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But, adsense is a big problem. Most of the new 'content" created that uses Adsense are either spam with no relevance but designed to place high in the serps or are infomercials.
"Most"? That's probably an exaggeration--although "content spam" obviously is a problem, much like the affiliate spam that has long cluttered (and still clutters) Google's SERPs. Google certainly opened a Pandora's box when, in its quest for Amazon-like ubiquity, it opened AdSense to nearly all comers and allowed AdSense publishers to place the ad code on multiple sites without prior approval. (What was heaven to the AdWords team must have sounded like hell to the Google Search crew.)
Since 'content' determines the ads that will appear even the non-spammy one tend to become informercial. Consider a review for a consumer product Y made by company X. Since company X product Y is the topic, adsence will place ads for sale of company X's product Y. If the review is negative, readers would be less inclined to click on the ads. One would expect reviews to be glowing to increase the revenue for the reviewers and that is what is happening everywhere on the web.
Using that logic, one would expect every book in THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW to get a rave reception, every car in ROAD & TRACK to be named "Car of the Year," and every hotel listed at Fodors.com to get a top rating. But that isn't how the publishing business works. In reality, a book that's total dreck, a car that's boring or downright junky, or a hotel that's the pits probably will be ignored instead of reviewed unless it's so famous or important that it has to be covered. Why? One reason might be to avoid alienating advertisers, but there are even better reasons: namely, to avoid wasting the publication's space and the reader's time. What use is a book-review publication that devotes more than a fraction of its space to unreadable books, or a magazine that focuses on cars that nobody would want to buy, or a travel guide that wastes its pages talking about hotels where no self-respecting traveler would stay? Readers want information they can use, so (except in something like a CONSUMER REPORTS roundup of 20 or 30 or 50 products), crappy books, cars, hotels, etc. don't make the editorial cut.
The writing of "infomercials" in lieu of legitimate reviews is more likely to occur on amateur sites like billy-bobs-book-reviews.com where Billy Bob thinks he might make a few extra bucks if his reviews induce readers to click on his Amazon.com links, or on commercial sites run by merchants and affiliates who were using "advertorial" as a marketing tool long before AdSense came along.
On the whole, AdSense is a good thing for the Web because it makes it possible for information publishers to earn money from their work and for community sites to cover their bandwidth expenses. Whether it's good for search engines (including Google) is a different matter. The explosion of "content spam" will certainly drive up the search engines' costs and make it harder to deliver quality search results.
I will agree that Adsense helps genuine content providers like you to earn money for their efforts and it helps the web by making possible for information to be published which otherwise wouldn't have been.
However, I have noticed that besides the usual newcomers trying to get monthly annuities from their a few hours of initial work in setting up a website, many oldtimers have changed the design of their sites to get more Adsense clicks. Pages are broken into very small segments, different placement of Adsense is tried out within the guidelines of Google with the ultimate goal being the visitors not being able to differntiate between content and ads and clicking more ads.
It is a little bit naive to think that webmasters who are changing color and placement of Adsense to trick visitors into clicking more will not change the content to achieve the same objective.
Anyway, webmasters are not alone. Even search engines are trying to sneak in ads where and whenever possible.
Pages are broken into very small segments, different placement of Adsense is tried out within the guidelines of Google with the ultimate goal being the visitors not being able to differntiate between content and ads and clicking more ads.
If such behavior is widespread, it ultimately will be self-defeating. Why? Because poor conversion rates will have consequences such as:
1) Lower bids as more advertisers opt out of content ads.
2) Fewer publisher display options and more prominent "Ads by Google" branding.
3) Greater advertiser control over where ads appear.
4) Stricter rules and enforcement by Google. (Already, the AdSense forum is filled with complaints by publishers who have had their accounts shut down.)
5) Other changes that make AdSense more attractive to mainstream advertisers and less subject to publisher abuse (such as contextual "image ads," which were introduced recently).
IMHO, it's unrealistic to think that Google will stand by idly if it feels that "black hat" publishers threaten the success of the AdSense network.
I hope Google becomes selective in allowing which sites to participate.
One of the problems with online publishing is that most sites have the same person incharge of ads and content. In reputed publications there is a divide between them, or there is an attempt, to minimize content being influenced by ads.
Yes and no. In a small-circulation newspaper or magazine (even a reputable one), the same person is likely to be in charge of everything. For that matter, the publisher of a magazine--the top person in the food chain, above the editor-in-chief--is typically a businessperson who spends a lot of his time wooing big advertisers. As for minimizing content being influenced by ads, that depends on the magazine and the content. Magazines like FORTUNE often run large "advertorial" sections or supplements, and some leading magazine publishers do "custom publishing" for corporate clients. And it's common practice in the trade-magazine industry for ad agencies and PR firms to arrange for placement of articles that were written by them for clients.
Even when there is a "Chinese wall" between editorial and advertising, the editorial staff is subject to outside pressures. Let's say you're a business reporter for a car magazine. You've got to maintain good relations with the auto manufacturers or you'll lose access to your sources and you won't be able to review new cars before their release.
In any case, we're getting a bit off-topic here, so I'll close by saying that AdSense is a good thing for Web publishing. Whether it's a good thing for the Web as a whole will depend largely on whether search engines will be able to keep "content spam" from dominating their search results.
