Google AdSense Rant From A Pissed Publisher
Posted on October 20, 2007
Filed Under Earn money online
Google AdSense earnings on my vacuum cleaner site have been sinking like Titanic on a cold night in 1912.
This puny little post won’t change what the 800-pound gorilla called Google does with the AdSense program, but maybe it’s a small step towards a better life as a publisher.
There are two main reasons why my earnings have dropped:
1. Google STILL allows arbitrage sites to exploit the system for pennies to get traffic to their loser sites
I have so far filtered 89 crappy Google arbitrage sites that are allowed to bid very low on the content network and receive traffic to their Overture ads-based sites.
Here is a screen shot of a few sites in my filter:
Feel free to type one of those URL’s into your browser to see the crap I’m talking about. (Most have to be entered with www.)
I know that Google has banned the arbitrage sites doing the Adwords – AdSense arbitrage. This happened on June 1, 2007.
But Google still allows sites like this to exploit their Adwords – AdSense network for the arbitrage:
Why this sucks?
a) The visitors are losing trust in Google Ads. They joyfully click on the ad that will finally bring them to the page they are looking for, and what do they see? More ads.
And in most cases, the unsuspecting visitors don’t even know that these are ads because “Sponsored Results” is written in very small fonts and they are NOT even present like in the above case.
Feel free to check www thevacuumzone com and see for yourself. (They are surely not getting a link from me so you’ll have to fill in the two missing dots after you copy / paste the above URL into your browser.)
b) We, the publishers, are losing trust. If visitors find my site, spend some time browsing, and realize that it is a trustworthy site, then what will they think if they find a link (in the Google AdSense ad) to such a crappy site?
c) Other advertisers are losing trust in Google. Since Google doesn’t penalize these crappy arbitrage sites with either a much higher bid or by removing them from Adwords, the real advertisers – who really sell something – are now competing with those loser sites.
They are forced to bid high to appear above the arbitrage sites and this affects their ROI (return on investment).
Does Google care that visitors, publishers, and real advertisers are losing trust? Sadly, probably not.
2. My account has been affected by Smart-Pricing
What is Smart-Pricing, and why does it happen?
Smart-pricing is a way to protect advertisers when their ads are displayed on poorly-converted websites.
That means that if the advertisers get a lot of clicks but not a lot of conversions (sales!), your site may be smart-priced.
Smart pricing affects your whole AdSense account, so if only one of your websites is converting poorly, your whole account will get smart-priced.
Fine, I understand that, but what if the advertiser doesn’t SELL anything?
The number 1 and 2 advertisers on my vacuum cleaner site, which appear in most cases on top of the ads, are ConsumerReports and ConsumerSearch.
Let’s start with the first one: what is ConsumerReports selling?
Oh, I see, they want me to subscribe to access their vacuum ratings!
Is this subscription free? Heck, no!
So this is their conversion – how many clicks from my website convert to their subscribers?
And if the conversion is not good, my website can be smart-priced!
Wait, it gets even better with ConsumerSearch.com.
So, what is ConsumerSearch.com selling?
Nothing! It’s an ad-based website, and you are hit in the face with Shopping and Google AdSense ads above the fold!
So ConsumerSearch is basically a very big arbitrage site!
They bid low on the content network and hope to get clicks on Shopping, AdSense and even Chitika ads.
Wait, didn’t Google ban sites that use low AdSense bidding to get high clicks on their sites?
Hmm, obviously not.
So, if the visitors to my website who clicked on AdSense ads DON’T convert well (so they DON’T click on ANOTHER ad), my site account will be smart-priced.
Attention Google: that’s NOT a very good business model.
What can a little publisher like me do about it?
1. Check my site regularly for those crappy arbitrage websites and filter them out with the Competitive Ad filter.
2. Find other ways of monetizing. Chitika currently rocks on my website with an average pay-per-click of over $0,30!
So, I am slowly positioning Chitika ads into more prominent positions to get more clicks.
3. Find a way to un-smart-price my account by removing poor-performing ads and possibly lowering my CTR, which sends too many visitors who don’t want to click on another ad to those crappy consumer sites.
I am open to your suggestions and comments on this topic and, if you share my views about Google AdSense, please Digg, Stumble and use other little buttons below to make this post more popular.
And perhaps, just perhaps, we’ll move closer to a brighter future with Google Adsense…
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7 Responses to “Google AdSense Rant From A Pissed Publisher”
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Very nice article, I agree and hate to see a lot of google arbitrage websites in my google adsense ads, I will check out Chitika though!
[...] if you read my rant about Google Adsense average CPC dropping, then you may want to know, that I also sent an email to Adsense support [...]
Just been approved for chitika even though I don’t have a product based blog. Am looking at ways to place their ads more effectively and also to build up my traffic. Thanks for your articles.
Tomaz,
Can you describe the process you use to discover these arbitrage sites ? For example, in the case of vacuum-ratings.com, one of those listed above, how do you know they are coming from Adwords, and how do you know their cost is pennied ? Their adsense link goes to a typical affilate landing page - nothing wrong with that.
Thanks !
Hi John,
I use Google Adsense Preview tool to see what ads typically appear on my site. Then I check the website and see what their business model is like. If they really sell vacuums, then I assume they can bid a good price.
If their site is about arbitrage - getting another Adsense or Overture click, then they HAVE to bid very low in order to earn more than they spend.
So I dump them.
(In a Competitive Ad filter in Adsense settings.)
Tomaz, thank you for bringing this to light. This is another reason why I’m looking to be done with Adsense, yet find another quality CPC in its place.
The only thing is that the Adsense filter only allows you to block 100 sites. I’ve found five times this many arbitrage sites buying cheap keywords for my niche.
It really bites that we are not able to block them all, or even block all sites with the .info domain.
I do understand that not every .info site is trash, but I’d be willing to miss out on a few Adsense paying sites, if I could block whole domains in one sweep.
Hey MJ,
Thanks for this feedback! Yes, lots of poor arbitrage sites out there.
If you don’t have BIG companies advertise in your niche, then you can have lots of these .info sites on your ads.
For me right now it works quite ok since the big companies (Dyson, Oreck, …) out-bid these poor sites…
P.S. I need to add, that right now Chitika (with their new business model) performs very poor for me. The average pay per click is now around .12 which is even less than Adsense. Test Chitika in your own niche, some publishers report good earnings with the Premium ads…