Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I along with a ton of others who have been shown the door from google's adsence strikly becouse of building scraper sites.
I have tried to get back in but, have been told (through email as I don't have a adsence phone number to a live person to call) that my services are no longer needed.
My question is (to all here and to any "offical adsence members" from google here on webmasterworld as well): Should getting banned for building scraper sites get you kicked out of adsence for "LIFE"?
Anyone else here that has been kicked out for building scraper sites (and) who actaul got back in, please share you input here as well as those people who are in my shoe's.
There is one other thing to consider. The people who have been banned from adsence, once ypn becomes aviable, we will all be going over there (along with thousands of other PO'ed webmasters who can't even call a adsence person on the phone to get a answer, even though they are doing thousands of $$$$ in biz monthly). Now don't get me wrong, I am not going over to ypn to do scraper sites (i have real content sites for ypn and for adsence if I could get back in for that matter) but, the "EX" scraper site builders are infact brillant seo's and know how to bring trageted traffic to advertiser's, why would adsence want to just throw "us" in the garbage can and watch there market share shrink when they should be looking for ways to stay on top. Heck, I would even be for a "pobation peroid" for offender's like me but, I "LIFE TIME BAN" (as in never ever again).....
Teeceo.
And despite what Teeceo says, it's not even clear that AdSense considers them to be against the TOS. Maybe it was another aspect of his brilliant SEOing that was the problem. Have there been other cases of sites being kicked out just for this?
Scraper sites are immoral, which rarely stops anyone from doing anything any more, but not illegal. They do not violate anyone's copyright. They operate almost identically to search engines, which are well protected by the law, and few non-webmasters could even comprehend the distinction much less care about it.
Actually, they don't operate the same way that search engines do, and whether their scraping of text or search results qualifies as "fair use" is very much open to question (iin part because "fair use" is determined by intent, not merely by the quantity of material used). If anyone cares to discuss copyright issues further, I'd suggest visiting the "Content, Writing and Copyright" forum at:
[webmasterworld.com...]
How much does it hurt the advertisers? Probably not much because they actually can get good targetted traffic - after all the person has already searched on Google, followed a link to one of the results and Adsense has probably served ads relevant to their original search.
How much does it hurt those people with original content sites? It hurts them all little bit. Nowhere near as much as Google burying their sites for 5 months in the SERPS so deep that you have to go to page 8 to find your site on a search for it's own name (and Google is possibly doing this in an attemp to get rid of spam and scraper sites!).
The real reason why scrapers are a problem is that they can do well in the SERPS. And that is Google's problem. Remember after Florida, when searching for a less common phrase you would keep on finding directory sites that just had a list of related phrases - pointing to other directory sites and it was almost impossible to actually find a page of content on the subject. Whatever the Florida change was to the way Google worked, it created the opportunity for people to really prosper from "no content" sites.
Lastly, what does a lifetime ban from Adsense mean? Adsense feels like a very temporary money making idea from Google. They seem to be doing it all on a shoestring. Anyone setting up what is essentially an advertising network would have some upfront quality checks for each URL and then would monitor the quality of where its ads were displayed. And they would have a phone number. Google have however invested in the technology of serving relevant contextual ads and detecting invalid clicks. The Adsense program still feels like a prototype to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is replaced with something very different within two years.
Although scraper sites have a similar look and feel to search engines, most (if not all) operate in contravention of international Intellectual Property (IP) laws because they neither operate on a permission basis nor, more importantly, provide opportunity for the IP owner to exclude the scraper's use of copyrighted text.
Eg: you permit Google to make fair use of your text by submitting your site; you can prohibit Google from using text through robots.txt.
Neither of these are true of scraper sites, but are important differentiators when deciding what is legal.
How scraperish did your sites look? Where they search results, wiki, website scrapes, or did you just take snippetts of articles and copy and paste it all together?
To get another account just set up an LLC for about a $100 or a corporation for about $700. Delaware corps are good but you'll need an in state agent. Wait a few months and redirect your scrapers to your new sites. Best to continously create new corporations per $$$$ in earnings.
In the list of crimes, building a scraper site is pretty low on the list. How serious is it compared to using a mobile phone while driving? That can kill people and you still only get a £60 fine in the UK.
We aren't talking about "crimes," we're talking about whether Google should resume business dealings with former partners who have shown bad faith, violated the terms of their contracts, and threatened Google's relationships with advertisers. Would you offer a new contract to a former business partner that you didn't trust? I certainly wouldn't.
I'd have to consult my IP lawyer for a definitive answer (I'm not a lawyer), but obeying robots.txt is only half the story - there is also the question of 'permission', ie sites being submitted. But if both of those are observed I suspect they would be legal.
But this is why I said 'most (if not all)' rather than 'all' scraper sites. For example, some of the generic shopping sites are perhaps legal and ethical scraper sites: the contributing shops opt-in, but the content is scraped from those shops' websites.
This is misleading. If you kill someone as a result of using a mobile phone whilst driving it carries a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment.
I agree with your sentiment that the punishment should fit the crime, and from your wording you seem to agree that a scraper site probably is committing a crime.
The only point where we disagree, therefore, is what level of 'punishment' there should be. In my view, a lifetime ban from Adsense seems a very mild alternative when compared with typical 'real life' consequences.
Scraper sites can be:
1) whole pages re-published
2) Paragraphs or sub-whole-page reproduction
3) Directory like, with snippets and links from and to multiple sites.
#1 is clearly copyright infringement.
#2 is probably copyright infringement
#3 can in no way be deemed copyright infringement (in US).
I hate #1 and #2. These egregious violators are just scum who ought to be prosecuted by government to stop their theft. The government ought to have also gone after mp3 swappers in the same manner. Little guy publishers just don't have the werewithal nor clout to be able to effect the environment to scare violators away. A prison sentence, or threat/possibility of one, however, goes a long way to change the acceptibility of the practice. Even the RIAA with their lawsuits and large resources could only chill the swappers by so much.
I can barely tolerate #3. In the case of #3, think the vast majority of them pollute the web, offer little to no enahncement value to the world.
However, you can't possibly make a case against these #3 sites, unless you find all search engines, including Google, guilty of infringement.
They are using the name of the site, and a snippet of text to enable people to quickly and easily compare ond contrast the sites and decide which is more interesting to visit.
The information presented is as a result of various decisions on how to choose which sites to show for what word combinations, and how and in what order to present the "results" to the viewer. This is what Google does; they call it PageRank. Their descisions on how to visually present this information is part of their (the #3 scarper's) "enhancement" as well.
The fact that they publish this service with the intent on earning money from it is immaterial. Google is an $80 billion corporation earning money from doing exactly this.
BTW, there are non-web analogies to this that go on all the time; A store may certainly use the name and likeness of and snippets from a book they are selling, without notification or permission from the copyright holder. I think it's called "fair use". You can even do this even if the author/publisher of the material receives no benefit, such as in a secondary market.
Recently a reseller of Ty Beanie Babies was cleared of charges that she infringed on the trademark of Ty on her website, becasue, the courts found, the use of the name and logo were essential to reselling that product, (and that Ty had actually intended to create a secondary market by retiring products, etc.).
Google has a much more interesting problem, IMHO, with their "cache" of webpages and requiring a webmaster to opt-out rather than opt-in. Notice that there are no ads shown along with the cache results. Why do you think that is? Don't you think that Google could frame the results and stick ads atop beside and below (or even in the middle!) of cached pages?
All that said, this thread was about AdSense and publishers. I think that AdSense should do whatever AdSense wants to do. Personally, unless I had a great financial reason to do so, and probably the means to monitor, I wouldn't do business with someone after I had made a decision that they needed to be banned in the first place. I might re-visit the descision to ensure that reason was actually valid, or if I decide that my reasons weren't good in the first place, but if I banned them once, they're probably gone for good.
So take heart, teeceo, if the AdSense program goes downhill, and Google decides that you offer them a way to earn half a million bucks, they might invite you back. Money talks, after all. But I wouldn't hold my breath, even in that situation. You're just too much of a hassle and a risk. How will you cheat next?
They keep clustering the search engines as well, an usually have long texts with not much information in it since the webmaster just created them for money and has no real interest in them. In addition many are not even up to date. They are clearly made for adsense too, and should be banned as well.
1-2 years ago, you couldn't find them on the internet, but with the rise of adsense, they keep coming as well.
Now we're going to ban sites with original content, just because the webmaster doesn't care enough about them?
How much do you have to care to avoid your ban - on a scale from 1-10.
Surely it would be easier (and about as sensible) to just ban all sites that aren't yours...
there is also the question of 'permission', ie sites being submitted
I hate to break this to you ... but you being in Google SERPS is opt-out, not opt-in. You don't need to submit a site to be in SERPs, Googlebot comes and takes it anyway unless you specifically tell it not to kinda like scrapers do.
Not all of them are generated by scraping the net and many of them provide a very valuable service to overcrowded niches where new sites would otherwise get very little attention or promotion via the big beasts of Google, Yahoo, etc.
Don't fall so hard on the side of eliminating everything by casting too broad a net as it just might snare sites that provide a valuable service opposed to the "MAKE 100 ADSENSE SITES A DAY" auto-generated garbage.
Because you didn't want to point out the irony in that post (it's "Adsense", not "adsense")? ;)
All that said, this thread was about AdSense and publishers. I think that AdSense should do whatever AdSense wants to do.
That's the bottom line. Google gets to decide who its partners are (or aren't), just as we do.
"However, you can't possibly make a case against these #3 sites, unless you find all search engines, including Google, guilty of infringement." On this note I will rest my case as that is all that needs to be said (hang me by the neck for offering "snippets" of results taken from the top ten results of a term, "snippets" that are indexed and cache and clearly wanting to be index in search results (the same I am offering) but, becouse its reg. people and not big corps. "we" and not "all" should be hung!
One last thing to all who have voted for the lifetime ban and say they are so white hat, if you are indeed all that then put your url in your profile so all the world can see what a truely whitehat (none built for adsense site) looks like, if not them don't throw stones.
Teeceo.
There is no way you can say 'no way'!
If you think that no 3 falls under the fair use law, then that is a subjective law open to interpretation, based on four broad criteria. However, the (automated, made-for-adsense) scraper sites we are discussing probably fall down on two of the criteria (the purpose and character of the use, and the effect of the use on the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work) because it is siphoning advertising revenue away from the original copyright holder.
Whether this is true for individual sites would have to be decided site-by-site by the courts - unlikely because a more practical solution is simply to clean scraper sites out of SERPs and/or Adsense (as oddsod pointed out earlier in the thread and as appears to be happening to teeceo).
Oddsod wrote:
>LOL...
>I hate to break this to you ... but you being in Google SERPS is opt-out,
>not opt-in. You don't need to submit a site to be in SERPs, Googlebot
Well, I hope you've had a good giggle. However, one does indeed opt-in to Google by submitting the site or by granting permission for another Google-registered site to link to your site. This is a greyer area, however, which is why I described the robots.txt exclusion as 'more important'.
EFV wrote:
>Google gets to decide who its partners are (or aren't), just as we do
Thanks for bringing us back to the rub. Google reserve the right to eject anyone from the scheme for any reason. This is certainly easier than going to court each time.
>> Thanks for bringing us back to the rub
I join you in agreeing with those sentiments from EFV.
It's actually a very concerning issue for me as well, and while I don't at all like what you did, or the type of site you claim to have been operating, I'm all in favor of a "fairer contract" between Google and it's publisher "partners".
I think there ought to be disclosure, and perhaps a chance for discussion on the issue. But at the end of the day, either party in this contract can still opt out.
Basically you was unlucky, but good luck with the money ;)
all these comments about banning scrapper sites and giving life time bans from adsense, ask yourself this....
Why have google turned a blind eye to it for the last 2 years and all of a sudden it's a big thing and they start to removed them from the search index and ban the adsense account
why has it took so long to act upon it?
I meant that there was no way that it would be deemed as such by a court. It's certainly a valid legal argument to make, but I fully believe that it would fail before it crossed the threshold to any courtroom.
Try to find a single case where a site whose description falls under #3 being successfully sued for copyright violation. C'mon, they've been around for years now. Give it a shot, and let me know.
As for granting permission, I think you're partially right, but for the wrong reason. The permission you grant is by placing the page to be available on the web to the general public. The grey area is "what kinf of permission are you granting".
Nothing to do with links.
Google finds you in other ways.... people visiting your site with the Google Toolbar installed, for instance. You may have "private pages" that you allow certain people to visit, but that does not give permission to Google to look at their viewing habits and decide to visit and cache your site on their own.
That's like giving someone a book that they loan to a friend who republishes it.
But that discussion is for another day... :)
One last thing to all who have voted for the lifetime ban and say they are so white hat, if you are indeed all that then put your url in your profile so all the world can see what a truely whitehat (none built for adsense site) looks like, if not them don't throw stones.
My url is www.post_your_url_if_you_want_teeco_to_scrape_its_content.nicetry
If I went into a bank and stole a few thousand bucks and got caught, I would be happy if the worst they did to me was ban me from coming back to the bank for life. My suggestion, send adsense a thank you letter for only banning you for life.
Surely you didn't expect to get a positve response, or enough "short ban only" votes that you could use to try to convince Google to let you back in?
I don't get it (which is nothing new for me).
There has only ever been one case, as far as I know, involving a scraper. EF Cultural Travel successfully obtained injunctions against Explorica to stop them using a scraper on the EF site. Explorica's aim wasn't to publish; it was just to collate information (prices). The judgement (as seems always to happen in law) was complex and the appeal court gave a different reason to the district court. But the former concluded by saying that anyone wanting to take such action in future could make the cases a lot easier by having a notice on their site saying, in essence, 'no scrapers'.
With regards other 'legal opinion', there isn't much on the web but what I have found views #3-type of scraping (where there is no added-value) in the 'illegal' camp.
>You may have "private pages" that you allow certain
>people to visit, but that does not give permission to
>Google to look at their viewing habits and decide to
>visit and cache your site on their own.
I think that's a fair point, and I didn't even realise Google add sites via the toolbar. Most people, as far as I thought, wanting to get their site into Google either submit their site or get another Google-established site to link to it. With both of these, you are opting-in to Google, and these two approaches surely apply to the vast majority of sites. However, I accept there may be a small percentage of sites that end up in Google without opting-in.
A final note on IncrediBILL's point: I do accept the point that it may be feasible for a scraper site to provide a useful service. But to do so, it must add value, and to be legal it must not cause the original website to suffer any loss. But many made-for-adsense scraper sites steal revenues from original authors - nothing short of electronic petty theft.
The News put on their website headings and links to articles on the Times website. The Times sued and won because (a) it was copyright theft of the headings and (b) the News had usurped the Times' advertising and therefore inflicted financial loss.
Ah well, time for bed. New topic tomorrow.
