Yes, spdude, I have no problems admitting when I'm wrong. And it appears that in this case I am wrong. Horribly wrong. Imran; Please accept my sincere and humble apologies for slandering you and your site. I found I was completely wrong after more thorough research on my end.. Folks; he's not cloaking or doing anything wrong - not even in Googles eyes.
You may be wrong but you shouldn't really be apologizing. The fact STILL remains, as it did when I started this thread and asked the question originally.. HOW WAS THE SITE SHOWING 7 MESO ads with out the letters M-E-S-O on the site anywhere. Without ANY cancer-related text on the site anwyhere.. No keywords, no descriptions.. NOTHING NADA. So until someone provides some actual reason that is WITHIN the TOS as to why this happened, I am not apologizing for anything. Still guilty as charged in my opinion. I had to go back through the last few pages to see if some kind of miracle evidence came up and proved that Imran was a victim of circumstance. Going back over and over, squinting my eyes, turning up my monitor.. None of these things had any effect, there is still not a shred of anything that supports any kind of legal reason why the website behaved the way it did when visited. So if someone wants to answer the original question in this thread, and provide some evidence it is possible to happen and still be within the TOS, then I am all eyes. But so far nobody has come close to doing any such thing. So the facts remain the same.
This was covered earlier in this very thread. Let me tell you EXACTLY how the "M-E-S-O" ads appeared on the page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ On the 24th of August (or slightly before this date) a listing was added into the directory with about three lines of text about meso.. Google made a cache of the page on the 24th and the Mediabot also visited the page around this time. Later more listings were added to the directory and the meso listing got pushed off the home page. The mediabot was still serving meso ads.. even after this listing moved off the home page. You visited the page after the listing got pushed off the home page BUT BEFORE the media bot had time to re-visit the site and assign it a new theme. As I stated above, this has been mentioned in this thread at least a couple of times.
I'd mention something about why this thread proves it's nearly always best to mind your own business and ignore what's going on with other sites, but I'd just end up with more reds, and quite frankly I hate the colour. Pete
I'm an intelligent person, what are you insinuating sir. Hey, I used to use the nickname spdude a while back.. where did you get that from? I chose mine a few years back 'cos I used to be a South Park nut. Still watch it, when it's airing. Not suprisingly my nick in here is GADUDE then, eh. Pete
That's not what my research showed. I do now what's going on but to the nekkid eye, as it were, it would appear like hanky panky, or caching like you say. It's not up to me to say; so that's all I'm gonna say on the subject. And yes, aeiouy, I do owe an apology. I truly do.
'Tis a good job no-one mailed Google in a panic of AdSense Police Indignation Frenzy and they suspended his account while 'investigating' .. that could of been a real bummer! Pete
I went over all of the posts here, and I've come to the conclusion that the site in question is in fact employing some type of hidden code that brings up an ad that has nothing to do with the on page content (so long as you aren't masking your UA). I know this because I used to do cloaking. I never cloaked for Google AdSense (partly because I'm not willing to screw with them), but these are common complaints and symptoms of cloaking. Based upon the initial view of the page and it's source code (before the owner of the site came onto the scene) there was absolutely zero evidence of any relevant references made on the page itself to create the ads that were showing up. If the keyword theme for Mesothelioma didn't go for $70 a click would these ads be showing up on this page? I doubt it. It's not a type of keyword you can throw around without someone stopping and saying "what's that have to do with anything". It's also not a term people throw around loosely in conversation. So the original question of this thread was "Why are mesothelioma or just unrelated ads showing up on a page that has NOTHING to do with the topic of the page?". The answer was plain and simple, someone used a different tactic to do so. You can call it cloaking, or blackhat tactics, or cheating or whatever you like, but really it doesn't matter, because the answer is quite obvious (even though the page owner refuses to acknowledge it). In the end, whether he was cheating or not doesn't really make a difference to me, and it's not something that offends me, because I'm a strong believer that when you figure out a loophole, you should exploit the hell out of it for yourself and use it as an educational tool as well as a way to extract a maximum profit. If Google catches him, yes, he will most probably be banned for life, but if they don't, more power to him for figuring a way around the giant Google AdSense monster.
I enjoyed this thread throughouly, and I must say it is a prime and perfect example of why we should not jump to conclusions as it concerns adsense enabled sites. Let google do their job. They are a bit smarter than most of us, and hire only the smartest. In the end, what good does having ads for Mesothelioma on a site do when the person looking at the site was probably not looking for Mesothelioma ads to begin with. What is the real likelyhood they are going to click on links not relevant to what they were there for in the first place? BTW, there are no, or have there ever been a $70 payout for a mesothelioma click. My 2 cents.
Fair enough... but I know of NO legitimate way to hide text from the page source that counts towards ad display. The fact that it appears like hanky panky to the naked eye, likely makes it hanky panky. I am still waiting for someone to enlighten me as to how it is possible without breaking the TOS. Nobody has done that.
You're not exactly correct there.. If the advertiser is paying $70 for the click, the publisher is bound to get at least $40 for the click itself. That's pretty substantial if you ask me.
Sorry that is just not true. That "$70" is the "maximum" bid the advertiser would pay for a click, however, this assumes there is someone else that is willing to bid as high or pretty damn close to it and so on. It rarely happens, if ever. It's not unheard of to see a few bucks a click out of it, but $70? Doubtful, especially with mesothelioma. I really wish "Mythbusters" would do a "meso" keyword click myth. There is a clear difference between the "maximum bid" and what the actual click through payout is. If every advertiser was bidding out at $70 or close to it, then yes, you would likely see $70 or close to it per click. But when the majority are bidding say between 5 cents and 3 bucks, the norm is to see anywhere in between that level, and never above it. If the max is $70 and everyone below that is bidding up to 3 bucks, the "$70" bidder is gonna be paying out $3, not $70. If it worked the way you describe I would not be typing this right now. I'd be gladly pumping $3/gal gas into my H4.