Recently, Janeth posted a lively thread about her experience with the AdSense program.

For the most part it went about as those threads do typically. You have a polarization of the posters and it turns into a pro-google vs. anti-google kind of thing (with a few personal insults peppered in for good measure).

It is with that understanding that I would submit for your consideration the following:

I am not anti-Google. I am not pro-Google. I have met and liked more people from Google than I have any other search engine. I use their products extensively and indeed, in many cases, exclusively. I do not run, own, operate or manage any sites participating in the AdSense program.

That established, let me go over a few points of fact. There are many sites created solely for the purpose of resulting in search queries for AdSense clicks.

This is pretty well indisputable. Do a search for just about anything and somewhere within the resultset you are going to run into a site that has obviously been created for no reason other than resulting for that query so it can serve you an AdSense ad. If anybody cares to dispute this as fact, I suppose I can dig up a link or 50 for you with relative ease, but it's typically the case that both opponents and proponents of Google can agree upon this as 'fact'. In short, there do exist, in significant numbers, sites whose sole function is to be an AdSense result.

The degree to which these sites serve any other purpose, function or benefit is sometimes a matter of debate and indeed, some of them are more 'useful' than others. At the end of the day though, we (being the savvy Internet types we are) can pick these sites out with our eyes closed.

Now, if indeed it is the case that these sites exist, the question then becomes two fold. First, could and should Google be doing a better job of identifying these sites? Second, if Google can and should identify these types of site more effectively and declines to do so, is that evil, or just smart business?

It seems on one hand, that the existence of these sites -at some point, assuming people keep making more and more and more of them, would genuinely start to degrade Google's resultset to the point that they are no longer 'the best'. If everything you search for results in a bunch of these junky AdSense sites, then you are going to start looking for a new search engine. Google no doubt realizes this, so it's entirely logical to assume, understanding the risk, they would take steps to cap or somehow limit the number of these sites in their results.

Well, that sounds good and fine and seems reasonable enough. But here's the rub. If Google has the capacity to control how many and what quality of AdSense enabled sites result in their SERPs, and they only do it on the basis that not doing so would jeopardize their resultset and therefore their userbase, then two things have happened.

First, they have not stuck to their strictly algo-based relevance definition in search results that they made their name on. If, after all, a critical mass of these junk sites accumulate in their SERPs, the algo would have to be altered and/or the SERPs would have to be otherwise manipulated.

Second, the extent to which they allow these junky AdSense sites to accumulate up to a point where they would be compelled to act - but have not yet acted would at best be tantamount to a case of compromised principles and at worst, flat out hypocricy.

Your thoughts?

__________________
WebProNews Videos