Do you think MFA sites and AdSense Arbitrage are unethical?

What is the general opinion of of Made for Adsense sites that use AdSense Arbitrage and clever but legal AdSense placements to make money from a site.

I've heard some people that say that it is borderline stealing and definitely unethical. I've heard others say that they are just capitolizing on inefficiencies in the Adwords program much like day traders do on the stock market.

I am on the fence. I am not really in creating sites soley for the purpose of people clicking on ads, however, if Google recieves a ton of revenue from these sites and if they truly had an issue with them could just make putting CPC adds on sites targeted with AdWords against the TOS.

What do you think?

 

As long as visitors end up getting to the place they are seeking then I cant see a problem.

It would be different if your site was about cars showing ads about buses and when someone clicked the ad then ended up on a site about trains. If that was the case the people would be sent into a loop trying to find what they need.

An MFA site is only placing an extra click infornt of the web surfers seeking info or products. I would say the majority of people sickened by MFA sites is because they appear on Search Engines and can end up out ranking your own site.

 

I couldn't get any PR on any of my pages that has Google Adsense on. But my homepages does have a PR3, site has been there for almost a year now.

 

hi tatiana,

adsense doesnt affect PR.

 

IMO - Google is a big scraper. They scrape web content and capitalize on it by claiming they are providing a "service". Then they host up ads on their site and make money on them. If you are up-to-date on your adSense history you'll remember when the Google guys even split the bids between search and content results. Assuring themselves the biggest take. So when the TOS says you cannot use a made for AdSense site it is just another example of them trying to twist the market in their favor. This isn't a matter of ethics, it's a matter of brains and brawn (or balls).

MFA until your heart is content. It's only what you do with the cash that may threaten your mortal soul.

 

Hi genkied,

I just took Adsense off my sites. lolz

 

hehehhe...girl you need some beer...

 

MFA sites are good. They fulfill advertiser's needs. You would say 30-40% of websites making a decent buck are MFA sites. If they didn't exist, AdWords would be insufficient. It also makes G a lot of money!

 

I'll put them somewhere else! Boy, you need some gin. Lolz

 

MFA are equivalent to those 'paid advertisement' shows on TV for things like the Ronco products and weight-loss programs. Annoying? Yes. Often poorly made? Sure. But 'unethical'? Nah.

And arbitrage is just buying something low and reselling it a bit higher... the foundation of money-making.

 

I don't see a huge problem in it, advertisers themselves shouldn't really complain because as long as they are still getting their moneys worth then thats fine. If they are not then the MFA site will be smart priced anyway and advertisers will probably get more from you than you will them!

 

If it's ok with Google, then theres no problem. Personally I hate those sites and wouldn't really want to create one, although I've thought about it a few times before.

 

I am surprised to read most of you do not see a problem with it. Actually it goes against the TOS, why Google keeps it..we all know.

 

Can you please tell me where in the TOS says you cant do a site for adsense?

 

It would be interesting if people give their opinion what exactly constitutes an MFA.

 

I completely disagree with mfa sites they imo are spam sites

 

They are spammy sites that the ONLY purpose is to get people to click on their ads without no content whatsoever, or the content is stolen of another site.

I found the following article about it, that also mentions Shoemoney:

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2006/11/google-trains-its-guns-on-made-for.html

Most of the MFA sites are just links, that's spamming and spamdexing at the same time. That's why I said that's against the TOS.

 

I don't know about unethical but they are spammy and I HATE when I'm searching for something and I get pages and pages of junk MFA sites and not what I'm looking for.

 

if Google allows it then it's friendly with the TOS

think about it, Google gets 2-way benefits from MFA site

from adsense and adwords - why the hell will they care about people being rolling around the sites not finding what they want ?

 

b/c if all ads were MFA sites, google would become too spammy and then be poor quality. less people would use google, and google would be forced to change something.
Will this happen? Maybe. Anytime soon? Probably not.
Google will do something to change MFA sites and arbitrage sites. It could be the land page quality that they are working on now, but it'll be something I'm guessing.