In the last couple of weeks Google has declared war against Adsense Arbitragers. What does this mean for you and I? A better experience when we click on ads on Google (this actually for you not me as I never click on any ads on Google). But wait, you ask, what the hell are you talking about?
It’s simple. Lets take a look at the Adwords program:
Let’s go to Google and search for something… say I don’t know “mortgages” This is what we get on the side.
Now these advertisers have bid a significant amount of money to be posted so high on Google’s rankings for this general search. Opening up a bid manager reveals that advertisers are paying upwards of 10 dollars a click to be listed so high on this search.
Now lets search something more specific like Fremont Home Loans. Different search results, different ads. In theory these ads on the side should be more relevant to me because I’ve narrowed my search down to a specific area meaning I’m more likely to click on them. Moreover since Fremont CA is a specific area common sense would suggest that there should be less people bidding to be high on the paid search ad listings, and indeed opening up the bid manager reveals that this is the case as the max bid for placement on top of the search result pages (SERPs) is only 3 dollars.
Ok? So what?
Imagine that I create a website, fremont.greatloans.com and bid for maximum exposure on Google SERPs but instead of create great content that will help find or locate a loan I have nothing but mortgage Adsense ads on my page. So you’ve clicked on my ad on Google looking for Fremont loan (- 3 bucks), and now you’re on a page which purports to being a resource, but has nothing but links on it. You have two choices, click back to return to Google or click a link on an “mortgage” ad on my page.
Cha-Cha Ching, if you’re like most average web users you’ll click once or twice before finally returning to Google to try your luck again, I’ve just made 10 dollars (well less than that since Google takes a portion of Adsense money) from my 3 dollar investment with out helping the searcher in anyway at all—an overall Bad User Experience.
In order to alleviate the issues google has began screening all advertisers who use the adwords system on their website to determine whether or not the target site represents a quality resource for web users. When websites fail to obtain a solid quality google increases increase the ammount that these websites must pay to be listed in the index. I’m not sure if it’s having an effect (again I don’t click on ads), but based on the affiliate uproar I’ve noticed on the boards I frequent it’s cause quite a stir.