Saturday, October 08, 2005
Google's Spamdexing Service
You would think Google is fighting spam any way possible. Well, as Splog Fighter has pointed out, that may not be true. They appear to only fight spam really hard when it isn't making them lots of money.
The worst example of this is their AdSense for domains service. There they will set you up with the usual spamdexing ad page to "maximize revenue on parked pages." Their page even shows you a nice example screen shot of the spamdexing page they will provide. It looks just like the small (or fake) search engines many spammers setup.
The requirements for the service include that your parked domain must get at least 750,000 page views per month. Seems like that should be an oxymoron, parked domain and 750,000 page views just can't go together right? Well apparently they do for the "over 3 million domain names" powered by Google's spamdexing service.
Google has little incentive to fix the spam problem which we now know they support in multiple ways. They just have to deal with better than the other search engines. That way people will get tired of spam filled search results and turn to the only alternative, the Google monopoly.
I admit, I like Google and many of their services, but I think their "Don't be evil" motto may be slipping. How can running a spamdexing service not be evil? How can supporting spammers with AdSense not be evil? And isn't promoting domain parking evil in the first place?
I don't think that Google is going to stop their spamdexing service any time soon, but people should know about it. Most of their revenue comes from ads and it seems likely a large portion of that is generated by spammers. The only chance this will go away is if advertisers realize too many of their ad impressions are comming from junk pages. I wouldn't want to advertise a legitimate business on a junk parked page full of ads. The problem is many people don't understand that these kind of pages are junk.
I have to thank Ralph for pointing out the parked domain service in the comments on Splog Fighter's recommendations for Google.
Now, if my blog disappears suddenly, you know what probably happened. I doubt Google would do it, but just in case, chongqed.org would let you know where I end up.
The worst example of this is their AdSense for domains service. There they will set you up with the usual spamdexing ad page to "maximize revenue on parked pages." Their page even shows you a nice example screen shot of the spamdexing page they will provide. It looks just like the small (or fake) search engines many spammers setup.
The requirements for the service include that your parked domain must get at least 750,000 page views per month. Seems like that should be an oxymoron, parked domain and 750,000 page views just can't go together right? Well apparently they do for the "over 3 million domain names" powered by Google's spamdexing service.
Google has little incentive to fix the spam problem which we now know they support in multiple ways. They just have to deal with better than the other search engines. That way people will get tired of spam filled search results and turn to the only alternative, the Google monopoly.
I admit, I like Google and many of their services, but I think their "Don't be evil" motto may be slipping. How can running a spamdexing service not be evil? How can supporting spammers with AdSense not be evil? And isn't promoting domain parking evil in the first place?
I don't think that Google is going to stop their spamdexing service any time soon, but people should know about it. Most of their revenue comes from ads and it seems likely a large portion of that is generated by spammers. The only chance this will go away is if advertisers realize too many of their ad impressions are comming from junk pages. I wouldn't want to advertise a legitimate business on a junk parked page full of ads. The problem is many people don't understand that these kind of pages are junk.
I have to thank Ralph for pointing out the parked domain service in the comments on Splog Fighter's recommendations for Google.
Now, if my blog disappears suddenly, you know what probably happened. I doubt Google would do it, but just in case, chongqed.org would let you know where I end up.
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Yeah. The whole idea of parking domains (buying domains names which might mean something, and putting information there which does not mean anything) seems to run contrary to the spirit of the web.
In the past I always admired the way Google rewarded people who wanted to run a website with useful informative or entertaining content, presented in a way which is simple and user friendly. They were helping to shape the entire web as a great information resource.
But now what are they playing at??
Parked domain names are always mildly annoying, but a parked domain name which attracts 750,000 page views per month? That's not just annoying, that's a big pain in the ass, for a lot of people. Why is google encouraging this?
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In the past I always admired the way Google rewarded people who wanted to run a website with useful informative or entertaining content, presented in a way which is simple and user friendly. They were helping to shape the entire web as a great information resource.
But now what are they playing at??
Parked domain names are always mildly annoying, but a parked domain name which attracts 750,000 page views per month? That's not just annoying, that's a big pain in the ass, for a lot of people. Why is google encouraging this?
# posted by 
: 10/10/2005 7:41 AM
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: 10/10/2005 7:41 AM << Home
