Under the Radar?

Are the coop ads finger-printable? The only thing that I could see google or other SE trying to use is the class param (in text links) but my guess is that isn't fingerprintable. Apart from that it looks like a normal link and no way of tracking.

 

G can easily track this and manually remove the sites that are participants. let's just cross our fingeers that the G will NOT find out about the network.

 

But still, that class param always matches an easily identifiable pattern, correct? i.e. something like a mix of numbers and chars of approx length 10. Could any google engineer worth his salary could write a regex to match the pattern in 10 seconds? Just a suggestion.. you might consider also randomly not including the class param occasionally. Anyway, great idea and thanks for the service. Where do I make donations

Eric

 

I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate, but isn't the ad network basically just a fancy, small-scale (in terms of links per page), FFA links sort of deal?

I guess it depends on how you look at it... hopefully it stays low on the radar- both so google doesn't notice it and so we have some sort of edge over other competitors

 

I've never gotten an email and I've using the tracker for about a year. <stamps foot>

 

I had a site I have been working on for about 5 months

the site has been stuck, at about 100 for awhile

2 days after adding coop ads unstuck

I don't know if its becasue of coop or that last 1000 recips kicked in but either way

 

I think that the only way for this network to really survive is to keep it low on the radar. when G does notice it will be trouble - I have no doubt.

 

But why do you have no doubt that this is trouble?
Tell us why.
There is no reasonable answer as to why Google would see this as "wrong."

 

Because it is obvious manipulation of search results. Just because there is nothing spammy or wrong or illegal about this doesn't mean Google HAS to approve of it. The whole sandbox thing was a reaction to people buying sitewide links. It'll take awhile for G to notice, and then awhile more for them to decide what to do about it, but G will address this eventually.

As far as your last statement...I could put up a crap page and be at the top of Google results for a mid-range term within a month. *That* is why Google will see this as 'wrong'.

 

if you use the plain text links version and create ads to sites that you don't display ads on it would be awful hard to detect

unless they send a request for the ads files,

is there a way to rename the ads files?

if you rename all the ads files and all instances of the file names will the system still work?

 

Obvious manipulation?
We are putting small text ads on our sites, just like all the other sites.
OK Google doesn't have to approve of it, but what grounds, other than "we don't like it" does Google have to go off of for penalizing these types of networks? Google tries to show relevant results, if they use anchor text and # of links as a basis then this will keep working, until then, there isn't much to do about it.

Well if it's a crap page, then why does Google's algo see it fit to put at the top of the results? If anything this is making Google think harder about their algo. Which will happen sooner or later, it just takes something like this to challenge the system. If nobody found ways around things we'd still be using meta tags as the most releveant info.

I understand where you are coming from, and I agree that this is utilizing a specific key element in the algo, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means there might be too much emphasis on those specific elements. I'm sure Google has seen the full utilization of anchor text and lots of links before. (ie. miserable failure, creation of the "sandbox", etc.)

 

thank you. there is your answer. the point being is that there is an obvious reason for this network and it is not to generate traffic via these links. it is to manipulate the SERPs, plain and simple. any such manipulation is against the G TOS. again, for this to survive, keep it under the radar.

 

I to have gotten more than a few direct referrals (actual clicks thorugh links) from these ads. It's not like they are hidden.

 

hmm.... I guess then these "success stories" will be about how many clicks/sales we got from traffic directed from the links? or will these stories be about what gains in SEPRs were made via using these links? I dont see any yet of the former and I doubt that we will. it's plain and simple, this network's purpose is to gain ranks in the SERPs by manipulating the algo and threfore the natural SE results. any such manipulation is clearly agains the G's TOS.

again, don't get me wrong here. I use the network and I like what it does - but don't be fooled, it must stay under the radar. just take a good look at some other forums and you will see how much effort goes into silence. my effort here is to keep this alive, and the only way to do this is to stay away from any publicity.