Should I block MFA ads?

[CWebguy]

Earlier today I didn't even know what an MFA site was. Now I'm wondering if I should block these from showing up.

[jetteroheller]

Sure. All what makes a bad experience for Your visitors should be eliminated.

Seems this Google takes this serious, they just expanded the bad ad block list from 200 to 500 URLs.

[martinibuster]

If you have a problem with excessive irrelevant ads that you need more than 200 slots in your competitive ad filter then there might be an issue with the niche you are in (not enough advertisers) and no amount of filtering is going to fix your situation.

[edited by: martinibuster at 9:23 pm (utc) on April 23, 2009]

[jetteroheller]

If you have a problem with excessive irrelevant ads that you need more than 200 slots in your competitive ad filter

With new features like "filter by phrase on the landing page"
I could replace maybe 50 filtered URLs by one phrase.

MLM and pyramid game people use always the same page, but each member with a different URL.

[martinibuster]

Here's a good example of a problem niche:
Let's talk about German sites and how online spending habits may affect ad inventory on content sites. According to this report [emarketer.com], Germans spent a mere 13.6 Billion Euros online for the entire year of 2008. To put that into perspective, that is less than the budget for Los Angeles County [latimes.com]. It's a paltry amount being spent online. If there's no water in the well don't blame the bucket.

So what happens for a site that faces German language speakers that don't spend much money online? Lack of inventory. This is what I meant by if you have a problem with excessive irrelevant ads, that the problem may not be too many bad advertisers, it's not enough good ones. The reason there aren't enough good advertisers is because there isn't a market to support them.

So this whole thing about blocking MFAs as a way to increase income might not be the best approach for a solution. The reason is because you're zeroing in on the symptom of your problem (the bucket), but not the problem itself (the well). The problem itself may be a poor niche.

I'm not saying people should not block irrelevant ads. I'm blocking a few problematic ads myself. Only saying that an excess of those ads may not be the problem, only the symptom. If you want to get rid of those symptoms then you may want to focus on finding a solution for the actual problem.

[CWebguy]

so the mfa sites only apply to general category sites?

Thanks.

[eeek]

If you have a problem with excessive irrelevant ads that you need more than 200 slots in your competitive ad filter then there might be an issue with the niche you are in (not enough advertisers) and no amount of filtering is going to fix your situation.

In my case the niche is fine; it's stupid advertisers using keywords that have serveral meanings that cause most of the problems.

[CWebguy]

In my case the niche is fine; it's stupid advertisers using keywords that have serveral meanings that cause most of the problems.

Yeah, I'm having a problem with this.

[koan]

To be honest, if you just learned what an MFA is, you should keep focusing on developing your site and reading forums like these, and when it becomes a familiar concept and you know exactly how removing one or another would actually improve your site, then you can take some actions. In the meanwhile, I wouldn't concern yourself with it. I personally don't block any advertisers. Don't become an Adsense junkie obsessing over tweaks and fixes instead of making the best site there is! Once you have a great site, the options for advertising become a lot broader. If your site is weak, no amount of advertising tweaks will help it.

[Scurramunga]

I would block them, however I'd also be wary of not spending all my waking hours looking for them and chase them. Because without effective publisher tools you will end up chasing your tail.

[Green_Grass]

When I was flooded with MFA's a while back..I certainly put in hrs to block 200 or so.. However I found that was most probaby a Google system failure. Soon these guys disappeared and no longer exist on the old URL's.

Nowadays, I don't really bother.. unless it is really obvious..

[creative craig]

I'd like to point out that whilst 13 billion Euros maybe be a paltry amount to some - this was seen as a posititive in Germany as it was a 19% increase on 2007 online spend!

[emarketer.com...]

I think this niche (German speaking sites) is actually a good place to be if their current trend continues - consectutive growth for the last 6 years!