Suddenly, about a month ago, this "partner" traffic began to surge. Google sent an email suggesting I increase the daily budget five-fold. I cautiously went along and started checking the quality of the increased traffic. As you've probably guessed, it's dismal.
Basically, from what I am seeing about 85% of traffic comes from pages that have nothing but ads on them - not even a single page of content. Some formidable partners Google have gotten themselves! (I wonder how they even decide that my ads are "relevant" if there's nothing but ads on the page.)
I started adding these sites to the "filter", but my feeling is that it's a futile task - next day you discover there are another 100 sites that are exactly the same (many are obviously run by the same large-scale scammy outfits).
My questions:
a) Anybody else seen this recently (4-5-fold increases from "partner" MFA traffic)?
b) Would you recommend just shutting down the whole program or do you think with enough filtering I can beat the odds? Or should I try to contact Google about this?
c) Do you accept traffic from MFA sites/pages? Do you think all of it is garbage or some could actually be ok?
a) Yes, my spending has doubled in the past month from content network sites. I do not know if they are MFA traffic or not. But the partner network traffic has increased.
b) Filtering just a few sites may be good, but there will always be new sites that come along that will convert poorly for you. By advice is not to shut down completely, but lower your content bid prices to a point that make sense for you. About contacting Google: I do not know what more they can do. The provide you with control to turn off content network and partner search providers and let you adjust your bids accordingly. While you do not like MFA sites and the traffic, on the whole, I do not mind as long as it gets me more traffic and conversions.
c) I accept traffic from all sources on Google's content network. I have even tried the site targeting feature and tested some MFA sites with huge success.
As best as I can determine I am now (as opposed to 9 months ago) getting two classes of traffic from adwords. Serial one click cruisers for the keyword ads and the rest from MFA or the "directory" sites from content.
A few comparisons:
January 2006
176 clicks - 21 conversions (or sales) (small dollar amount) (two great high paying long term revenue leads)
September 2006 36 clicks - ZERO conversions. (Zero leads).
So basically the trend is just to throw the money away and feel good about the fact that I am doing something. A corrollary to this - I am spending an almost equal amount of dollars on ebay fixed price auctions for my services - and the return is 8 sales. Still not good, but at least its is something.
(The amazing thing is that my constant service auctions on Ebay are now showing up in the organic results (1st page) on Google. I get better placement for the same subject matter by being on Ebay than being indexed by Google.)
About to throw in the towel. SEO position great. All other factors seems to be ok. The traffic has just turned to trash.
as others reduce content bids, yours may start showing more if the numbers work out that you've moved into more prominent / showing positions...
