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?
so how come you arbitrage folks state that this is a legit business model sanctioned by google?
if you do arbitrage in combination with mfa (which imo is inevitable in this business), it is against tos and just because google didn't do anything or doesn't mention it explicitly doesn't change a thing about this fact!
google was utterly naive with their belief that the market would sort the crap out by itself. apparently what they didn't recognize was that the arbi practice couldn't be sorted out by the market at all. why? because of unlimited supply of dumb or confused users (being forced to click). just like spam will never die because of idiots buying from spammers who make it worthwhile.
to let it go on for years only seeing the cash flow without recognizing the damaging effects on user experience and consequently the adsense brand was fatal. it's about time now to stop the arbi/mfa crowd as regaining trust in the content network will be difficult enough at this point.
anyhow, looking at the overall quality of ads, even more effort in cleaning up the inventory is needed (ebay keyword ads, scam ads, deceptive ads etc). but it seems to be a serious start.
I can also add that I was waiting for this letter for 14 months so far, and don't regret at all about starting this venture in 2006. Because one month being "unethical" equals to 2-3 years of being so-called "honest" publisher and barely earn 2-3K a month.
arbitrage is most effective in combination with mfa, right? every little piece of useful content on an arbi landing page would dilute your ctr and your bottom line. it would intervene in the needed 2-click-behavior of users (click ad on content page, then click ad on landing page).
Some took that route. But my take on it was that if I gave my visitors useful info they wouldn't feel rorted. Which is what I did. I had original content that gave good info about whatever topic/product I was targeting. Worked well for me.
*edit* Just to expand a little on this. I purposely gave good info, but didn't offer the final piece so to speak. I left that to the Adsense advertisers to do that. If they wrote good copy, then they would supply the "final" piece. I just gave them a stage to display their wares in context. And my CA filter was always chockers...lol
[edited by: Avo19 at 6:35 am (utc) on May 21, 2007]
Having said that, I emptied my filter list once I heard the rumors of Google booting the arbitrage/MFA folks. The effect was a good Saturday (but it seemed to be an overall good day for all sites, so I do not attribute this to the empty filter) and a really bad Sunday (which I do attribute to the empty filter list).
I suggest to wait until June 1st to empty filter lists, and then do it only cautiously.
The "MFA vs. 'honest' publishers' debate has been going on for years, and will never and cannot arrive to any solution, apart from the "solution" that perhaps will be caused by to this move from Google.
Someone was wandering on how few arbitragers are here speaking aloud: try and understand that few people will come here and speak just to get bashed.
From both sides of the debate, this stuff is IMHO the most important thing that will happen to your Adsense account this year.
As a non-arbitrager, I value VERY much the information these guys are giving us, and I think trying to understand what is going on will help us "regular" publishers what will happen to Adsense and to our accounts in the next weeks.
I couldn't agree more. This thread is turning into an MFA/Arb bashing exercise - which is totally non-constructive. Perhaps by those that were banned sharing their experiences - then a whole load of "get rich quick" bods will be deterred, and instead build worth-while sites.
I think this thread has gone off topic, and is now just a collection of "I told you so" posts.
I Understand, but is not about what we would learn, it is the just fact that making 10K+ a month/day by using the method in question just becoming obsolete. and Obsolete is the fear of any IT or Marketing Pro.
By providing useful and constructive comments - perhaps newbies would be more inclined to build quality websites and not try to game the systme.
No one is disputing that ridding the net of useless sites is a good thing - both for legit business models, and for end-user experience.
Lets move beyond this and start making constructive comments in here. By collaborating data from those that have been banned it will be possible for existing webmasters to gain a greater insight into what to expect to happen over the next few months. It will also perhaps kick some rather borderline sites into action to create something better and more useful.
Just my thoughts.
Rgds
Damon
