I got to thinking today (I know! Scary thought!) - anyway, I was wondering why Google doesn't seem to be doing more to take care of the MFA (Made For Adsense) site problem on the WWW. Right now, I imagine, there are still *a lot* of people who are new to the web and/or not very good at grokking it. This is why MFA sites get clicks (This goes for other spammy sites too) - the users/visitors can't distinguish content from ads. Now, fast forward a generation or two. By then, I'm sure, most people will be able to see a crappy MFP scraper site and know what's going on. So, MFA people make a lot less money and the problem goes away. Until then, Goog can grab their take of all those newbie clicks, knowing the problem will eventually take care of itself as the market evolves over the next 5 to 20 years. (When those growing up now - the Google Generation ?? - are grown up and consumers most everyone will have lots of experience with the web...) Thoughts?
I think you are looking too far ahead. Who knows how the online advertising industry will be in 5 years from now, let alone 10 years.
True, but it's good to think about it, no? Do you think Google will not be around still? Or someone new will pop up? -kpaul
I'm talking about the scrapers with NO original content. They'll never get better. Just take up bytes and bits... -kpaul
kpaul - its this simple ... MFA, Scrapers or whatever, if there is a click on an ad on the page, then there is interest by the user to see what lies beyond the click. A click is $ for the publisher and Google and a potential sale at the destination URL. There is no smoke and mirrors, if the user is genuinely interested in the product shown in the link, then what does it matter if it came from an MFA, scraper or legit site?
I don't think Google cares too much about MFA sites - they still get paid when people click the MFA site's ads, and if anything MFA site owners are just pouring more money into the AdWord system which again Google loves. Now on the other hand I think Google would be a little more concerned if these MFA sites are rankings in their index, because Google has built their reputation on supplying good quality sites in their index. So that leaves MFA sites really needing to some how feed their sites by means other than organic rankings in search engines. Essentially MFA sites are generally sites that have been made to exploit a gap in a market. They buy traffic low yet get high returns for the advertising they are showing on their sites. So what will stop these MFA sites - more competition on the traffic sources they are using to cheaply feed their sites. I think that you will find in the coming years online marketing will see a huge growth as more and more businesses come online and look to exploit gaps in the market. With more competition the ability to profit from gaps in the advertising market will be reduced and increase emphasis will be placed on organic results - which to be honest are probably the only means on significant sustained long term profits in this game. That's my prediction - so yeah the MFA things will solve itself in the long run, but it based upon the assumption that there will be a signifcant increase in the level of competition online for the present traffic sources - like AdWords etc.
Not our problem, only Google knows... until there are enough complaints from AdWord subscribers, the internet will go on as is... Who is to say what MFA site is good and not... ask the guys at YouTube...
There is a difference. And it's one that will become more important over the next 5 to 10 years. I mean, take your example to the extreme - what good is a www that is 90% MFA (no content sites with adsense)? It might not matter much now, but I see it mattering more in the future as the web browser matures... -kpaul
YouTube has content, though. Seems like there are quite a few definitions of MFA out there. I see MFA as: 1) scraped content 2) garbage machine generated content 3) sites with no content at all What's everyone else's definition of MFA? -kpaul