More on How Google Profits from Spam

Ian Kallen has put together a great post offering an up to date look at the web spam ecosystem and the role Google plays and profits from this trash.

The Google Web Spam Ecosystem - Ian Kallen's Weblog

"Web spam isn't new, this has been going on for years and at this point, one must conclude that Google's not serious about doing anything about their spam problems. There used to be a qualification step for AdSense and they'd reject sites that didn't meet some basic criteria as legitimate sources of content. But that stopped about a year and a half ago and the spam has been pouring on ever since. The video is a call to action to complain to Google; they have a fidicuary responsibility to move against the abuse. The video shows a search for forklifts to illustrate rampant ad policy violations."

Kallen included a recent YouTube video by a knowledgable pay per click guru who demonstrates numerous examples of Google failing to uphold their own Terms of Service on landing page quality (nothing but more ads from Google) and multiple AdWords accounts (to place multiple ads on the same terms).

I wonder how much of a hit Google's earnings would take if they suddenly started enforcing their own TOS. How much are they hurting their long term pay per click revenue potential by profiting from this today? What happens if users become blind to pay per click advertisements after getting burned one time too many by Google's low quality ads?

Great point, Richard. Monetizing typos is a big business, but if Google really cared about user's experiences they'd offer better tools to help users find what they're REALLY looking for rather than profit from mistakes.

Comments

1. Posted by: Richard on August 27, 2006 1:36 PM:

I wonder how much Google makes from their parked domains program. The very existence of this program makes you wonder how serious Google is about dealing with spam.

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