

Stuck in Google’s Doghouse? Solution: mail DoJ - jacobscott
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/technology/13nocera.html?pagewanted=all

======
froo
I'm having a hard time believing sourcetool's argument that they were more
than an arbitrage spam site.

It is a bunch of scraped content, with ads around it. I don't see any
additional value provided by sourcetool and I definitely don't believe the
search engine argument as search engines generally add value by at least
ranking pages somehow, there doesn't appear to be any logical order to how the
pages are ranked more than when they appeared in the sourcetool database.

Some pages are nothing more than a series of keywords with ads around it,
here's a perfect example chosen at random, I landed on a page for a business
called "Sundeal", nothing but keywords.

The "Brief Description" are the exact words for the title tag of Sundeal's
homepage, all other content (that is not part of the standard sourcetool
layout) is simply the keywords meta repeated twice.

Even looking at the copyright notice down the bottom of the page "Copyright ©
2005-06" makes it hard to believe this is in any way, shape or form a
professional Internet Business.

I'd almost be inclined to say this article was paid placement itself.

Mod me down for those who don't agree, but I hold nothing but contempt for
this sourcetool site.

~~~
josefresco
It's pretty much a glorified website directory, and not a great example of the
types of sites that have a legitimate beef with Google's heavy-handed tactics.

~~~
froo
_Google's heavy-handed tactics._

I don't agree with this, I think Google has every right to provide it's main
customers (searchers) the best possible product that they can. If anything,
removing sites like these actually cut into Google's profits.

I have no problem with directories that are trying to drive legitimate,
organic traffic to their sites, nor do I have a problem with any kind of web
directory - I think that anyone who is adding value to the net should be
commended.

I just think that if their whole reason for existence is to convert inbound
adwords clicks into outbound adsense clicks by using scraped content, how can
that possibly be valuable?

Most people here could easily replicate this site in the space of an afternoon
and have the content up within days - grab an RDF dump from DMOZ, insert those
URL's into any off the shelf spider and capture meta data from those pages and
mash it up = instant spam site, does it add value? Most definitely not.

~~~
davidw
I think what josefresco was trying to say was that there are other situations
in which Google has been "heavy handed" with what are reported as real sites.
This obviously isn't one of those.

------
josefresco
Excellent article exposing what most people who do business with Google
already know. Search arbitrage or not, Google is in a position to force out
anyone they are not 'partners' with.

This case isn't nearly as bad as many arbitrage cases out there, and I would
argue that even true arbitrage is healthy for the market, identifying and
exploiting inefficiencies in the ad market and correcting them (and who's to
say you can't make some money doing that?)

Example of 'helpful/legit' arbitrage: you buy from AdWords the keyword
"mortgage" and then geo target your ads to only customers in California,
sending them to a page with AdSense ads for the keyword "California mortgage"
which pays higher than the national/non geo-specific term.

The problem with this is Google wants both the 'mortgage' term AND the
"California mortgage' term and objects to you profiting from their advertisers
over paying.

------
staunch
I've read too many stories about ad arbitrage and the massive amounts of money
these guys make. It seems just a few notches above email spam, but damn if
$155k/mo profit isn't tempting. I can't see myself working so hard to pollute
the internet, even if there is good money in it. I'd rather spend my time
creating things of genuine value.

~~~
davidw
+1: it's frustrating to try and build cool stuff, and see people raking in the
dough with junk like this. I don't really feel sorry for them when Google
comes along and dumps them, as they weren't really making anything people
wanted.

~~~
petercooper
No. If they were doing something "no-one wants", they'd be making no money - a
bit like if I tried selling ice to the eskimos.

People were clicking on his Adwords ads (which would have to be properly
descriptive - due to Google's policies) out of choice and were then browsing
the guy's site before some of them were clicking on Adsense ads (again,
properly described and out of choice).

If someone didn't like the sound of an ad, why would they click on it? They
were clicking on the ads, and short of being forced at gunpoint, they
obviously "wanted" to click on them.

~~~
ajross
That's a very weak analysis. The point you're replying to is that this site
had no content, not that its users didn't "want to" use it in some
metaphysical sense.

This site was exploiting a difference between google's advertising cost and
its advertising payout. They would buy ads to drive traffic to more ads, and
make money on the difference. That's all. The site itself didn't matter, it
was all about ads. Google, to their credit, discovered that they weren't
making a profit from this customer, so they adjusted their prices accordingly.

~~~
petercooper
> This site was exploiting a difference between google's advertising cost and
> its advertising payout.

And? If you go to work and get paid $50,000, your employer is "exploiting" the
difference between the value of your work and what they pay you. That's not a
bad thing. An employer adds a lot of value (a team, equipment, various capital
expenses) a typically employee could not use on their own.

So it goes with this guy's site. He might have been exploiting a difference,
but he was also adding value. If he were not, then the advertisers of the ads
he was making money on would have been advertising where /he/ was advertising.

Arbitrage is not in itself bad or deplorable. People seem to have a personal
vendetta against it on the Internet, however, due to their undeserved phobia
of advertising - an industry that has pretty much fueled our economy (and the
Internet generally) for a good 50 years now.

~~~
davidw
> Arbitrage is not in itself bad or deplorable.

No, but it is annoying because it ends up producing lots of junk on the
internet that doesn't really contribute to people finding the information they
want - it actually puts another layer in the middle in many cases. I have no
problem with advertising, when combined with something of actual interest or
value.

> If he were not, then the advertisers of the ads he was making money on would
> have been advertising where /he/ was advertising.

Or he was just exploiting a temporary hole in the market, in which case, good
for him, but he has no right to complain about getting shut down by the same
market.

------
furiouslol
Maybe it's just me but I'm calling a major BS on the $155k/m profit claim.

1) Assuming he got 100k visitors per month

2) Assuming each arb gets him $0.10 per click.

3) Assmuning 50% of the visitors click 1 ad (and that's wildly optimistic)

His profit would be 50k x $0.10 = $5k/mth

If he were to get $155k in profit per month. he needs to get about 3 million
visitors per month. I checked Alexa, Compete and his site is nowhere that
figure.

Not sure what's his motive in inflating the profit figure though. He's only
going to attract more competition to his field and kill his business in the
process.

Maybe he's planning to write an ebook to convince people into believing that
it is easy to earn that much with search arb and hence, he'll use the NYtimes
article as evidence.

With each ebook selling for $99.99 and 100% profit margin, it'll take him only
1550 sales/month to meet his imaginary $155k profit claim. Now, that's a
business plan!

~~~
furiouslol
Ok. I'm going to eat my words now.

He did get 3million visits per month.

<http://www.quantcast.com/sourcetool.com/traffic> (Change the period to All-
Time)

Massive drop from 3million visits in April 06 to 100k in April 08 and now 10k
in Aug 08.

Amazing if he attracted the 3 million people to his site purely with Adwords
alone.

I wonder how many terms he has to bid for (> 100k?)

------
fallentimes
Does anyone have any experience actually using this site for a purpose? How
was it?

