Would Google manually approving sites lead to...

...fewer scraper sites or...

[HughMungus]

...would there be enough other affiliate and PPC programs to take up the slack? I always hear, "Adsense should approve individual websites" but would this really help given that there are now alternatives to Adsense?

Saturday morning theoretical question.

[ken_b]

It could help both Adsense and the alternative programs.

It would hopefully raise the level of quality for Adsense sites. If the alternative programs had different qualifying standards it might help them attract publishers.

[alika]

Having competition is all the more reason to raise the quality of the network. Otherwise, it can be a point against G as its competitors can use the selling line "spend money with us because our content network is so much better than G" to potential advertisers. Banner ad networks are very particular in adding sites not previously approved, so why can't G do the same? Fraud is a growing problem in the PPC arena, and to offset any negative impact, G and its competitors must not only work on improving their anti-fraud detection mechanisms but also raise the level of their publishers network.

[Zygoot]

It would only make a small difference because there is still plenty of room to play with the system.

You just need to upload a few legit pages and after they are approved you turn the whole site into a scraper site..