Some people is accusing MFA (Made For Adsense, meaning a website is specially made for displaying adsense and is usually lack of useful content). However I am on MFA side. I hate the act of misleading and force clicking instead. MFA, as long as it is ethical and legal, is fine. It is simply a great marketing conduct. It is made for make as much as possible money from the ads ethically and legally. The advertiser got what they want, too. People come to MFA site, be interested in the ads and click on it intentionally. I have done MFA experiences myself. It is not that everybody will click on the ads. If your site design is poor, ads and content are not match or visitor is not targeted, THEY WILL CLOSE THE PAGE IMMEDIATLY AND NEVER CLICK ON THE ADS (believe me!). Let's say when I am looking for an ebook on how to make money online, I won't click the ads on a MFA site if the MFA site looks too crapy (I am afraid of virus and spy ware!), I won't click the ads on a MFA site if the MFA site is talking about breast enlargement. But if I see a MFA site who is writing about how to make money online, most probably I will click on the ads if the ads attract me. Actually, I got to know Perry Marshall's website through his ads which was displayed on a MFA site and I made the purchase after two months. So, when a click on ethical and legal MFA is made, it is an targetted visitor who is interested in the ads and perform the click himself. Read the full story in my blog: http:// bepatientberich.blogspot.com/2006/08/speak-for-mfa.html (i coun't post a live link yet, anybody can help?)
Look at it from the advertiser point of view. MFA clicks are the worst converting clicks you can get. Most MFA sites main goal (only goal) is the click, so the site is horribly designed so the user is almost forced to click the ad. Is that going to convert for the advertiser? Probably not. Someone escaping from the site is not a motivated buyer.
Aslong as the MFA site has content good for the reader and not only pointed twords ads I don't see why there bad..
MFA don't have content, that why they're bad. If they got good content, they are not MFA, they are sites with good content and ads. Which is not bad.
i have some semi MFA pages which means i put up relevant RSS feeds as content. And i think it's not so bad afterall. at least make the effort to put relevant content on the pages. It just doesnt look right with purely ads on the page and nothing else to read!
I think there's a thin line between MFA and "good site". I have sites with 100% original content which my users like, but they do contain adsense on all the article pages too - MFA? I think not. The real MFA sites in my opinion contain re-used content from the article directories, RSS and perhaps some amazon feed. All content has been published and nothing original on those sites --> MFA. Thats where the bad rep comes from I think, no originality, usually bad design, visitors gets the hell out and like said above, the endresult is not motivated buyers, but ppl looking for a place where they can get the info they need.
lorien1973, I am interested, do you have any hard evidence to back up that statement? Obviously, if a publisher's page is getting close to a 100 percent click through ratio then the advertisers are getting fairly unfiltered traffic, but even then the traffic has been filtered to arrive at the publisher page (through SERPs or PPC) and filtered again through the MFA's visitor picking a particular ad out of the 4 or 8 that are showing. If the traffic is non converting, it is my understanding that Google's smart pricing will discount the clicks for advertisers. If Google has set this up correctly, one would hope that it a MFA click should provide the same cost per conversion for advertisers as any other click.
BTW, I am not necessarily questioning what you said. Just I have heard people say this quite a few times, and it would be good to have evidence that supports or refutes it.
Hey Guys, I do not want to spread oil to a recent fire, but... as a marketing professional, I follow the opinion, that ads - if clearly related to a definated search - are also a form of related content. If you do have content (results) to a clients search - no matter if content or ads - it will justify a client / surfers search. Agreed, there are bad examples of MFA. But if you do it "white hat", I do not think it is *unethical* or whatever you will call it. If advertisements are unethical in any way, every 10sec. adblock in American TV would be kinda spam, isn't it? If you publish MFA sites related to a query, they definately are related for the searcher. Of course, if you still add content to the site, this will be *more* helpful. But reducing this content to the max will just improve CTR to it's best. Who will blame anyone to maximize it's revenues? I'm only half in MFA business. The other way is pure B2B so I do know both worlds and can argue for or against both of them... I'd be interested in your opinions Cheers Emrys PS: Pure MFA - if really related to a query - will have the best conversion rates for advertisers... Just read a few of the related postings about this issue in different forums...