Is Adsense Creating Internet Clutter?

[specialist]

I'm sure you have asked yourselves this question.

With so many publishers signing up for Adsense (and similar programs), and with a significant number of them creating sites primarily for the purpose of making money, one is wondering whether this may in time compromise the quality of the already redundant Internet.

What do you think?

Thanks for your votes.

[Eric Giguere]

Ooohh, flashback... I remember similar discussions about letting commercial traffic on the Internet at all, back in the days when it was strictly for a non-commercial endeavour.

(Oops, showing my age...)

This is why search engines and anything that can de-clutter and organize the information on the Web will continue to thrive.

[dadasays]

I think Google will solve this problem in 2006 with better heuristics and algorithms detecting sites which are made specifically to take advantage of AdSense. The people with the worst websites will see the worst returns.

Google is very smart about targeting their best publishers and people with real content. I'm personally seeing fewer and fewer junk sites show up when I do searches for interesting content to read.

[Voasi]

I think Google walks on the fence with this type of issue. Best publishers and content isn't necessarily the best for investors. The 'scrapers' pull in large sums of money for Google and the publisher.

What I'd be curious to see is, of those scraper or "made-for-adsense" sites, how many of those clicks are converting in leads/sales/subscriptions/etc... That would tell the truth.

[Coupons]

Creating internet clutter? Yes. Are those sites useful for Google and advertisers? Also yes.

[unknownseo]

How about does it really matter? How much of the clutter is seen? Really? When we look at the net through the search engines we only see the tip of the iceberg anyway. So, the bulk of the net (the clutter) is buried anyway.

[Coupons]

I also don't mind. If it wasn't for that, many searches I make, would only return 1 or 2 results

[Crusader]

Adsense doesn't create the clutter. People trying to make a quick buck do,

[IamNed]

Scaper sites may convert jsut as well as 'real content' sites. However a scraper site may be confusing to the user so he clicks an ad he may not have wanted to clikc jsut to get more info. Its click fraud that doesnt convert.

[Pathan]

Yeah you are right their are many content-less sites getting online now-a-days. Also google can be blamed as they give adsense advantage to even parked domains. huh

[Trippen]

You see so many sites where the it's obvious that the only reason the site exits is for adsence revenue. Definite clutter.

[skattabrain]

Originally Posted by Crusader

Adsense doesn't create the clutter. People trying to make a quick buck do,

true ... but you can also say that google has lax publisher standards too.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by skattabrain

true ... but you can also say that google has lax publisher standards too.

Definitely can't disagree with that. I think Google shoot themselves in the foot by allowing you to add as many sites as you want after you are excepted. Most people apply with a decent site, get accepted and then turn to creating crappy sites just for the money.

If Google were to use something similar to other companies by checking each new site out, hten I'm sure those spam sites will have a hard time. Unfortunately that will add lots of work for the Google guys and cause quite a considerable wait before you can add Adsense to new sites.

In my opinion it would be worth it though.

[specialist]

[QUOTE=Crusader]Most people apply with a decent site, get accepted and then turn to creating crappy sites just for the money.QUOTE]

You are so right!

I think/hope in time Google will realize it's important to tighten their standards for accepting sites into the program.

[wentworth]

yes. and fraud and theft.

[adwordaffiliate]

It's it "in" thing right now. Then again, when Yahoo & MSN get fully running things can only get worse.

[IamNed]

These generators work because they explioit long keyword phrases that othwise wouldnt get many pages at al. Search engines do a very good job at weeding out spam for frequently seached keywords however.

[Coupons]

As others said, I think that every site using AdSense, should be carefully reviewed...
Or they should create some kind of AdSense Premium, but not based in impressions or visitors. Not every high traffic site is a quality one, and there are many good sites without much visits.
I mean quality sites, reviewed by editors...

[Eric Giguere]

One of Google's firm beliefs, from everything I've ever read, is that everything related to the Internet needs to be automated to scale. Then it becomes a matter of throwing better algorithms and more horsepower at a problem instead of having more people manually look at things. Whether or not you agree with this, it's the way they operate.

[Coupons]

But you do know that they are hiring people all around the world to check for spammy pages? Not automatic bots, but real human beings