AdSense Spam Reporting encourage on Matt Cutts blog - thoughts?

There's a difference in how you can define "made for Adsense". When I hear that term this is the kind of crap that comes to mind:

http://domfixt.blogspot.com/

No one's getting a qualified visitor from that pile of crap. They're getting a visitor that's in a hurry to get the hell off a site that's just filled with random garbage.

There are plenty of sites out there, that as a previous poster mentioned, are "made for advertising". There's a difference.

 

dzcap, I'm going to respond to your question in ways that GuyFromChicago and Will.Spencer didn't touch on. I respect their answers, because having happy AdWords advertisers and AdSense publishers is a good thing.

However, I have another reason for disliking Made For AdSense sites. I'm not an AdWords customer, so that's not it. Some scrapers have grabbed some of my content, but that's not the reason either. The reason is simple. The web is becoming a cesspool of useless sites that are only trying to get me to click on ads. I don't mind websites trying to make money, but it's not always about the bottom line. If I'm searching the web looking for widgets for informational purposes, what I'm finding more and more are junk websites with little-to-no information in them. But they have tons of ads.

So, yes, it's my business as a web user. And yes, I'm going to report them to Google to get them kicked out AdSense. And yes, I'm going to report them to get them out of the SERPs.

 

You can report all you want, but how much does it help Google? They review all accounts eligible for pay-out before sending payment anyway. You really believed you helped them THAT much? Or are you really just proud that you THOUGHT you had a hand in taking someone down?

Instead of reporting them, your time is better spent on your sites or other MORE productive activity. And let's not try to act righteous about this, many people report because they are jealous of another site and just want to take them down regardless. So feel free to stop EXPLAINING TO YOURSELVES why you did this or that.

I don't really mind reporters that much, just people that search the web for the purpose of reporting only.

 

I concur.

The Visitor Value approach is almost always a good one.

 

This is not true.

I have two proofs:

1. I had a very well paying site that was in ToS violation for many months before Google mentioned it to me. Either Google updated the ToS after I read it, or I had missed that section of the ToS entirely.

2. There are AdSense publishers who have been in clear and open violation of the ToS over many many billing cycles.

I believe that the vast majority of AdSense abuse reports are never read.

Think for a moment about the laws of supply and demand.

When an AdSense publisher is kicked out of the program, the supply of publishing space goes down. What must that do to the price? It must go up! w00 h00! Report all of your competitors! Be the king of the mountain!

On a more serious note, AdSense frauds force advertisers to include the cost of fraud into their ROI calculations, which lowers the amount they are willing to pay for AdWords and costs every publisher in the AdSense program. AdSense frauds are stealing from both advertisers and publishers. Don't expect a lot of sympathy from people who you are stealing from.

 

Every ToS violation isn't necessarily defrauding advertisors-- many advertisors will convert customers that click on links on ToS violating sites. For example, sites violating the content violations with gambling, tobacco, or firearm content-- or excessive profanity, for that matter. Oddly enough, I've seen Google ads on these sites that are clearly matching words that would only match these ToS violating sites(such as the word "casino")-- why would Google Adwords allow this to be bid on and have it display in the content network if it's against their ToS? Kinda odd...


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Derek

 

True -- the AdSense ToS is a pile of fecal matter -- and the YPN ToS is actually worse.

 

There's some things which will get you banned instantly, like clicking your own ads and others which Google will tell you "Please don't do that because it's violating out TOS, please change it"

That's what I understand from an email sent to me by them and from posts in this forum.

 

Doesn't take but 30 seconds to fire off an e-mail. 30 seconds well spent. Not much you are going to accomplish worth more on your own site in that 30 seconds.

Don't really know of anyone like that.. Care to cite a case where you know of someone saying they do that?

I know the handful of sites I have reported have all come because of just doing whatever else I was doing and I saw something wrong.

 

It takes more than 30 seconds for someone SEARCHING for the sites by hand and reporting each violation. I can't give an example, but let's not joke ourselves, THEY exist and there are plenty of them. If you go back and read my posts again, you'll see I don't have anything against casual reporters, but it's the people that goes around LOOKING for violations that I detest.

 

Anyone who reports an actual AdSense fraud is protecting my AdSense income.

I'll buy 'em a beer!

 

I don't mind reporting actual adsense fraud, but I do mind people who report because they THOUGHT someone else's site is a "made for adsense" site.

 

Yeah, I dunno what "made for AdSense" really means.

 

It means Google has something to point to if they ever want to simply terminate someone's account...


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Derek

 

Nope, what they point to no matter what violations occured are invalid clicks. They also have in the TOS they can terminate for any reason or no reason at all.

 

A scraper site is a perfect example of a made for adsense site. All content is pulled from other peoples pages and they plaster it with adsense. This costs me money and I will certainly report such sites. Not sure why people struggle with defining what a made for adsense site is...Anyways the final decision on such matters is up to Google. If I believe something is crossing the line, I will let them know about it.

 

Scraper sites are the suck because they provide no value to their visitors.

 

There is a difference in building a site on a topic you think might generate good revenue from advertisers, building if first and foremost to be useful for visitors and then placing ads on the site. I don't view this as building for Adsense.

What I view as "building for Adsense" is those sites that consists of thousands of pages on each and every topic, with no real structure or useful content. These sites are only out there to get the poor visitor that stumble upon the site to click on the Adsense ads in an attempt to actually find something useful.

I have a very big problem with that. This degrades the value of the WWW and makes it hard to find useful content, frustrates people looking for the info, and costing advertisers and publishers of legitimate sites money.

My thoughts on the subject of reporting ToS violations have been posted in countless other threads. I don't go looking for violations, but if I find them I will report them.

Some might say that it's not your responsibility. Well then it's also not your responsibility to stop someone from driving drunk, or to phone the police if you see a crime being committed.

In the end, the Adwords advertisers pay for my site, I want to protect their investment by ensuring the quality of the Adsense network. I don't even care if Google listens to the complaints or not. As long as I do my part the rest is in Google's hands.