less Adwords revenue = less Google profit. This decision must have resulted in serious fights over at The Plex.
MFAs earns from Adsense more than they spend on Adwords. They are working as a middleman and reducing profits both for Google and for other webmasters. Google wants Google to be the middleman, not MFAs.
MFAs earns from AdSense more than they spend on AdWords. They are working as a middleman and reducing profits both for Google and for other webmasters. Google wants Google to be the middleman, not MFAs.
I suspected that as soon as they started interfering with google's bottom line they would be dealt with.
Ann
Not necessarily. The proliferation of arbit. sites is to dilute the Adsense brand and compromise the expectations of any ads for everyone. The public's loss of confidence in Google ads leads to fewer clicks and less revenue.
That's the reason why I have 177 URLs in my filter list
I feared the 200 limit of the URL filter list.
But with this actions, there is hope that the 200 limit of the filter list will be enough.
For those who've been making money off arbit, if you're honest with yourselves, you must have known you built your business on sand, and guessed this time of hard rains would eventually come and wash it all away
Well said, and very true. If you couldn't at least see the risk then you obviously weren't giving your business model a fair assessment or looking realistically at it's prospects for long term survival. It's a gray area - no doubt. Fortunately, for you anyway, Google considers it a gray area too, or did anyway. The fact that they're not only giving you notice but your money as well is evidence of that.
Personally speaking, if I had been making piles of cash (as opposed to the small trickle I actually make) from an operation that I knew was in that gray area, I would have been stashing most of it away in the bank. Several banks even...
You guys did save some money, right?
I also assume that arbitration is not bad as such, it can be a refinement of traffic, arbritation can create a good user experience. Business.com and Yellowpages.com are also doing arbritation to some extent.
It's interesting to see that there are several other Webmasters experiencing the same thing, getting the same canned email (thanks for making yourself known). At first I thought this was a problem specific to my sites, I now believe this is a larger thing from Google.
This changes how one can possibly deal with it.
That way you would have to submit a site - prior to being accepted into adsense. The code would be specific for that site - and non transferable.
That way - and I know there would be ways to fiddle the system - but at least a bulk of people would have to start witha legit site - which Google has approved as suitable for adsense. A lot of the sites with a page with nothing but ads would simply never have existed. IMHO
It would also in a way, give legitimate publishers, some form of security. Their site has been vetted by adsense - adsense is happy with them serving ads and that they are not in breach of TOS.
Perhaps there should be an annual renewal process - to eliminate at least one loophole that I can think of. That way - there is an incentive to keep the site quality up - and to eliminate the no-hopers who plague the net with empty, useless sites.
As stated above - I empathize with those who have lost their accounts, and hope that they find new and better ways in which to earn a living. I do think that if it was site specific - it would be better - and would encourage people to build good, unique sites.
Good for new blood but your returnees are tired of them and develop ad blindness.
Ann
but kudos to the involved webmasters who speak out honestly - they seem to spring up like mushrooms just now ;)
what i don't understand, why should this be a grey area?
google tos: "No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages."
and further: "No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant."
although this may sound deliberately a bit unclear, at least in the case of mfa arbitrage sites it's a no-brainer that they infringe this rule.
