How can I tell if a site uses Adwords or Adsense?

Outrageous keyword spammer on top of SERPs

[Larryhat]

Hello:

Is there a simple easy way for me to determine if a page or site is using Adwords, Adsense, or anything else that might persuade Google to ignore the worst keyword spamming ever seen in my niche?

This has gone on for years now. Offending site is always in the top three out of a field of 4.4 million.

The Title is an endless mess of repeated keywords, ditto the other metas, grey on grey infinitessimal print with the same garbage at bottom, you name it.

Google ignores this, leaving that one bad site in with other very worthwhile sites at the top of the SERPs.

Given a hopefully simple test, I can find out if Adsense/Adwords is a possible cause and report back.

Thanks in advance - Larry

[Leosghost]

hi ..if you mean the site that is run by the musician?
I've seen ( and done ..heh heh ) worse kword spamming than that ...

actually if it's that one he seems to have done it intelligently ..nice mix of all tactics ..outbound links ..hub ..inbound links ..keyword ratio ..no hidden text ..nice keyword blocks ...etc etc ..loads quick

not trying to review his site here but to hit #1 against 4 million others ..not at all a bad mix for someone who isn't into SEO professionally ...

if it's this one ..learn from it

[Larryhat]

Hi Leosghost:

If you mean the guy with Bluegrass, UFOs, magic shows etc., sub-hosted on <snip>, that's the one.

No denying his methods worked until now.

Once again (anyone?) I can read source code easily.

What is the quickest way to determine if this or similar pages use Adsense / Adwords or anything that might persuade G to ignore the worse kw spamming ever seen in this (ufo) niche?

Does the word ADSENSE appear anywhere in the code?
Or something else just as telling?

- Larry

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 10:25 am (utc) on Sep. 29, 2004]

[Leosghost]

Just took another ..longer look ..No adsense ...but he is running some tricks in there ..cute :)..in theory some of them should get "caught" by cuurent algo's ..however "the algo's" don't always impact the same way for everyone ..like I said ..learn from him ..Is he really hurting you that bad ..

[Larryhat]

Hi Leosghost:

Naah, he's not hurting me too much, my site is non-commercial. Still, he's knocking down a lot of other pages with really good content, by one slot, mine included.

Since this is getting pretty specific, could you sticky me with some of the other cute stuff being done? Clearly I have something to learn here, even if I don't emulate spammy techniques. I want to learn how you determine there is/is not any Adsense or the like for one thing. Is that a trade secret?

Thanks - Larry

[Birdman]

If you don't see any "Ads by Gooooogle" on the page then they are not running Adsense. No need to look in the code. Adwords is a different story because you don't put any code on your page to participate in Adwords. Regardless, I don't think Google would purposely allow a site to spam just because they are using Adsense or Adwords.

Birdman

[Larryhat]

Thanks Birdman! I was hoping for a simple answer.
Now I'm left wondering how a site that KW spams that grieviously and obviously can stay up top in the SERPS.
-LH

[anallawalla]

He could be doing it with tactics you can't see on the page, e.g. cloaking. You may look at the spammy repetition but it could be a decoy for the real tricks.

[Larryhat]

Hello Anallawalla:

There are probably other tricks I can't see, yes.

What I don't understand is:

1) Why would somebody on top of the SERPS just beg and scream to be penalized like this?

2) Why don't G, and Y, and MSN oblige him?

The offending site has top listings in my niche, on all 3 engines, apparently for years now.

Best -LH

[neo_brown]

1) Why would somebody on top of the SERPS just beg and scream to be penalized like this?

If it aint broke........
You say he has been top for sometime now, he may well be unaware of the possible penalties, and is no doubt happy with the results, why change?

2) Why don't G, and Y, and MSN oblige him?

Who knows, there are loads of spammy sites ranking just aswell as his.
These days it almost seems like the less you try and know the more you get.

[ogletree]

Trust me that has nothing to do with it. We were making $1300 a day in AS and spending $10K a month on AW and they banned my sites. (AS and AW were used for seperate websites) Just work harder to make your site better. Trust me if they are gone you well only move up on space. Spend more time on your own site. The reason there is spam is because the sites that should be there are so bad. If just the fortune 500 companies used the most basic of SEO you would not see that much spam.