Great Example of AdSense Abuse
You know how Google’s AdSense is considered one of the best contextual targeting platforms out there? You know how Google tells its AdWords advertisers that by using content match they will be able to tap into some of the most relevant content on the web?
Ummmmm, yeah. We found a case where a site owner is pulling the wool over Google’s eyes by doing some ninja moves on the backend of their site that result in AdWords advertisers wasting money on irrelevant clicks.
Want to see the example? Let’s check it out.
In a different window, open up the domain www.ayparty.com (not hyperlinking of obvious reasons).
At first, when you look at the site you can see a border of AdSense ads surrounding a graphic for Los Duenos Del Flow, which seems to be some type of music group or something. Interestingly, it seems like AdSense has decided to add high cost-per-click contextual ads to the page for products like insurance, leads, mortgages, and the grand-daddy of all keywords Mesothelioma. This might make you wonder if Google is attempting to dupe advertisers and profit from less than qualifies clicks? But they are not (I know, I was bummed too – finding Google being evil would get this blog so much traffic :) ).
In truth it’s the site’s owner who is behind the confusion between content and advertisements. You see, when you view the source behind the page you see this hidden chunk of text in 1pt font:
mesothelioma mesothelioma lawsuits mesothelioma diagnosis mesothelioma treatment pleural mesothelioma conference call consolidate student loan student loan consolidation car donations car donation donate car sell annuity conference calling medical malpractice new jersey life insurance settlement health insurance leads new jersey medical malpractice life settlements structured settlement payment business phone system health care administration data protection money market vehicle donation laser hair removal nyc medical malpractice new york medical malpractice pennsylvania car insurance auto insurance automobile insurance laser hair removal manhattan new york medical malpractice life insurance leads university of phoenix online HR Software nevada llc colorado mortgage asset management cash for structured settlement online class student loan student loans laser hair removal new york content management software telecommunication audit credit card processor car insurance rates web content management home security system mba degree program manufacturing software medical office software merchant Services ce marking refinance loan content management budgeting software dallas movers asbestos lawyer paternity testing structured settlements medical billing software online university medical alarm new jersey web design dna testing 1031 tax deferred exchange mba executive cerebral palsy mortgage leads criminal justice rackmount servers brokerage accounts banner stands inventory management software 1031 tax free exchange mortgage lead viaticals llc formation waterproofing medical alert culinary school culinary schools server racks va home loans stock loans credit card processing rackmount chassis credit counseling .net hosting document management software commercial real estate loans time and attendance content management system home loan Home Loans industrial scales car insurance quote auto insurance quote
If you look really closely you can see all of that stashed at the very top of the page (see image below). So based off of that text, AdSense is picking what it sees as the most relevant ads and serving them up on the site.
As a company that advertises with content networks through Google, this is obviously a little disappointing…and a little scary when you think about the thousands of sites like this one that are out there. AdWords does give you the ability to remove sites like this from your content match (which we did), but tracking these sites down is the tough part.
Luckily, or PPC powerhouse Cassie found this site by using the PPSeer service, which she discusses in this blog post. If you do a lot of content match through your PPC accounts, you might want to consider using the service as well.
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Comments
Did you report them to Google??
Posted by: Ann | May 30, 2007 06:10 PM
Why should he? its not the nice webhosts job to find crooks its googles.
Posted by: mortalez | May 30, 2007 06:56 PM
Wow that is too funny. It will be interesting to see how long until the AdSense disappears from that site.
I found alot of your sites information interesting so I wrote a little about it in my blog:
http://blogger-a-blogging.blogspot.com/2007/05/affiliate-blog-uncovers-bad-website.html
Posted by: Nick | May 30, 2007 11:36 PM
This is very informative. I was suspicious of some of the contextual advertising when I looked at the results using Google AD Tracker.
The time people spent on my webpage being 0.0 seconds for these ads. Seems I must have only gotten hits on sites like these.
Thanks, Ken
Posted by: Ken | May 31, 2007 09:19 AM
I will also be interested to see how long until the AdSense is removed from this site. To answer Ann's question, no, I didn't report this to Google and I don't plan to - just not my style.
Thanks to Nick for the kind blog post.
Posted by: James Omdahl | May 31, 2007 10:17 AM
Good find James,
This is one of the reasons affiliate marketers try to stay away from content advertising (unless they can buy traffic from specific websites that I trust).
But I have to say that is Yahoo! is facing even worse problems than that.
Posted by: Vlad | May 31, 2007 12:55 PM
Good point Vlad. Wouldn't it be great if you got to opt-in to content sites rather than having to opt-out? (I know this makes zero economic sense for Google…but still).
Actually, I take that back. Quigo's AdSonar works like that and it is a pretty big pain. Maybe if Google grouped its AdSense publishers based upon a site’s “trust” rating or something, and let you chose publisher groups based on that.
Posted by: James Omdahl | May 31, 2007 01:09 PM
Great "heads up" James - But, I'm a little confused at why InsureMe would not report this site to Google. It seems it would be in InsureMe and their affiliate’s best interest to report these types of sites as soon as they are discovered.
I'm not suggesting that you guys are responsible for finding these sites, but when you come across them, why wouldn't InsureMe want to get them taken down as quickly as possible?
Posted by: Mark from Bloglyne | June 1, 2007 09:23 AM
Hey Mark – valid question.
I guess I should be clear that when I said that I did not report them to Google I meant that I, James Omdahl, did not report them to Google. If someone at InsureMe wants to report them, I have no problem with it. Saying that reporting this type of stuff is “not my style” was my way saying that I personally don’t report things to Google because I’ve grow paranoid after a few years in this business, and I have a strong belief in “search karma.”
Yeah, it’s silly…but that’s how I roll. :)
Posted by: James Omdahl | June 1, 2007 11:03 AM
Nice catch Cassie and good post James. I guess you could consider this "Neanderthal" black hat SEO...But with a PR 3 (after the update) and ALEXA rank of 16,428 they've already squeezed a bunch of juice from it probably. HEATHENS!
Posted by: Stephen Ralph | June 1, 2007 10:31 PM