AdSense Sites, ClickFraud etc... etc...

[Andilinks]

That "unatural bias" is a blessing. You can be sure that your site gets the same chances as any other site.

Yes, absolutely--in most cases. We can look at the ODP for examples human editing at its worst (online anyway). Some ODP categories are edited well, but those that are not, ummm.... really suck.

But the bias is a drawback when it comes to weeding out spam because the spammers are using human intelligence to outwit the algorithm, not a fair match in 2006.

My own experience seems to infer that there is some minimal human editing though. Google has its own facilities in Bangalore and other third world countries, they'd probably do their own hiring rather than sub-contract. But that's just speculation on my part. I think the "Big Daddy" infrastructure enabled this, and I think we will see a more sophisticated despamification in the future as this develops to covers more of the index. More speculation.

[mike]

Originally Posted by jaydilla

actually google subcontracts to people like in india and has them review search query results.....look for spam sites, and remove them from their index. So as much as they use to not like to use human intervention, google will do whatever it takes to get their results relevant, including out-sourcing to othe countries to manually remove spam from their serps.

Now, that is news to me. Do you have any way of substantiating this claim? If you do, or know of anyone who can, I'd really love to talk to them for a few minutes.

If what you say is true, it is completely contrary to Google SOP.

[jaydilla]

sure here at this url is a screenshot of instructions to the evaluators from google. this screenshot was taken while violating a disclosure agreement between a evaluator and google. google guy mentioned that it was a violation of the disclosure agreement, which leads me to believe the screen shot is real. The url is here. http://www.searchbistro.com/index.ph...Whitelist.html

Also aaron wall mentions it here http://www.seobook.com/archives/000915.shtml
and also here
http://www.seobook.com/archives/000917.shtml

Need anything else give me a hollar.

[mike]

Wow. That is certainly interesting. The reason it's such a surprise to me is that during this past spring's media day at Google, the conversation at one point turned to Google news.

The nutshell version of the discussion was basically they(Google) were, at one point, considering options for how to manage news sources/headlines on Google News. The speaker (I cant remember who now) actually mentioned that the idea of using humans to make judgement calls for Google News sources/headlines was put down immediately from the very tip top of Google (meaning Brin and/or Page) because it was insisted that an algorithmic solution be adopted for a number of reasons like scalability and objectivity etc...

At any rate, I remember coming out of there with a really strong impression that these guys are ALL about the algo.

I'm not ready to get to work on my own tinfoil hat or anything, but I tell you... sometimes I find myself thinking about Google and the implications of Google, and where and what Google could potentially be/do down the road -- makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

[Andilinks]

Originally Posted by mike

...sometimes I find myself thinking about Google and the implications of Google, and where and what Google could potentially be/do down the road -- makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Well, they absolutely are at the cutting edge of machine intelligence and wherever that may lead. I don't find this scary at all, I find it very exciting having had mostly positive experiences with Google myself.

But it could admittedly take a scary turn somewhere down that road. I have had a brief glimpse of the dark side too.

edited for spelling, clarity

[jaydilla]

google i think will make a mve to by the linux operating system next. My sources...who i can't say, led me to believe this will be done within a few more years. And don't expect any stock splits soon on google either.

[kgun]

Did you read the article in my post above and noted this link

Troubling findings on how some third parties detect click fraud

and this document

How Fcititious Clicks Occur in Third-Pary Click Fraud Audit Reports?

By:
Click Quality Team Google, Inc. August 8, 2006.

[khurramali]

To make a successful Adsence website. (a website which earns money by displaying adsence ads) It has to be a completely useless.

Let me explain, I see that only my websites that are displaying products but not selling them (dummy products) are earning through adsence.

The reason, when the visitor visits my websites, he sees that the products are not for sale, so he clicks the ads and earns a few cents for me.

But if he gets the content which he is looking for then he just closes the window after reading the content.

So to make a successful adsence website, it has to be completely crap.

This is the business model which is the cause of all the problems, that people are making websites that are made for generating income through Adsence and not complimenting their websites with adsence.

Even click frauds are somewhat based on similiar pattern.

One possibility of correcting the situation is a review of every website by good staff which wants to display google adsence ads, as things stand now, you only need one ethical website to participate into the program, then you can display the ads on spammy websites without any problem.

But if there is a constant review of the websites which participate in adsence (like once every 3 months) will definately bring the situation under control.

Google needs to put its foot down on people abusing Adsence program, I wonder why google is over looking this problem, or they just want to over look it becuase it is their bread and butter.

I understand this cannot be done by the crawler or bot, you need a human to do this and google does not like human editors, they like to automate everything, but there are just somethings which a bot cannot do.

[NameCritic]

Originally Posted by khurramali

To make a successful Adsence website. (a website which earns money by displaying adsence ads) It has to be a completely useless.

Let me explain, I see that only my websites that are displaying products but not selling them (dummy products) are earning through adsence.

The reason, when the visitor visits my websites, he sees that the products are not for sale, so he clicks the ads and earns a few cents for me.

But if he gets the content which he is looking for then he just closes the window after reading the content.

So to make a successful adsence website, it has to be completely crap.

This is the business model which is the cause of all the problems, that people are making websites that are made for generating income through Adsence and not complimenting their websites with adsence.

Even click frauds are somewhat based on similiar pattern.

One possibility of correcting the situation is a review of every website by good staff which wants to display google adsence ads, as things stand now, you only need one ethical website to participate into the program, then you can display the ads on spammy websites without any problem.

But if there is a constant review of the websites which participate in adsence (like once every 3 months) will definately bring the situation under control.

Google needs to put its foot down on people abusing Adsence program, I wonder why google is over looking this problem, or they just want to over look it becuase it is their bread and butter.

I understand this cannot be done by the crawler or bot, you need a human to do this and google does not like human editors, they like to automate everything, but there are just somethings which a bot cannot do.

Now I do want this to happen as well. I'd love to see it cleaned up, but to do so with human editors is impossible.

I could put up 30 or 100 article directories in less than a week with each having 30,000 article pages with google adsense in them.

Google would have to review every page to see if it breaks tos. How many humans does it take to change an adsense website?

More sites will be created than they could ever review.

Now if you had to submit every page you wanted to put adsense on it would work except it would be like a year-long waiting list.

[Andilinks]

Originally Posted by khurramali

So to make a successful adsence website, it has to be completely crap.

It certainly is possible to make such a website and I don't doubt that you've done so, a lot of worthless scammers have.

But declaring that everyone is like yourself is an irresponsible lie. I don't know how you can possibly be so ill informed so I can only assume that you have some ulterior motive(s). You are not alone, many people who cannot or won't make an honest living tell disparaging lies about those who can and do.

[freehits]

What khurramali says was somewhat similar to what was discussed by Greg Boser and Shoemoney on a past radio broadcast regarding giving a vistor very little to compete with ads.

They had said an old trick they had 'seen' was creating an SQL error on the page during the key clicking hours 2-3 hours per day, thus leaving only the ads on the page "by accident"

I think step #1 may be just to get the serps right then worry about the extended new adsense industry popping up.

I search "lease to own wilmington"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...own+wilmington

I get 7 redirect machine generated pages today of the TOP 10 sites, and this is a 1.7 million result real estate search.

Time to get rid of this fool "trusting a domain" garbage, this action alone would put the ball back in the court of needing content.

hometown.aol.de/yaluoji/yipin571194.html
ourworld-top.cs.com/sacuang/jieke7611194.html
usuarios.lycos.es/mpagees/process-1194.html
ourworld-top.cs.com/duo5i5j/ehome3095.html
home.njau.edu.cn/~zuotian/seeyou-1194.html
faq.s55.xrea.com/jandier/tuan6421194.html
ourworld.compuserve.nl/huibaiping/jbean1194.html

[freehits]

Originally Posted by mike

I'm not ready to get to work on my own tinfoil hat or anything

thats funny

But if this is true doesnt this change the verdict on alot of "its not us its the algo" defenses used in legal cases?

And cant these employees go on to win millions on quiz gameshows?....this must be a very cool job for someone with a good memory and a naturally curious personality, searching topics all day.

[bloxar]

Dear Andilinks

I think you over react with this unfortunately sentence:

But declaring that everyone is like yourself is an irresponsible lie. I don't know how you can possibly be so ill informed so I can only assume that you have some ulterior motive(s). You are not alone, many people who cannot or won't make an honest living tell disparaging lies about those who can and do.

This sounds to me a little bit neo Nazy. Why kill the postman? Because I don’t like the letter?...

The dear Bobby Parsons, owner of Godaddy.com an American company is doing exactly the same as khurramali said, he is promoting his free service of parking domain and invite you to share revenue from ads campaigns.

And guess what! He shows pages with only publicity from Adsence and his own ads on these domains, no content at all. Well let’s say useful content to be precise.

Take a look of the code in these pages and you will see what I am talking about.

Don’t you think that Google knows that, write to Google and ask to remove Bobby Parsons from Adsence program. Will you? May be they will remove your site before touch dear Bobby.

Do you think that Bob is ill informed as you said? Or is a poor guy that cannot make a honest living?

So this is a business and business is to make money if you don’t understand this better start a charity web site in Cuba.

..........

[Andilinks]

Originally Posted by bloxar

Dear Andilinks

I think you over react with this unfortunately sentence:

But declaring that everyone is like yourself is an irresponsible lie. I don't know how you can possibly be so ill informed so I can only assume that you have some ulterior motive(s). You are not alone, many people who cannot or won't make an honest living tell disparaging lies about those who can and do.

This sounds to me a little bit neo Nazy. Why kill the postman? Because I don’t like the letter?...

The dear Bobby Parsons, owner of Godaddy.com an American company is doing exactly the same as khurramali said, he is promoting his free service of parking domain and invite you to share revenue from ads campaigns.

And guess what! He shows pages with only publicity from Adsence and his own ads on these domains, no content at all. Well let’s say useful content to be precise.

Take a look of the code in these pages and you will see what I am talking about.

Don’t you think that Google knows that, write to Google and ask to remove Bobby Parsons from Adsence program. Will you? May be they will remove your site before touch dear Bobby.

Do you think that Bob is ill informed as you said? Or is a poor guy that cannot make a honest living?

So this is a business and business is to make money if you don’t understand this better start a charity web site in Cuba.

..........

I stand by what I said and think your incoherent ramblings accusing me first of being a Nazi and then a Communist do not even deserve the energy I'm using to craft this perfunctory answer.

[khurramali]

Originally Posted by freehits

What khurramali says was somewhat similar to what was discussed by Greg Boser and Shoemoney on a past radio broadcast regarding giving a vistor very little to compete with ads.

You are right, that is where i got the central idea from.

[khurramali]

Originally Posted by NameCritic

Google would have to review every page to see if it breaks tos. How many humans does it take to change an adsense website?

More sites will be created than they could ever review.

Now if you had to submit every page you wanted to put adsense on it would work except it would be like a year-long waiting list.

Originally Posted by NameCritic

Now I do want this to happen as well. I'd love to see it cleaned up, but to do so with human editors is impossible.

There are some checks that only Humans can implement, Spammers are able to fool Google bots right and left. I am not asking Google to pay from its own pockets. This is not 1999 and search engine are not struggling anymore. They are earning billions of dollars and can spend some of that money to assure the advertisers that Google is serious about adsence abusers.

It might take a human 10 second or less to figure out if a website is crap or not, so in a day, one editor can check 1000 websites without any problem.

Google will not hire people to check everypage, they can first have their bots flag the websites and forward to an editor if the bot finds the slightest smell of corruption.

[Andilinks]

Originally Posted by khurramali

It might take a human 10 second or less to figure out if a website is crap or not, so in a day, one editor can check 1000 websites without any problem.

So now you concede that all AdSense sites are not necessarily crap? Why oh why did you make such an outrageously insulting and false assertion?

[khurramali]

Originally Posted by Andilinks

It certainly is possible to make such a website and I don't doubt that you've done so, a lot of worthless scammers have.

But declaring that everyone is like yourself is an irresponsible lie. I don't know how you can possibly be so ill informed so I can only assume that you have some ulterior motive(s). You are not alone, many people who cannot or won't make an honest living tell disparaging lies about those who can and do.

I am not a spammer and I do not engage in click frauds etc etc.

some of my websites have been under development and i have not been able to complete them, as a result of these experiments, I arrived at my conclusion.

I did not intent to declare that everyone participating in the adsence program are spamming, it was my observation that the people / companies making big bucks are spamming.

If you need proof then you should check out Benjamin Edelman at http://www.benedelman.org/ and his research into the spyware money trail.

I know that the search engines cannot eliminate spam / click frauds 100 percent. But you will see instances where they have closed their eyes over this, remember BMW being banned by google, and within a week they were back in. Now would you consider Google being Bias.

[Andilinks]

I do not deny that there is rampant corruption. But that gives you no license to insult every AdSense site and say that they must be crap.

I forgive you for making this false and outrageous statement, but I urge you to be more careful when making sweeping generalizations.

And I apologize for insinuating that you are a worthless spamming crook, you're not. You're apparently just a careless writer.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by khurramali

To make a successful Adsence website. (a website which earns money by displaying adsence ads) It has to be a completely useless.

Please, do not take everything literally. Read between the lines.

[Andilinks]

Please, do not take everything literally. Read between the lines.

I disagree. People should say what they mean and mean what they say. I should not have to be a mind-reader. Recklessly saying that all AdSense sites are worthless is irresponsible and I will not stand for it.

Reading between the lines, or assuming that everyone does will lead to more trouble than you can imagine, it is very dangerous. Don't do it.

[kgun]

Andi, then I remind you of the following sentence from "Reminiscence of a Stock Operator" (excellent book) by Edwin Lefevre.

Page 60 in my edition:

"He said that the only thing that didn't lie because it simply couldn't was mathematics."

I, at least, did not interpret his words literally.

Don't read between the lines (literally tracks). A train may arrive :-)

[Andilinks]

Kjell Gunnar Bleivik you are degrading the value of all communication. While I'll concede that there may be no integrity to the communications of some, to assume that for all and to accept it admits dishonesty to all discourse.

If the line is not drawn somewhere then no one can be trusted. We are all responsible for our own words. If you are saying that your own words cannot be trusted I can accept that but making that generalization to all communications eliminates logic and makes liars of everyone.

[mike]

Anyhoo....

--Back on topic? --

You know... AdSense, Clickfraud etc.....

Happy to talk these other subjects, but make a new thread please.

[Tom O'Leary]

I SUPPOSE GOOGLE cannot police AdSense sites to the point of eliminating them. It's like telling someone to stop spam. But this discussion brings up good points. Wouldn't we all love an Internet that didn't contain meaningless directory sites and advertising landfills?! But, because Google's competitors can't stop it either, there is no danger of users shifting to another engine (for that reason anyway.)

Personally, I don't come across too many AdSense-only sites when clicking on first page results. There might be one that sneaks in there from time to time, but I think that, without relevant keyword content, such sites struggle to consistently make the front page.

But doesn't everyone have the right to create and host a money-making site if they want to? Where do we draw the line? Personally, I find most amateur poets dreadful. Should we have Google save us from them as well? Perhaps they could figure out some "bad-meter" algorithm that would sort that out.

All the best

Tom

[EditFast]

When AdSense first came on the scene I was quoted by many cellar-pub dwellers as saying "AdSense--NonSense! I don't get it!"

I could never understand why anyone would want to put ads from competitors on a site which was trying to attract, not send away, new and returning clients. I stayed away from the AdSense game for a long time simply because I wanted to KEEP the clients I worked so hard to get to my site. I also refuse to use banner ads or any type of advertising except for my own sites. Call it a control issue if you will, but I am keeping my clients!

In the beginning, I predicted that spam sites would pop up everywhere and that they would be the ruin of the search engines (that was, perhaps, an exaggeration since the search engines will never disappear) because they specifically try to trick search engines into placing their site higher in the rankings while intentionally not providing any content...

I don't get it, and never have.

Google seems to be destroying their own ability to provide the service they set out to provide originally. These days, when I do a search, if I go through the list of results, (for almost any keyword) eventually I will come up with a site that is nothing but ads, loaded with keywords, and no content. These are often on the first page of results. This is frustrating for me and it is also what Google has been trying to avoid for years. They even have an elaborate punishment system for search engine spamming sites. Why are they now promoting the creation of this type of site?

I don't get it!

After wondering and watching for several months and learning that I could control, to a certain extent, what type of ads were displayed on my site allowing me to eliminate ads coming from my direct competitors, I broke down and placed some ads in a conspicuous place on my main site. http://editfast.com They fit well with the decor and were not too obnoxiously "ads". I waited and waited and each day I eliminated another competitor's ad with a rousing shout to the god of commerce. I was caught up in the AdSense/NonSense maze, feeling like I was doing something amazingly capitalist...and winning!

After a few weeks of shouting I had a sore throat and very, very mundane ads appearing which had nothing to do with my site, and which would not attract clicks from the kind of people who come to my site. But I refused to let my competitors use the hard earned dollars and time I had spent in optimizing my site content for specific keywords so that they could reap the benefits.

Then I noticed something drastically wrong. My site was slowly going down in the search engine rankings. the ads being displayed were messing up the content and optimization of the site!

After four months of playing the NonSense game, I removed all trace of the ads. Within six weeks my site was back where it had been originally in the search rankings!

I calculated my lost income due to the lower rankings and arrived at a very subjective figure of US $4000. Eight months after removing the AdSense ads I received a check from Google for US $100.32 Four months of hard work, observation, testing, manipulation, and scheming did not make me a millionaire, but it did give me the opportunity to write here and say...

"I DON'T GET IT!! (and I don't want it!)"

[DrTandem1]

Lion: I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do! I do! I do! I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do! I do! I do! I do!

Witch: You'll believe in more than that before I'm finished with you.

[mike]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

Lion: I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do! I do! I do! I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do! I do! I do! I do!

Witch: You'll believe in more than that before I'm finished with you.

Well in, sir. Hats off to you.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by mike

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.


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?

Back to the report I mentioned above:
How Fcititious Clicks Occur in Third-Pary Click Fraud Audit Reports

Some conclusions:
1. You can not make polls, ask about click fraud, average that rate and call that the click fraud rate. That is analogous to estimating crime rates by asking some residents how much crime they think there is.

2. Google does not agree on the presence of fictitious clicks in third-party reports since they think there are flaws in the reports. They can not agree on methods to detect click fraud.

3. There has been a dramatic over estimation of click frauds by third party auditing firms because of engineering and accounting issues, (n)double countings.

[Jason (Expletia)]

khurramali wrote:
So to make a successful adsence website, it has to be completely crap.


I disagree with the previous Quote; I have been playing with possibilities for my future revenue primarily advertising. I found that it is possible to make adsence pay without making a completely useless site, quite the opposite in fact!

I have found the best paying site is Fun, Informative & Useful and the highest revenue earner is adsence. This appears to be there good content match, thus more clicks.

Please note that the example is a new site with no advertising, thus it is still quiet and the revenue is still low. Fortunately with my previous luck an income does not matter, but an interesting fact is that only 34% this month are new visitors from search engines, the rest are returning. They would not do this with adsence Spam sites!

Example www.expletia.co.uk

Adsence Revenue yesterday $4.09
201 visits, 609 pages & 2026 hits.

I like many others had been previously earning good money with online sales. It became unprofitable through the $0.10 to $1.00 rise in clicks with both Google & Yahoo, that along with the popularity and competition with ebay.

Trouble is if you don't pay the high rates you’re not on page 1 and your not getting the customers. I tried at the lower rates and dropped off page 1 and got virtually no clicks. I tried advertising elsewhere with adsence, I got no shortage of clicks just very little sales! I also advertised with adsence competitors & banners, text links etc to no avail.

In my experience I found that advertising just on Google near to the top of page 1 was the most profitable, although this was also the most expensive method. The only problems that I found there was competitors multiple clicks and at $1.00 + a click! Check this regular! Google will reimburse you from your competitors acc if YOU find this!

[jnoneiliv1]

Thanks to the opening post and a couple of good posts at the top, I've voted with my feet and opted out of the Content Network for my Adwords Ads.

I don't like affiliate sites, I'm glad Google gives me the option, and I'm glad to get good ideas from this forum. Keep up the good work.

Cheers.