AdSense Spam Reporting encourage on Matt Cutts blog - thoughts?

Many of us create sites for AdSense - let's not beat around the bush like some in here who claim they don't build sites for AdSense and then offer tips on how to go about doing it in other threads (you know who you are!)... we do it, a lot of us do it and we optimize AdSense placement and are encourage to by Google..... which could, by some eyes, make our pages look 'spammy'.

Now... when someone reports one of our many little niche sites as a 'spam' site - what happens, who has the final say and uh.. is it a good thing this 'adsense spam reporting'?

Isn't it all very subjective..... thoughts? Even though all content on my sites are written by good writers I still feel many people would look at my sites and think 'Blah just another AdSense site.. spammy' etc, and some goobers may feel inclined to report me to AdSense for AdSense spam pages... especially with Matt encouraging people to on his blog recently....... I don't know what to think except 'People oughta mind their own business'. If there's a problem with one of my sites, I'd like it to come from Google directly..... not because some twerp 'reported' one of my sites...... ya know.

Place your thoughts now.....

Pete

 

If you are not violating the ToS, you have nothing to worry about.

People can report you all day long and nothing will happen to you.

Of course, this is Google, and even if you are violating the ToS and people are reporting you all day long -- Google is still unlikely to do anything.

 

I think that was somewhat silly. On some of my campaigns I pay $1.50 or more per click. I sure as hell don't want my ads in places where people will click them just to get away from that horrible page they landed on.

 

Yes, it's a great thing.

 

Is it? Even if one of your sites is determined by some random surfer to be an 'AdSense Spam Site', reported to Google where an employee, given the 'spam report', may be inclined to agree the site was built for AdSense ie. in breach of the ToS?

We're back to that gray and subjective Built For AdSense clause again, and I'm scoring some fantastic reds here. The irony is of course I score greens for advising people on how to better build/enhance their pages for AdSense, as do we all.

Funny old world.

Pete

 

Good point, if G seems to be making money from you, and you aren't a problem, it would seem counter productive just to ban people because of complaints.

From G stock reports, I'm guessing they focus on keeping friends with people who honestly earn money for them.

tom

 

I agree! We all do it, make sites for adsense, don't lie to yourself! And people need to mind their own business, it's not needed to report violators much less what YOU deem be to a spammy site. Google check for violators before they pay anyway.

 

I know this is an area we disagree on

If a site/page of mine is reported and Google feels it's a violation of the TOS they will either warn me or terminate my account. I would like to think that because of my track record I would get a warning but who knows.

I would also like to think that Google doesn't employee hundreds of idiots to review potential Adsense violations. Just because Joe Blow reports me doesn't mean a thing - it's up to the Google employee sitting at the other end.

If you have doubts about the quality/perceived purpose of your site(s) do what I've done - ask G ahead of time or report yourself a time or two and see what happens.

All that aside if Google terminated my account for a TOS violation I would just have to be a big boy and accept it. I read the TOS and know what Google has the legal right to do if they so choose.

 

Why do people even care if a site is made for adsense or not? It's not even their business. If the site is poor, they won't get return visitors, etc. It'll take care of itself. You don't have to go reporting everything YOU believe are in violation. Spend more time promoting your site and less on policing OTHER people's business!

 

The people who care are the people who are paying for those ads - the Adwords users. If it's not their business who's is it?

Do you have an Adwords account?

 

Sure they care, but to what extent? I bet many adwords users don't even know about "made for adsense" sites. Google also audits accounts monthly and returns the funds to the adwords user if any violations are found. And if an adwords user is not happy with a specific site sending traffic, they could filter them out. So people need to mind their own business and stop policing OTHER people's sites.

And yes, I do have an adwords account and I could care less what goes on as long as they're not sending fake visitors (clicks) Why would I want to do Google's job, they don't pay me for it!

 

If my ad is on a site I have every right to "police" it.

Remind me to never hire you to do any PPC managment.

 

Yes, you have every right to police it, I am talking about people who don't even use adwords, etc. and they go around reporting everything they could find.

Remind yourself I am NOT for hire =)

 

I applaud their efforts as well.

 

Well you have your own opinion and I have mine. Not trying to convince you or anything. Hope we don't cross paths.

 

I have no issue with "built for AdSense" sites.

Now... let's talk about "built for AdSense by copying all of the content from one of my sites" or "covered with requests asking site visitors to support the site by clicking AdSense ads".

 

I couldn't agree more, Will.

A) Nobody should be stealing anyone's content.

B) Google's best interest is served when competent people are putting up sites designed for adsense. Same is true for Advertisers.

Knowing how to ethically channel consumers in a straightforward way to sellers is a valuable skill in commerce, even to the consumers.

If you are not dicking around with your readers or their expectations, and not defrauding advertisers either, what possible objection could any sane person have?

Of course it is Google's ball and they can take it home with them if they so wish, set the bar wherever they like, so to say, but really...

There are those who feel the web should be a Utopia, where commerce "pollutes" everything it touches; that using WordPress as a CMS for a commercial site degrades the internet into this evil wasteland.

I say the "free-expression-of-ideas" blogosphere can coexist in the same bandwidth as nasty, grubby old capitalism just fine. Just to be clear, though, at least half the "bloggy blogs" are about a teenager's pet cat, or something similar. Noone's declaring war on them, though.

Oh dear, I've gone off on a rant and can't find my way back to the topic...

Best stop typing now.

 

He he, great post Sir Tut.

Pete

 

Many people make made for ads sites - note not necessarily made for adsense, but made for advertising of any type. In my view, I report very few of these so long as a) they're not horendous TOS violations, or b) they don't blatently copy sites.
I actually consider b) as worse than a), but it is way harder to spot - unless you know the originating site.
I do have now control of a largish (>$2K per day) adwords account, and going over the back data that they (the client) provided me. I've found that of the sites that convert, just as many if not more are made for adsense type sites than 'normal' site.
I have my theories on this (which might also be why G has never really clamped down on them), Made for adsense pages when done correctly are 'normally' very very well targetted towards a single keyword. So anyone that visits them are likely to be very interested in that topic and thus the ads shown. The fact that the pages themselves are highly targetted results in highly tagetted ads and thus well converting visitors.

The problem with made for adsense sites isn't the fact that they are made for adsense as such, rather that they are made for adsense by people that don't have a clue wtf they are doing. These people produce pages that aren't highly targetted and thus rarely convert for the adwords user.
As a now adwords user, my only view on a site is how well would the visitors sent from it convert on my site - ie how well targetted are a) the site to the keywords, and b) the ads to the site. If both are well targetted, then visitors passed onto us should actually be interested in what we've to offer. i.e. I couldn't really give a shit if the site is spammy so long as the visitors sent from it to our site stand a decent chance of converting.
As a webmaster, I've always (as most of us do) attemted to make my pages targetted towards only one keyword (phrase) rather than multiples. Thus giving me the best chance of getting highly tagetted ads.

 

Every Adsense publisher should care about bogus adsense sites. It hurts all of us.

It drives away Adword Advertisers, it impacts the price we can get for ads on our sites and it depletes inventory of real information sites because it is taken away from sites of no real value.

Just saying it is nobody's business or nobody should care is hyper-naive. If you are in those for a business than you should care a great deal. It does and will impact you.


As for sites made for adsense.. Block the ads off the site. If the site doesn't really make any sense or provide any real information then you know something it is up. When you turn off the ads in a made for adsense site it is clear what is going on.