I am of the opinion there are some directories making money from adsense, but that there is not a huge number of directories that are "made for adsense" and making a lot of money at it. This is an interesting development here http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-chrome-extension-block-sites-from.html Do you think it could affect directories?
IMO, any search engine related developments will always affect web directories. Unfortunately most directories are in low-content quality category. Unless we are doing link + article directory with uniqueness (unique link title, description and article content) I'd say 90% of web directories are "eligible" to be blocked using the extension (and later, by Big G himself.) One thing to ponder: Now competitors are enabled to apply dirty tactics to report your sites to Google for having duplicate, low quality content. Every development from SE, in this case, Google will always born new "grey/black hat" tactics to game the system. I'm sure web directories will find their way - it's a do or die situation.
The thing is... Google depends on selling ads, and adsense is an important part. They are probably not going to do anything drastic that would hurt their adwords revenue. Keep in mind that many people spend money on adwords for "branding" and are happy to break even on ROI or worse.
Ya, I think it will affect most directories because they don't have unique content. I think a directory could do good though if it had an article directory on it too and the sites owner only post unique content and does all the directory submissions themselves and wrote there own descriptions. Another thing a lot of directories dont have is unique text content on category pages. I ha
I can't remember the reference but I seem to recall a few weeks ago that same blog mentioned they were going to crack down on duplicate content and sites with low-quality content. While I applaud the move, when combined with this new announcement it does have me a bit concerned. Reporting websites for "weak content" just makes it too easy for competitors to attack the competition. How long before we see Tweets, blog posts, Facebook and other things with posts saying, "Hey, do me a favor, go to G, search using this phrase and report this site." At some level, I like the idea of creating a blacklist of those sites I don't want to see in the results but by using people's blacklists in some sort of rating system is just asking for people to abuse it. Digging a bit deeper, I can't help but wonder if this is a bit of an admission by the big G that they know they can't fully automate the review of websites. As to any site being "made for adsense", there's such a huge range of quality that to me the term has become a bit vague and misleading. At one end, you have the useless sites with spun garbage or 100% article directory filler and at the other you have well-researched and unique information being monetized through Adsense. It's really a shame that so many are painting both types of sites with the same brush.
Adsense or other advertisement methods (CPA, CPM, etc.) do not work for directories and I think that a MFA directory can't live for a long time. I don't think a directory can make a lot of money from Adsense since the CTR is so low. Because the visitors come to click on the external links or submit their sites. Also most of the directories have less or improper content (i.e., linking to casino sites) and these are clear violation of adsense tos. They ban directories or the whole adsense accounts.