Maybe they should put me in charge of Google, well at least their Content Network department. Last year I went on a little rant regarding the poor quality of Google’s Content network and the fact that Google loves splogs and a year later Google announces plans to clean up their Content Network by starting to shut down Made-for-Adsense (MFA) sites. A step in the right direction for sure but by no means the purification of the content network.

I applaud Google for finally taking an action rather then completely and consistently turning a blind eye to it all but they still have a ways to go. There are tons and tons of extremely low quality sites out there that are not participating in Adwords Arbitrage but are too poor in quality for me to ever put my ads on but they continue to display Adsense ads.

So go ahead and put me in charge of the Content Network division and I’ll show you how to really clean it up. Now if I could only get my dogs to listen to me like this!

In a recent NY Time article, Google let the cat out of the bag that in the upcoming months they will now show the URLs where your ads appear if you are part of the content network.

Jensense has good thoughts on the topic from multiple perspectives but from an advertisers point of view I think this is great. Given the low quality of Google’s content network (anyone can get approved for Adsense) and the fact that you have no idea where your ads will be showing, the chance for click fraud is extremely high. It is one reason that I have contended that MSN’s Content network would be more successful from an advertiser point of view based solely on the quality of sites the ads will appear (mostly MSN owned sites).

This is a big step for Google because it is shortening the time needed to run a quality content network campaign which will allow more advertisers to utilize the content network (ie Adsense). Something I would never consider until this report comes along. More on TechMeme

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The blogosphere is a buzz about Google Adsense policy update and I say Big Whoop. Unless Google really starts taking a fighting stance against the crap that fills up their content network and stops loving splogs, I will continue to not use content network for myself and my clients. They continue to chase dollars and I continue to be disappointed.

I forgot to mention, I posted more on this on mShift

A “Splog” by definition of someone on the Interweb is a Blog set up to steal your content and put Google Adsense ads on their in hopes to get a few clicks. I completely 100% blame Google for the whole Splog movement. I can see the conversation of the Google brain trust now “What a great idea, lets pair our insanely easy blog software with our incredibly easy ad network, that will be a great idea for high quality content for advertisers.” Splogs are the bane of Google’s Content Network and about 99% of the reason that I (and many other wise paid search managers) will not use the content network for our advertising dollars. The quality of the sites is just too poor.

For a while, Google was trying to do something about this low quality and would have feedback link on their ads that were placed on domains. Not only have they removed that feedback link, they make it near impossible to report one of these splogs. I noticed someone stealing my content and using it for a splog so I dug up the feedback link on Google’s site and submitted my complaint. 6 days later I get a response from Google on how to take care of the problem.

Here is the original message I sent to Google

Original Message Follows:
————————
From: “Evan Roberts”
Subject: AdSense Policy Violation
Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 07:59:07 -0500

http://sexual-instruction.wellnesscare.biz/48385/

Stole my content and put irrelevant ads on it

there are a whole list of the same site on
Link

To which they responded:

Google AdSense to me

Hello Evan,

It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website: http://www.copyright.gov/) and other applicable intellectual property laws. In this case, this means that if we receive proper notice of infringement, we will forward that notice to the responsible web site publisher.

To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication (by fax or regular mail, not by email) that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that pursuant to that Act, you may be liable to the alleged infringer for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that you own an item when you in fact do not. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether you have the right to request removal from our service, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.

To expedite our ability to process your request, please use the following format (including section numbers):

1. Identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed upon. For example, “The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://www.legal.com/legal_page.html.”

2. Identify the material that you claim is infringing upon the copyrighted work listed in item #1 above. You must identify each page that allegedly contains infringing material by providing its URL.

3. Provide information reasonably sufficient to permit Google to contact you (email address is preferred).

4. Include the following statement: “I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above on the allegedly infringing web pages is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.”

5. Include the following statement: “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”

6. Sign the paper.

7. Send the written communication to the following address:

Google, Inc.
Attn: AdSense Support, DMCA complaints
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043

OR Fax to:

(650) 618-8507, Attn: AdSense Support, DMCA complaints

Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Winnie
The Google AdSense Team

I responded to Winnie and I’m sure I’ll get some canned response about how they take their quality control seriously, but I think that whole process is a little absurd. They want me to physically write a letter to them but in return they want to email me a response!? Bogus. If you look at these sites who take a snippet of my content and throw ads all over it, its pretty obvious where the content is originated.

The thing is, I don’t even care that they are using my content, my concern is Google’s lackadaisical attitude towards the quality of their content network. Why would they not be interested in shutting down these low quality sites? Why would they remove the feedback link from their ads? One word. Money. The content network and Adsense make so much money for Google that instead of doing the ethical thing and taking care of this problem that they have created, they make the process so unnecessarily ridiculous that no one would ever bother jumping through all those hoops.

The lack of editorial control is one reason that I firmly believe that in the long run, MSN’s content network will be a better solution for advertisers, as long as they maintain their current strict editorial quality control over where their ads are used.

Google makes me tired. Maybe its just me but it seems like they do an awful lot of rule making and not enough rule enforcing. Sure lots of little guys have been nixed from Adsense without a specific reason (ie, my wife’s Food Blog), but it seems like if you generate enough traffic and clicks on ads, you are exempt from Google’s persecution.

Case in point, Google’s most recent post from the Adsense blog talks about how aligning images next to Adsense ads is a violation of Google’s TOS for Adsense. They make the point to say that it can be deceptive and takes away from the user and advertiser experience.

We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered. That’s not a good experience for users or advertisers.

Now that is 100% fine with me, but I wish they would actually enforce these rules collectively rather then selectively. All it takes is a quick search to find at least one example of an advertiser breaking this rule. My search for “Nike Air Force Ones” brings me the number 2 result with such a header:

http://www.myairshoes.com/

I think that is pretty much exactly what Google says they do not want. Do these people still have an active Adwords account? Have they at least been contacted and asked to change their implementation? I’d be pretty confident in saying they have not.

Google Adsense blog goes on to say:

Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.

Hmmm, sounds a lot like this http://www.webscriptexpert.com/javascript.html

Going a little deeper into the Adsense program policies (found here)

No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages

No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.

Sounds to me that pages like this, this, and this aren’t acceptable Adsense pages, but rumors on the street is that Google makes a pretty penny from Big.com and you can tell why by looking at their SERP page. I’m on a 1200×1000 resolution screen and all I see is ads, thats pretty misleading to me.

Oh, there is more. Google violating its own TOS?

No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed on any domain parking websites, pop-ups, pop-unders, or in any email.

Now, I can let the ads showing up in Gmail slide because that is a stretch on my part, but how about that little domain parking service portion. We aren’t allowed to park domains and put Adsense on them according to the TOS, but why in the world would Google have bought a domain parking software company (way back in 2004) and start offering Adsense for Parked Domains?

At the very least, Google needs to make some program policy changes, but if they wanted to stay true to their creed of “do no evil” than they really should make some system-wide changes. Allowing Adwords Advertisers who use Google’s content network to opt-out of having their ads displayed on parked domains would be a wonderful feature,. Besides the obvious contradictory statements from TOS and programs, I doubt many advertisers will find quality traffic coming from a parked domain.

In my humble opinion it is time for Google to clean up its act and stop chasing dollars. They started all this mess, now its time to fix it.

Related Posts:

• Google Content to Show URLS
• Google Updates Adsense Policies, Big Whoop.
• Google Increasing Adwords Reporting, Getting More Transparent?
• Adwords Click Fraud Fighting Tool – IP Exclusion
• Google Loves Splogs

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