AdSense Disabling Arbitrage Accounts by June 1st

[Freddy81]

They told me my account will be disabled at 1st June, and also added that I'll receive payment for all outstanding earnings in accordance with the standard AdSense payment schedule.

For this day (17 May), does it mean that they will pay for April 1-30 earnings, or for May (1-18) also?

[zett]

I have zero sympathy with those who run arbitrage sites. Reading about their $20k/month income figures does not help. Looking at the sites I used to block, many of them are these zero-content, zero-quality, no-value-at-all, pure MFA sites we all know about. Sooo, I sincerly hope that Google is honest with this approach.

This cleanup will help honest publishers big time to increase the metrics of our success, especially EPC and total revenue. Google's intention seems to be to get more money out of the content network (no problem with that) by enforcing their quality standards both on the Adwords side (LPQ comes to mind) and on the Adsense side (business models accepted into the program, aka "Adsense Disabling Arbitrage Accounts" [ADAA]).

The reduction of ad space available (no more MFAs) will probably increase ad prices, while the reduction of ad demand (no more ads from MFAs) will slightly lower the ad prices. As the MFAs were pretty efficient to place their ads, I guess the effect will be positive for honest publishers.

[lammert]

The reduction of ad space comes together with a reduction of ad inventory, as the MFAs will certainly cancel most of their AdWords campaigns after June 1st. So to which side the balance flips has just to be seen.

The light at the end of the tunnel might be that Google increases the minimum bid price, or that other advertizers get confidence in the Content Network again and increase their content bids or return to the Content Network.

As a combined AdSense and AdWords user (no arbitrage), I have often been able to drive AdWords traffic from the Content Network to my sites for an average of $0.02, while I had to pay an average $0.30 or more for the same keywords in the Search Network. If this gap will be closed in the next months after Google's tightening of their rules which publisher's business model fits their AdSense program I would be happy, even though I would have to spend more on my AdWords campaigns to drive a comparable amount of traffic to my brick and mortar sites. In that case my brick and mortar sites would still have a positive ROI, while my AdSense content sites would see an increase in earnings.

[Avo19]

Most arbi players have no sympathy for "honest" publishers that moan & groan that they can't make $$'s from their sites.

I laugh every time I hear someone try and make out they're an "honest" publisher. Because others used a Google sanctioned method to turn a dollar, somehow that makes them "dishonest"? Gimme a break.

If you didn't have the smarts to make a buck, then don't whinge at those that do. Arbi is just a small piece of the web pie. If you can't make $1000's/mth from the web then you're in the wrong game.

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you some make $10k/day from the web. All perfectly "honest" methods.
And not an Adsense ad in sight...

[edited by: Avo19 at 4:45 am (utc) on May 21, 2007]

[lammert]

There is no need for sympathy. Every business model is a business model and some people feel more comfortable with one than with another. Also, there are no reason to believe that arbitrage players are not honest. Google didn't terminate those accounts because they were breaking the TOS or otherwise cheating, but because their business model doesn't fit AdSense anymore. This is an economical reason rather than an ethical one.

[Avo19]

You are right. I just get annoyed with the "holier than thou" attitude of some members of these forums.

[blend27]

--- I just get annoyed with the "holier than thou" attitude

Avo19, you sound like you didn't get a memo yet.

[Fryman]

Wahoo! Good for Google, at last they are getting rid of all these junk sites.

[lammert]

I can see some consequences of Google's email flood yet.

I have one AdWords ad group running in a country/language combination which is specific for one of my brick and mortar sites. Since december of last year I haven't been able to advertise with this ad group in the content network for that site, even with bids as high as $0.50 (normally the ads in that country/language go for about $0.03 in the content network and $0.10 in the search network) so there was presumable so much MFA ad inventory that my ads were not necesarry to fill the available ad space, even at those high prices.

Since a few days, that ad group is running in the content network again with the following impression counts:

Day Impressions
May 16. 0
May 17. 20731
May 18. 107622
May 19. 131285
May 20. 99538

Since May 18. the number of impressions has been limited by my daily budget, so with some tuning of budget and CPC, I will be able to go well beyond the hundred thousand impressions per day for this single ad group.

The only reason I can see the ad group is running again is that one, or maybe a group of MFAs stopped advertising on these specific keywords on May 17th. Looking at the dates mentioned in this thread, I can only see it as a result of Google's termination of MFA accounts.

[edited by: lammert at 5:31 am (utc) on May 21, 2007]

[Avo19]

memo as in an email from G? If that's the case, yes, I've received my "memo". See my first post.

*edit* As I stated on another forum, any increase is more than likely due to small players pulling their campaigns in the hope of flying under G's radar. Otherwise I cannot see any reason why you wouldn't milk the last drop of profit from current campaigns until midnight May 31st.

[edited by: Avo19 at 5:37 am (utc) on May 21, 2007]

[lammert]

Otherwise I cannot see any reason why you wouldn't milk the last drop of profit from current campaigns until midnight May 31st.

I was under that impression too and was actually surprised to see some of my ad groups have significant impressions in the content network starting May 17th. I don't know the precise text in Google's email as it is forbidden to quote them directly on this forum, but maybe Google deliberately used some vague wording about the payout for the last two weeks of May scaring people that they won't be paid for these weeks and thereby causing a fast pull of AdWords campaigns.

I for one am happy with the current development. I only have to scale up my brick and mortar activities to cope with the new number of potential customers :)