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?

[blend27]

I watch Ads alot(i don't click), there are more people, well actualy big companies, "advertizing" for broad search as of yesterday

[Scurramunga]

There are also big companies that keyword target your niche and have nothing relevant to offer. Shopping sites and in particular, a large ebag company are getting into the ebay model of advertising these days.

[inactivist]

I quoted from a 'learn how to make MFA's' website about 20 pages back. Right there, the author said that he grabs content and doesn't care about duplication. (He magnanimously sometimes provides a link to the original author).. My guess is that a lot of the original content publishers will see their sites doing better once the MFAs start to wither and die.

I think (hope, pray) that game is coming to an end, and soon. I've noticed that one major site that 'pirates' (copies, verbatim) entire articles including direct links to graphics from my site and presents them surrounded by their own AdSense, has removed the copied content lately. I wonder if they've received a warning recently?

One can only hope...

[potentialgeek]

I think this will have a positive effect for the orignial publishers but (1) the mfa's have to really die and (2) it will take a couple of google updates to start seeing the results.

To tackle MFAs, Google needs some kind of sandbox. It can't assume new sites are going to be non-MFAs. I suspect one of the problems is either the low bar to enter, and/or MFA webmasters building one good non-MFA to get an Adsense account; then flooding their account with many MFAs.

Google's policy of one-approval-then-do-whatever doesn't cut it. It could have some kind of special watch algo on all newly added domains to an account to nip them in the bud if they act like MFAs. They've been asleep at the switch for years and still are. Why shouldn't Google require review of each new website added to an account? If it's not smart enough to program a way to catch MFAs, it has no other choice to avoid brand dilution.

Good, useful websites take time to build. You can't crank them out one a day. So the algo that monitors Adsense accounts should focus on the rate new sites are added, and the number of pages in each site. High rate and/or high page count will be obvious red flags, triggering a manual review.

p/g

[biscuit]

Just been catching up on this thread.

need2bdiscreet, there's no need to finish your postings with 'my 2 cents'. I know your 2 cents. You've been paying me that per click for years. No need to rub it in.

Seriously, what we have not seen so far is a discussion of what role there is for 'good' arbitrage in Adsense. So someone clicking on a link on 'new and used dead popes' gets taken to relevant links for e.g. used copies of Alexander Pope's works.

Can yesterday's 'parasites' become upstanding netizens of tomorrow - and will G let them be so?

[jeffgroovy]

Turning arbi low quality content churning machines into good Internet citizens is possible, but not likely unless they really learn their lessons and a big hug and kiss goodbye may not do that so well. I also have faith in the concept that anyone willing to put in the hours for their ideas with no monetary gain in mind are almost always going to have better ideas then those who do it for money. However, I live in the real world with the rest of you where motives are almost always a hybrid, just mix your motives up a little so that user experience is first and monetary gain is secondary at best.

[edited by: jeffgroovy at 7:59 am (utc) on May 25, 2007]

[jeffgroovy]

I have to laugh every time I see a reference to "buy new and used dead popes" it personifies the core of what this arbitrage thread is about. Bad user experience = no good for anyone in the long term (even the big money MFA arbi site owners who thought it was good from themselves regardless of user experience are finding out they were even wrong about that) no need to throw salt in their wounds, but to address the question of the role of "good" arbitrage is what the adsense team has preached all along. Have a site for a reason and then, Oh it turns out I can put some ads on there and make a little extra cash. It's all good to buy traffic to your site in that scenario because you are buying it for the purpose of the site, not for clicks on ads. That concept takes care of the problems that come with getting traffic for the purpose of clicking on ads as opposed to getting traffic for the purpose of your site.

[zett]

causing a lot of money to flow around in the content network.

Exactly. I would say MFAs were inflating the Adsense revenues (as well as TAC). Basically they were nurturing a bubble. This bubble will burst now.

It's hard to predict which genuine revenues will remain once the bubble has burst. I started to check the sites in my filter, and as of yesterday, they were still serving Adsense ads. If these guys are not gone June 1st, btw, then something has gone seriously wrong.

Also, the timing is interesting: June 1st sees 2/3 of the quarter already in, with 1/3 still to go. So Google can report in their Q2 earnings still 2/3 of the bubble revenues and needs to start to catch up with things only in Q3 (because the bubble revenues and TAC will be missing). It will be interesting to see Adsense revenues and TAC for their Q3 earnings report.

I see a good pontential that they crank up the EPC (minimum bid) during Q3 to make up for the loss of bubble profit.

[moTi]

in this sticky, need2bdiscreet gave me the explicit permission to post this on the board. herewith i will do that, because i think it's a very valuable contribution to this thread as it is an insight of the perspective of someone who got into the arbitrage business. at the same time, it puts the focus on google who were so reluctant to supervise the whole game.

here's some good food for thought:

Hi Moti,

You are right I for one did not pump in millions doing Arbitrage – however I have a colleague who did – he spent over a million a year. As for the lurking part of the post – you are also correct – it was safer to hang back and listen then it was to exchange with others. My previous experiences were that as soon as you posted something that asked about doing stuff that was close to the edge you got super flamed – and that is never fun. It is not unlike questioning Google and their intent on the forum – this recent thing about AdLinks is a good example – for some Google can do no wrong and for others it is useful to be open to the idea that they could do some shady stuff.

The bottom line is that if you are user focused and think of them first you will rise to the top. That is where I started when I got into this – but I dabbled in arbitrage and instead of earning 10-20 dollars a day you make a few hundred and it climbs rapidly from there. Google knew what we were doing and they were turning a blind eye – others are doing it and you justify it to yourself. It would have been as simple as two lines of code in the JavaScript code – if referrer = googlesyndication then smart price these guys. It does not feel like online pharmacies or porn or extortion – you can show your wife what you are doing and she can say it looks nice. It is a trap for sure – the money is easier and it is easy to give into your greed – especially when you have a mortgage to pay ;-).

You can post this on the board if you want – but I thought it would be better if I told my side of the story to you directly. I don’t want a flame war and I get the sense that this is a topic that perhaps might frustrate you.

my fullest respect goes to you.

cheers, moti

[farmboy]

Can yesterday's 'parasites' become upstanding netizens of tomorrow - and will G let them be so?

I'm repeating myself from prior posts in this thread but I think it's worth repeating. If a MFA type site is good for the advertisers, then advertisers will line up to get their ads on those pages to replace the disappearing AdSense ads.

FarmBoy