CNY Webmasters

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have heard atleast a bit about the current financial crisis that is going on on Wall Street and echoing throughout the world. Many webmasters have been watching with their own concerns…”What effect will this have on internet businesses?”

Some feel that this will help internet businesses that focus on selling webmasters tools, tips and tricks as people begin looking to the net as a way to make more money or even a place to begin a total new career. This may be true on some levels, but others of us, me included, have to worry about our own bottom lines.

With people worrying about their personal income and financial situations, advertisers may become less able to pay prices we have become accustom to on our own websites. Google, who came out with amazing earning, yet again, last week even has concerns about their own adword clients and their budget changes.

Lesson learned, world news is always important to consider when running your virtual business. My websites are nearly all in the financial niche, so I obviously have other concerns, but it is important to always be thinking outside the box. Considering what is happening in the world and how your business can use it to its advantage. Ok, so that may sound shallow but it is not meant to. I am by no means telling you to take advantage of those that are financial distraught these days, but consider how your company can use it to gain loyal customers.

If you sell products, you can consider having a sale, or offer freebies that may help them during this time. Add more interactive elements on your website that will be helpful, and keep them coming back.

Example, put up a financial calculator that will show them auto loan options, mortgage rates, CD rates etc….(you get the point)

You have to look your own personal niche and decide what relevant news effects it, obviously not everyone will be effected directly by this if your not in the financial niche, but perhaps you offer new information on how to get their own websites up and going etc.

This wasn’t meant to be a lengthy post. Merely trying to help you open your eyes and realize that everything going on in the “human” world effects our virtual businesses. Depending on what you do with it, it may greatly benefit your business.

Catchy title? Well, it got your attention right? I had to write about this because I feel so strongly about this. Webmasters have been talking for a few months now about new tactics and strategies Google has announced that they will soon or may already be putting into practice. The first was telling webmasters that they will penalize for “paid links” found or reported on websites. Matt Cutts wrote on his blog how Google will begin to provide a place for people to report paid links to Google that they find on websites, or if they say on the websites that someone is willing to sell links. This will now be taboo and could penalize your website.

Secondly, as I previously talked about, Google AdSense publishers were given their pink slips, so to say, for having MFA websites or sites that “did not have suitable business models” and given two weeks notice to find a replacement for the advertising.

Now back to the title… you’re asking, “OK, Kim so how does this make them hypocrites?” Simple, they do the exact opposite of their own new rules. Let’s go through it one at a time.

First “No paid Links” what does Googles AdWords program do? Basically they take peoples paid per click ads and throw them throughout all of AdSense publishers websites. Wouldn’t this be the same as a paid link? I think so. Google is making a killing in ad revenue because I, as a webmaster of more then 50 websites, allow them to place their paid ads throughout my sites. Not convinced yet? Ok, moving on

Here are the ways they feel that they can determine if any link on websites is paid for:

1. Links Labeled as Advertisements
Question, what is labeled next to each Google ad displayed on my page and other websites? Answer: “Ads by Google”
2. Site Wide Links
Hmmmm. Take a look through most website that use AdSense and you will see ads on every page. Yah, because we are trying to take advantage of making more money but increasing exposure.
3. Links that are Sold By a Link Agency
How is AdWords any different then a link agency? When I used AdWords, and I haven’t in a long time wasted my money on it, I got links from all the sites that displayed my ads therefore it could be considered a linking strategy.
4. Selling Site has Information on How to Buy a Text Link Ad
If Google is allow to make money by selling the top results of their search engine, why am I also not allow to make ad revenue on my own sites also?
5. Relevance of Your Link
Don’t even get me started with this. Google AdWords is so riddled with MFA sites even the ads they throw on my sites are not relevant. I personally only except relevant websites, but I think Google should do more to ensure that their own ads are relevant to my site and not full of spammy MFA sites.
6. Relevance of Nearby Links
What if the nearby link happens to be relevant to the content but not relevant to the other link in there according to their bot? I think this concept can be easily flawed and unreliable to judge for a robot.
7. Advertising Location and Type
Ad placement should be left up to the webmaster. Where are Google ads typically placed? Most people place them in left or right columns and top of the page. Google claims that these places will be where most sold links would be and will discount them. Will they discount their own ads I have on my page in those areas, or just my partners ads?
8. Someone Reports Your Site for Buying Links
Since the announcement of Google looking for webmasters to report paid links sold on websites webmasters have been outraged at this, for good reason. So who would report your website of these webmasters? Your competition, of course! Therefore it may become an all out war amongst competitors to report each other, accomplishing nothing of relevance.
9. Someone Reports Your Site for Some Other Reason
I think anyone who is not a webmaster really has little knowledge of Google workings and wouldn’t even know about reporting a site, therefore, most liking this will also become abused by a competitor again.
10. Someone Reports the Site you Bought Links from for Selling Links
Competitors reporting each other could therefore cause a domino effect. For example, if abc.com reports nbc.com for buying a link on xyz.com Google may then begin investigating who else has bought links from xyz.com causing a domino effect for sites. More importantly (try to stay with me here) what if another website on xyz.com did NOT buy the link but was linked there naturally as a resource for the clients and then they get tangled in the mess and reported for paid links?

The list goes on but the one thing is obvious, if Google truly imposes these types of restrictions on webmaster it is completely hypocritical! It should not be allowed that Google can penalize ANY webmaster for making ad revenue on their websites in the same means that Google itself is thriving on ad revenue. As a webmaster I am forced to constantly figure out new ways to improve my search engine position with Google’s every changing algorithm and this is enough work. Now I typically consider what is best for my clients first on my website and search engines are second, but the truth is you always have to considerate search engines or no one will find your site.

This new tactic by Google is not only hypocritical, in my opinion, it is also going to possible stray money I earn trying to make money with my own business. Google always seems to fail to remember without us webmasters they would not exist, so maybe they should stop considering their bottom-line all the time and take care of those putting money in their pockets!

Webmasters have started reporting that they are receiving letters from Google stating that their accounts will be closed on June 1st due to “unsuitable business models” giving them 2 weeks notice to find alternative methods of advertising. Sources claim that Google is attempting to put an end to arbitrage and Made for AdSense (MFA) sites.

Arbitrage is a practice in which someone puts up a website with all AdSense ads on it. They then go and use Google AdWords and pay minimum amount of money per click and then when people click on their ad, they are taken to their MFA site, the arbitrager then hopes that they click off the site, which should pay a higher amount then they had paid to click on the AdWords ad. Google does state in the letters that they will be paying the publishers their earned money up until June 1st and they will not lose any of the income they had acquired.

I am amazed by this aspect. I know people that have lost their AdSense accounts because of alleged click fraud or not abide by Google’s TOS and their accounts revenue was emptied and no funds were given out. So why is it that now Google is being generous and not taking the revenue back when they are stating that these arbitragers are basically screwing the system? I am baffled!

I am an AdSense publisher and am forced to constantly filter what ads are allowed to be displayed on my sites because of these people. I am sick of advertising useless sites on my websites. I see no benefit to anyone if they click off my site for other information that an ad promises and they are taken to another page filled with more ads. These arbitragers are filling the internet with trash in my opinion and I am grateful that Google is attempting to do something about it. I am sure they will not be able to catch everyone doing this due to the unbelievable amount of MFA sites out there, but I’ll take whatever they can do.

What kind of effect will this have on AdSense publishers? Well, I would assume that initially, there will be a drop in revenue, since there will be less AdWords accounts, but I doubt there would be a significant drop. Google has never, not had enough ads to show on any of my sites, and I doubt they would have a shortage after getting rid of the arbitragers.

In the long run though, one could potentially make more revenue because of this action. If Google truly gets rid of MFA sites, they may begin to attract more advertisers and the competition could increase the pay per click publishers receive.

I am happy to see something being done on Google’s part to attempt to get rid of these sites. They had previously stated that they developed a new landing page rating system which would make those doing arbitrage pay more per click on their ads because of having a low rated landing page. Obviously that wasn’t enough; since the MFA sites are still everywhere you look.

If you look at what could happen you wonder who will truly benefit more from this move, Google or Yahoo? If Google begins banning accounts webmasters will typically go to Yahoo Publisher to supplement their previous Google ads. Therefore Yahoo may have a surge of revenue from this move. Another possible outcome, if Google truly gets rid of the MFA sites, it may attract more advertisers and have higher paying advertisers which could even out all the revenue they just banned.

It will be interesting to see the outcome of this. No matter what happens, I’m happy to see Google getting more proactive against MFA sites. Now if they could just get rid of MFA sites top rankings in search results. Nothing drives me crazier then doing research online and having the first sites listed nothing but MFA sites! I guess I should just be patient and happy that something’s being done, but Google has a lot of work to do in my opinion, to get their results to the level they should be at as far as usefulness and overall relevancy.