From what I can see they have done absolutely nothing about tackling MFAs on the content network. I still see MFAs on the search network as well.

Again, it is just too soon to say anything. From what I seen recently, it is worser in my sector.

Hi,

I haven't seen any major change yet, though *possibly* a little better.

But (1) I'd expect a gradual-fee-raising approach to take time and (2) I take the squeals of protest as evidence that G is trying to do *something*.

Rgds

Damon

We saw a somewhat temporary drop in MFA's after the intro of QS, and then predictably a lot of the major MFA players went about trying to figure out how to get around the new system. So, many are back under slightly different domains.

Some MFA's didn't appear to get caught in the net initially.

I expect the process will be a long term thing, and hope for slower ongoing improvement.

>>>In reading the AdWords threads here at WW lately, there seems to be a general theme that if Google thinks a destination page is a MFA, the minimum acceptable bid will be much higher.<<<

afaik, that is not applicable to the content network that we use, it only affects destination pages that were advertised on the search network.

The QS was a major blow but if you hung out on the WW Adwords side you saw a banding together and mass passing around of work around techniques.

The AWAs were not around for weeks but I am sure they were lurking or someone from Google was at the forum to monitor the results.

Next move, a new Adwords TOS agreement that stated that G could make alterations to parameters without notice, without a maintence, at the time of their choosing, sign-up or don't play.

Conclusion: Don't tip you hand to the enemy so they can take reactionary evasive manuvers as a group or individuals.

Now there are small multiple changes happening on a constant basis.

Result: Their (MFAs) ability to adapt as a group or individually is greatly diminished because they can't spot the changes or act on them before there is another one launched.

"Confuse the Cat"

You Go Google!

I hope overall that QS has been a positive move in the fight against the MFA problem. I can only speak for my particular niche though, and as I'm currently ad-free I can only remark on what appears on Google's search pages for my keywords. Admittedly my niche is a tight one, so is unlikely to be wholly representative of how the QS algo has worked.

At the moment, Google search pages are showing mostly MFA's. The percentage hasn't changed, but the type of MFA has. The sites that used to dominate the search ads were MFA's that I believe QS has priced out of town. However, in their place is a new breed of scraper - not genuine ads.

I fully support the QS inititative, and I hope they will port it over to content ASAP. And I agree that Google being able to chop and change to keep the upper hand has to be the best policy for genuine advertisers and publishers in the long run.

I disagree. I think Adwords constant changes is a blight to genuine advertsiers who now have to constantly monitor their campaigns in the event that overnight Adwords has intorduced a new algo. I personally think that the MFA issue needs to be adressed via Adsense. Adsense should vet and monitor the sites that their adverts are displayed on and remove adverts from MFA sites. No adverts would mean no revenue, therefore no point in creating or continuing to promote the site.

Because of all these QS changes etc, many genuine sites have inadvertently been affected, as numerous threads have stated. This has resulted in a lot of advertisers getting nervous about Google, and they - including myself - have started to explore other advertsing avenues. IMHO the issue needs to be adressed by Adsense at the source - don't let MFA sites have Adsense adverts, simple.

I see MFA 's every where.. All the old ones- wise geek ..best sites, ebay , etc are all back with a vengeance.

I don't consider wise geek to be a problem. I see this as a site with pertinent content, that is well laid out - I am happy for my advert to run on this site. It is the sites that just have blocks of code and nothing else that I find offensive. By siting Wise Geek are you saying that any site that just contains information without a specific product should not be able to have advertising? I'd be interested to hear what everyone considers to be a MFA site. Obviously different people have different ideas.

For example I manage a site for an estate agent and use Adwords to generate traffic to that site. If one of these Adwords adverts was displayed on Wise Geek, on a page relevant to property for sale I would be quite happy. Afterall, the person searching the net is searching for property for sale, lands on his page, perhaps reads some interesting and informative information on what to look for when buying a property, and then perhaps lands on my site. Exactly what I want. And per ce, that traffic would have cost me significantly less the search traffic. Job done. :)

Wise Geek is a scraper. They have cobbled content from existing websites and put them together. Anyway.. MFA can be in many forms. The ads are in the face. This is only my opinion. I block them from my sites.

As I said before, I see MFA's in all forms all over the place on content network. Google has recently increased CPC on SEARCH (by ostensibly rounding off bid values)and this may reduce MFA on SEARCH, but Content is another issue.

"They have cobbled content from existing websites and put them together."

If they are plagerising content that is a different issue. If, however, they are using the internet to research content and write original content, I don't see this as a problem. After all that is what research is all about.

On my Property site I have detailed information on specifiic areas. I don't doubt that I used the internet to research these areas in order to put together informative information. Is this deemed "cobbled content" or original content? Surely it is no different to visiting a library to carry out research?

Don't get me wrong, I also don't like to see the ever growing number of MFA sites, my point is, what deems a site MFA? Perhaps once there is a consensus of opinions on what constitutes an MFA site, and what is acceptable/unacceptable, then a set of rules could be produced. However, I think that different people have different ideas on this - as obviously you and I do. No offense intended. :)

what deems a site MFA?

Oh no - not that topic again...! :-)

There have been zillions of discussions about MFAs already, always ending in the question, "what deems a site MFA?" -- Not even this group could find a finite answer to this question...!

>Oh no - not that topic again...! :-)

Is it Ground Hog Day?

Do ground hogs write MFA sites?

Is the Pope a little bit Catholic?

Will Google still have the majority of search clicks when the Sun expands to a red giant and vaporises the Earth?

For all these wonders and more, tune into "Arthur G Glarke's Mysterious World of AdSense", at 11...

Rgds

Damon

Do Catholics have MFAs sites?

Does the Pope like ground hogs?

Found a dating ad on my religion page (1 out of 24) yesterday!

I am not religious, not biased in any way but I just couldn't let that happen.

Used my 200th spot in the filter to block it. If it was on another page it would have been fine.

[edited by: jatar_k at 3:41 pm (utc) on Sep. 15, 2006]

Because of all these QS changes etc, many genuine sites have inadvertently been affected, as numerous threads have stated.

The Quality Scores aren't just about MFA sites. They're about ensuring that users feel satisfied if they click through from a link on a SERP at Google (whether it's a search link or an AdWords link). So, from Google's point of view, there would be a need for Quality Scores even if MFA sites didn't exist.

I quite agree that QS should be there in some format or other. However, from reading the numerous threads that there have been regarding the massive hikes in prices that a lot of people have had on their top keyword, that is both relevant to their product, landing page and advert, I think that there is an obvious glitch in the QS algo.

I have a friend who sells blue widgets. Her site only sells blue widgets, has absolutely no advertising and has absolutely no competition. Her domain name is bluewidgets.com. However she was asked to pay £5.50 a click for the keyword blue widget. When she phoned Adwords they also agreed that there was nothing she could possilby do to make her page or advert more relevant, so how come they were asking for £5.50? Its not even as if anyone else is bidding on the term. The QS algo as it is sucks. IMHO!

The Quality Scores aren't just about MFA sites. They're about ensuring that users feel satisfied if they click through from a link on a SERP at Google (whether it's a search link or an AdWords link). So, from Google's point of view, there would be a need for Quality Scores even if MFA sites didn't exist.

Straight from Google's PR mouth, I mean EFV's. *shocking*

MFAs are good... for Google's profits.

Maybe there is just a small "side effect" to the alogorithm.

The sort of "side effect" that means it doesn't always work very well. My side effects are called "bugs" - usually my errors and I own up to them and fix them if I can.

I hesitate to say this for fear of jinxing myself, but where I've been having to use the filter quite extensively in the past, I haven't had to put any new sites into it (over ads running on eight sites now) in about three weeks. Good thing, cause it was getting close to full. I'm still waiting to see if the Oct 1 price change in AdWords API credits makes a difference; I'm going to flush my filter and see what happens.

I quite agree that QS should be there in some format or other. However, from reading the numerous threads that there have been regarding the massive hikes in prices that a lot of people have had on their top keyword, that is both relevant to their product, landing page and advert, I think that there is an obvious glitch in the QS algo.

There may be, but there's also an obvious glitch in some people's grasp of what Google means when it talks about quality landing pages and the user experience.

Still, there's no need to rehash old discussions about search ads here. We're AdSense publishers, and the latest QS rules don't apply to ads on our sites. The topic of Quality Scores has already been talked to death in the forum devoted to Google search ads, a.k.a. the AdWords forum:

[webmasterworld.com...]

Straight from Google's PR mouth, I mean EFV's. *shocking*

I think it's appropriate to mention in case of confusion that the only official participation Google have in this forum is adsenseadvisor. All other comments can be regarded as personal opinion or speculation - not knowledge.

With the exception of ASA, the rest of us publishers share an equal footing of not knowing anything about Google's intentions or technology other than what is publicly posted on Google websites which we are all equally capable of reading.

I'm pretty sure that Google themselves if they publicly commented on such matters (which they don't) would wish to distance themselves from much of the third party speculation in this forum that may appear to be somewhat official.

If they are plagerising content that is a different issue. If, however, they are using the internet to research content and write original content, I don't see this as a problem. After all that is what research is all about.

On my Property site I have detailed information on specifiic areas. I don't doubt that I used the internet to research these areas in order to put together informative information. Is this deemed "cobbled content" or original content?

Here's a rule of thumb: You visit widgets.com to conduct "research" and then develop content for your site as a result of your research.

If you aren't planning to provide a link to widgets.com, send them a quick email and let them know on which page you did your research and provide a link to your content produced as a result of that research.

If you wouldn't have a problem with that level of openness and disclosure, then don't worry about it. But if you aren't willing to be that open...

Surely it is no different to visiting a library to carry out research?

This visit is not the problem. The key is what happens during and after the visit.

FarmBoy

MFA = a site that gives you 3 cent per click or less.

I think the Google "fat lady" is about to sing!

I hate opera but I will make an exception.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Confirmed. It's getting worse here. I'm being swamped with 3 cent clicks.

"MFA = a site that gives you 3 cent per click or less."

How do you come to this conclusion? One of my sites is for an independent estate agent in a specific area. Whilst we bid on thousands of keywords, some of them are active for only a small CPC - probably around 6p - which I guess would earn you only about 3 cents. This site has no adverts on it - so how could you classify this site as a MFA? Other sites I have whereby the bulk of revenue is coming from Adsense pays way more than the minimum CPC - therefore giving the Adsense earning much more than 3cents per click. You cannot possilby judge a site as MFA just based on the earnings you receive for a click in Adsense.

Trannack is right. There are junk ads from some companies with deep pockets and there are low-paying ads from some great companies which for a variety of reasons are spending less than some weasels.