software download pages

Top 3 sub-categories out of 18 (also very bad) business, finance and science (focus on pharma), 50 urls in the filter

The other 15 categories, 40 urls in filter

Actually only 10 competitors in the filter (not really competitors but low payers)

When I get a new MFA I have to let one of the low payers back in to be able to block it.

Oh and yes this is my offical symbol for MFAs (Bugs that Eat my Flesh)

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[edited by: Khensu at 7:10 pm (utc) on Aug. 29, 2006]

I dare you to put download in a page, you will get 1000000 ads for free ringtones :)

Man I miss the old days thas is as of 4 months ago i think that's when all this mfa problem started at list for me :(

The URLs starting with "free" or ending in "directory" are among the worst.

1) Domain spammers who for example run 39,000 targeted domains with nothing but sponsored links on it. They are targeting very specific niche keywords. All sites look the same. Very annoying.

2) Individuals who (try to) do arbitrage with no content at all but just big rectangles on it. The layout differs usually by logo and color, but the overall layout is the same.

3) Sites disguised as search engines. Nothing but a text box and "search" on it. Once you enter a search term, you get again nothing but ads.

One thing that I see with about 50% of the MFAs is that they are very keen to protect their privacy. :-) They use private registration services for their domains.

When we look at the three types, they should be easy to combat by Google, if they provided the right tools to us:

ad 1: "block all ads from this advertiser"
ad 2: "block if landing page contains Adsense/YPN/whatever"
ad 3: require a minimum amount of content on landing page

And also, "block if advertiser has a private registration" :-)

Is it general travel (including ALL subcategories like hotels, airfare, various destinations, all inclusive packages, tours and more...) or is it specific, like one destination or just one of the subcategories?

Trip reports and tourguides, often to unusual places or presenting an unusal angle to the location (i.e. non-mainstream). Especially those pages/categories seem to draw arbitrage ads, because the arbitrage guys (seem to) target every keyword under the sun to get a cheap click. Legit advertisers go for mainstream keywords, and the auction works well there. It's the niches (or the "long tail") that bug me.

Trip reports and tourguides, often to unusual places or presenting an unusal angle to the location (i.e. non-mainstream).

Yeah, that sounds narrow. What I suspected. I would imagine there would be a smaller pool of advertisers for that. If you do a search on a narrow niche like Costa Rica Adventure travel, Google shows 41 SEARCH advertisers. Who knows how many of those are in the Content side, right?

But if you do a more mainstream search, like Hawaii Travel, then Google shows 69 advertisers. Almost twice as many advertisers. So you're right that in the narrower topics you're going to see less of the "mainstream" advertisers.

If it bugs you to make your current site's focus more mainstream, why not open a "sister" site with more mainstream stuff? Kind of like the way the Kenneth Cole brand took on the lower priced more mainstream niche with the Reaction brand. Kenneth Cole is reaching out for a slice of a different pie with the Reaction brand.

I dare you to put download in a page, you will get 1000000 ads for free ringtones :)

As a matter of fact, two of my frequently visited pages are focused on telling visitors where to download a particular piece of software. I see 0 ads for free ringtones. All the ads present seem pretty relevant.

So maybe you have put "download" in a page, and have Googlebot unable to identify any theme on the page that pays better than "free ringtones"?

In any case, just putting "download" on a page is clearly not sufficient to attract a lot of ringtone ads.

But G has done something when I mailed them hance its pretty relevant but whenever I get MFA's they are site resources, best ever sites, collections, guitar lessons etc.

This time there was desperate attempt to cheat the system. The company displayed the advertise of "Flash" as if its about software but turn out to be investment related site.

If it bugs you to make your current site's focus more mainstream, why not open a "sister" site with more mainstream stuff?

That's a nice suggestion, and I will definitely consider this. However, the MFAs do not annoy me as much as they used to. Every once in a while I get into "weeding frenzy", and then I let it rest for some time again. (Though it would still be nice to see the MFAs go...)

I dare you to put download in a page, you will get 1000000 ads for free ringtones.

As a matter of fact, two of my frequently visited pages are focused on telling visitors where to download a particular piece of software. I see 0 ads for free ringtones. All the ads present seem pretty relevant. So maybe you have put "download" in a page, and have Googlebot unable to identify any theme on the page that pays better than "free ringtones"? In any case, just putting "download" on a page is clearly not sufficient to attract a lot of ringtone ads.

As I understand it, if your site was in a low-paying sector, and if the ringtone site ads paid better than the ads you would prefer to see, the ringtone ads would override the other ads.

Medical - particular the areas of detox and rehab are just riddled with them.

Water damage / mold testing & remediation - whoa!

The MFA sites on Froogle/Google Base are starting to get way out of hand as well.