Forum Moderators: martinibuster
If clicks from a website "convert", you receive more money per click than if they dont "convert". This means crappy website get paid more than quality websites.
Why?
Because:
1. People never return to crap sites after clicking, so they are more likely to "convert" by registering on another website or maybe browsing a shop and buying a product.
2. Adsense mainly shows "competitive" ads as they are contextual. This is good for crappy sites from 1. as you can influence the kind of advertising to be shown but bad for any kind of proper website.
it doesn't make sense to say "get out of the one Website mentality" or to suggest that people who aren't into mass production of Web sites lack confidence.
Of course, no one wrote that. The point about lacking confidence was about folks who would LIKE to go the multiple site route, but lack the confidence to do so BECAUSE their ignorance of a topic keeps them from risking it. In fact, I mentioned that both are viable approaches (one site or multiple sites). There isn't a "better" or "worse" way to go, imho. It's a matter of where your interests lie and what your goals are. That'll be different from person to person. Did I really not make that clear?
The stock market analogy is a good one. One good site can really become a labor of love and might make you a nice income. But man oh man, if you are relying even just moderately on organic search engine traffic, you're always one update away from taking a major hit. If I was to go the "one site" route, I'd make damn sure I diversified my sources of traffic right off the bat. You gotta learn how to work PPC programs like AdWords like a science so you can weather the storm when the SE's update and potentially wreck your organic traffic. I'd probably find offline advertising too. With multiple sites, I've done pretty well with free SE traffic. Small ups and downs, but never huge swings. The two models are almost entirely different from a marketing standpoint. Like I said, who is to say which is objectively "better?" It's a matter of individual preferences and goals. Each has merit.
I have a couple of test sites, researched and built mostly out of curiosity, just to see what they would do. This is how you diversify, isn't it?
I don't have a problem with the research and work involved in building a website. I lack the time to make them as awesome as they could be.
I have found through making these test sites that they cause me to lose focus. I'm continually having to hop around from website to website, fixing or adding things. So my plan now is just to focus on one website for a month, and bring each of the sites up to where it should be.
I still have one parked domain that I bought on a whim, and I still haven't found the time to do anything with it, but that doesn't mean I'll turn it into a one page crap site just for the earnings.
;-)
Thats what I and I think Swebbie are getting at.
I don't have a problem with the research and work involved in building a website. I lack the time to make them as awesome as they could be.
Sweet, that's a good point. I'll bet a lot of webmasters underestimate how much they can do, though, when they get serious about this business and work at it. It's important to note, too, that the time you have to invest in a site is much less when it's an affiliate site than when it's a full business, where you take and ship orders, do customer service, and all that jazz. AdSense is just a huge affiliate program, of course. Place the code, test it a little, get some traffic, and your end of the business is done. Google does all the rest. No orders to fulfill, no back-end cust. service headaches, no shopping carts to mess with. That's another reason why the entire model is different with the multiple site approach vs. the single site strategy.
The thing is crap site or not our goal is to make money.
I missed the sarcasm, vabtz, sorry! Sometimes when it's all written, things like sarcasm get missed. I think you make an interesting point about the goal being to make money. Getting back to the OP in this thread, it doesn't surprise me that "crap" sites get higher conversions with AdSense. If you think about it, a site with pages that are designed only to highlight AS ads are going to make the people who visit them want to get away fast. It stands to reason that they'd click what's right in front of them in their effort to find what they really were looking for, right? It's no big leap from that logic to a growing number of people throwing up dozens of software-generated crap sites with AS code all over them. It's the path of least resistance, which will always appeal to human nature. I wouldn't do it, but hey, who is to say that those kinds of sites don't make AW advertisers a lot of sales? Maybe a lot of the crappy sites convert well on their end. If they do, you could argue that they're fulfilling Google's intent. Interesting concept, huh?
Someone else on here once said the best site is those that are only marginally useful, cover the topic throughly, and require the user to click the ads to find more useful sources of information.
Getting back to the OP in this thread, it doesn't surprise me that "crap" sites get higher conversions with AdSense.
Do they? I have yet to see evidence that they do, but I have seen a fair number of AdWords Forum posts by advertisers who say they don't.
If we knew what kinds of sites were being hurt by "smart pricing," we might have a better idea of whose traffic is converting and whose isn't.
Many of the "get rich quick" approaches are inherently risky. Consider those sites filled with computer generated garbage plus a bit of real content surrounded by ppc ads; these need to general a higher level of revenue relative to investment, and thus have a shorter payback period, because they are so much riskier.
There are so many ways these sites can die -- someone can report them to Adsense and they get booted out; they rely on SEO techniques which get killed by the next Google algo update; etc.
If you are risk averse, or have a long time horizon, you might be better off building fewer, higher quality sites. Of course, if you like to feel good about your work, that may also push you toward a quality oriented business plan.
I think their concerns are almost entirely focused on click fraud. Click fraud is the predator that could quickly take them down. Scared advertisers running to a competitor (YPN) on just a rumor of rampant fraud has to be what keeps them awake at night. Before they had competition, they knew there wasn't a viable alternative for advertisers. So, while they were undoubtedly afraid of the effects of fraud, it probably only reached to a certain point. It's a new ballgame now. If anything, I think competition will make Google care even less about the quality of web pages and more about getting control over click fraud.
If anything, I think competition will make Google care even less about the quality of web pages and more about getting control over click fraud.
Common sense would suggest that click fraud by publishers is more likely to happen with "get rich quick" sites than with established sites that are built for the long term. Why? Because crooks aren't likely to invest time and money in content-rich sites when they don't have to, and owners of content-rich sites aren't likely to risk losing their "sweat equity" investments by resorting to click fraud.
This thread isn't about click fraud (or at least it wasn't until now), but since you brought up the topic, I'll add that--in my layman's opinion--one of the biggest threats to PPC networks in general and AdSense in particular is click fraud by organized crime. Allowing the proliferation of "made for AdSense" junk sites is like offering a printing press to a gang of counterfeiters.
Common sense would suggest that click fraud by publishers is more likely to happen with "get rich quick" sites than with established sites that are built for the long term.
Publishers clicking their own ads is but one form of click fraud, as common sense also suggests. Owners of more established, long-term sites also get their fair share of fraudulent clicks, I'm sure. Who can prove it, but I'll bet silent cyberwars are waged every day by competitors hoping to take down established sites that outrank them precisely because they are well established and have a strong SERPs presence for valuable keywords. Works both ways.
I agree with EforV's reasoning. Any business strategy built on rapidly deploying low quality sites runs a greater risk of obsolescence as the market evolves.
I'm saying the sites are built on quicksand; I'm not saying this business strategy is necessarily a loser, or that the webmasters themselves will be obsolete. Perhaps they will just shift to whatever quick scheme works best in the future.
Any business strategy built on rapidly deploying low quality sites runs a greater risk of obsolescence as the market evolves.
For the record, I really dislike crappy scraper sites. I don't make 'em, and I never will. OK, having said that, I disagree with this quote, *AT LEAST* in terms of AdSense viability. I think it's a serious flaw in Google's entire program. What I mean is, I think AS encourages crappy scraper sites and lots of 'em. Algo updates, as we all know by now, can absolutely destroy a site's organic traffic. To the extent that you rely on organic traffic, it's a HUGE risk to pin all your hopes on one site, no matter how great it is. Yes, I realize that smart business owners diversify their traffic sources, but think about that. Why do they do that? Same reason a lot of people think the multiple site approach makes more sense. Spreads out your risk. And to keep this in the theme of this thread, let's face it - if crappy quicky sites can get you a lot of AS clicks, then human nature will always prevail and a lot of people will seek that path of least resistance. I don't think there's a way around it unless Google really gets super-aggressive about whacking the scraper sites. Can that be done?
Publishers clicking their own ads is but one form of click fraud, as common sense also suggests.
Sure, and that's why I referred to click fraud by publishers, not click fraud in general (which can occur on any type of PPC ad, including AdWords on Google's own SERPs).
Owners of more established, long-term sites also get their fair share of fraudulent clicks, I'm sure. Who can prove it, but I'll bet silent cyberwars are waged every day by competitors hoping to take down established sites that outrank them precisely because they are well established and have a strong SERPs presence for valuable keywords.
Any site can be the victim of click attacks--in fact, I've been the victim of several myself--but I'd guess that most click attacks are aimed at advertisers, not fellow publishers. Advertisers can enjoy immediate gains by attacking competitors, such as exhausting a competitor's ad account for the day (and therefore making their own ads rank higher) and generally making life more frustrating for the competitor. Google obviously recognizes this, since Google's CFO talked publicly about the problem a while back.
Advertisers can enjoy immediate gains by attacking competitors, such as exhausting a competitor's ad account for the day (and therefore making their own ads rank higher) and generally making life more frustrating for the competitor.
Just one more reason why life as a single site owner is fraught with a lot of risk. Not only do you have to worry about AdSense income fluctuations, but you have to deal with other advertisers attacking you as well. As a multiple site owner who relies exclusively on organic traffic, I can weather changes with comparatively minor ups and downs, and click attacks like those aren't an issue. I have enough worries. Not saying my way is the only way, of course, but the more I read, the more I'm convinced it beats the single site approach when it comes to this issue.
Not saying my way is the only way, of course, but the more I read, the more I'm convinced it beats the single site approach when it comes to this issue.
Having multiple sites won't help if your AdSense account is shut down by Google for "invalid clicks." (Unless, of course, you've got different accounts under the nominal ownership of your brother, aunt, and cousin-in-law.)
I think the real key is to have multiple revenue streams instead of relying completely on AdSense. (Of course, that's easier to do in some sectors than in others.)
Having multiple sites won't help if your AdSense account is shut down by Google for "invalid clicks."
Yes, on that score it's a wash. How about if a big engine updates its algo? Who fares better then? LOL
