Also from what I understand you can not put Adsense on one of your high paying keyword pages and send traffic from other sites.

I cant find that in the Adsense TOS

Arbitrage is a limited term that generally means buying low to sell high. So your definition is pretty spot on.

However "PPC Advertising" is a broader term which encompasses buying traffic for building awareness, mindshare, building links, selling a product, obtaining leads, etc.

I don't see any difference with banner advertising. But how do you/I/Google determine intent of the banner or PPC advertising?

[edited by: martinibuster at 11:48 pm (utc) on June 7, 2009]

So can we send lots of traffic to a smaller website with Google ads with out getting penalized?

I have read on this site where some Google Adsense checks were on hold for similar reasons.

IMO, It is mostly about 'intent' with Google. If you deliberately try to game their systems , they will most probably catch you. You can send paid traffic to adSense sites if you follow the webmaster guidelines and adWords guidelines for landing pages. It is a thin line you have to walk.

Cheers.

>>>So can we send lots of traffic to a smaller website with Google ads with out getting penalized?

It's probably reasonable to assume to that if you are paying more for AdWords visitors than the average AdSense click is worth then it's likely to be safe. Obviously that's not arbitrage.

IMO, It is mostly about 'intent' with Google. If you deliberately try to game their systems , they will most probably catch you.

+1

Well im not paying adwords. I am advertising my site on other websites. I spend more than my actual earning (its all passion, not a business yet!) but was concerned about how much traffic I should send. :)

Since this small site is only a few pages ( <10) I was wondering if Google would be concerned sending traffic to 1-2 pages. (Earning would come from only 1-2 pages)

This site is full of pictures of back home, but I have put Google ads since I have already spent a lot on advertising, I would like to make a small portion of my spending back!

...but was concerned about how much traffic I should send.

I would be more concerned with the source and quality of the traffic than the quantity. Cheap traffic can cause more problems than it's worth. But if your leads are good then they will convert and if you send a lot of them Google is more likely to reward you than penalize your site.

I used to do huge arbitrage ($15K/month adwords)

Now I buy traffic for building awareness, mindshare, building links, selling a product, obtaining leads, etc. ($400/month adwords)

I prefer the good ole days.

I used to do huge arbitrage ($15K/month adwords)

why did you stop?

Stopped because i wanted to keep my adsense account and Adwords changed the way it works so it didn't work as well.

Well what if you buy ads on other sites (i.e. banners and text links) rather than adwords?

I've run AdWords to sites with AdSense on them for years without problem. But I send them to pages with actual real unique content (apart from the ads). Only reason I didn't this year is because my SERPS have improved to the point where I didn't need to. But I have a couple more sites in development where I'm going to be using AdWords & AdSense.

I am not sending traffic with adwords but by paying other high traffic websites. Since my site is only a few pages and the earning is a bit high I was concerned if Google sees that as a red flag.

I personally dont think im doing anything illegal after reviewing the T&C however, I thought maybe a 3-5 page website with high income wouldnt be acceptable cause the traffic is not from search engines but from paid traffic and links

15K arbitrage:

Stopped because i wanted to keep my adsense account

is there a limit on arbitrage? A safe zone? Again, since I also love my adsense account and dont want to risk it how do I know if im doing something illegal or not. Of course im not in the earning range mentioned above but like to assume if things work out fine I do have the potential of doubling my income.

I am sending traffic from other sites to 2-3 pages of a site that has higher paying keywords. I have sent traffic to this page for a while (years) but now increased the traffic. I dont know how high I should go on traffic.

IMO, It is mostly about 'intent' with Google.

My intentions were good from the begining but after a while I noticed the keywords pay higher and now I would like to buy much more traffic. Does that intention change make everything wrong and unethical?! ;)

p.s.> for some reason I now feel that im not in the red zone esp. after hearing about 15K arbitrage. My numbers are much lower. Now im thinking Google wouldnt even care about my account esp. when there are so many big players.

Also used to do arbitrage and was in the $10K a month range, but became worried that we could lose our AdSense account so we stopped. I like to sleep at night.

The source of paid traffic is also an important factor, IMO.

If your paid traffic converts, you should be o.k., if it is mostly junk, you can be in trouble.

My 2 cents.

P.S. A litmus test is actually a human review at Google. If you are confident that your 2-4 page website will provide enough UNIQUE useful content to a human reviewer, you are generally, speaking, safe.. Now this is a 'subjective' opinion. As I said before, it is a thin line.

The other aspect you have to keep in mind - certain niches are probably more prone to eagle eye inspection than others; particularly ones with high paying keywords (think legal or financial terms) that have a history of all kinds of fraudulent click behavior attached. So if you're playing in that yard, you have to believe you're going to be looked at *very* carefully.

The other aspect you have to keep in mind - certain niches are probably more prone to eagle eye inspection than others

Good point. Topics like mortgages, credit cards and ...

What about the earnings, do you think sites with more than 10K/month earnings are more prone to reviews?

And also, since there is nothing illegal about arbitration or sending traffic from other sources to pages with higher paying keywords who cares if it gets reviewed. Do the sites get warnings or do they get rid of the Google accounts?

Nobody can answer any of these questions for you, because there's no published set of *specific* standards or rules. And I've heard enough varying cases to think that there isn't one single standard - if a site or account gets flagged, it's probably for a combination of circumstances. There's no reason to think that one single aspect that worked or didn't work for someone else could apply to you.

It's either worth it to you to pursue this business model, or it isn't. That's about the best you're gonna get.

I thought so. Thanks Netmeg.