How to fight Made for Adsense sites like Wisegeek

A Made for Adsense site is rarely a yes or no endeavor.  Usually there are degrees to how much exactly a site is Made for Adsense.  There is a spectrum to how much a site is designed for the user experience and how much a site is designed to make money from Google.  Wisegeek is a site way on the spectrum of making money from Google(they don't deserve a link, even a no-follow one).

Wisegeek's page is almost completely filled with adsense ads.  They have adsense ads that look like menus.  You click on anything and you get nothing but ads.  There is content hidden off to the side and bottom of the page.  The layout is so bad it's almost painful to try to read the content.  I can't believe it was a Yahoo pick and received a reccommendation from Encyclopedia Britanica.

Wisegeek makes Google a lot of money as they have a premium adsense account so obviously fighting them through Google is not the way to go.

Why should you fight Made for Adsense sites?  They cost other publishers money by giving advertisers less value per click(more likely to have accidental clicks which Google cannot keep track of all of).  Also, people may click just because they hate the layout of the site and click out which also hurts advertisers.  They also may click on something thinking that it's a menu button resulting in more accidental clicks.  It also hurts the quality of the internet which further harms publishers.

So, who do we go to to fight Made for Adsense sites like WiseGeek?  The advertisers.  In the adwords tool there's a way, there's a way to forbid your ads from appearing on certain properties or webpages.  What we have to do is get the advertisers to use this tool to stop ads from appearing on sites like Wisegeek.

Advertising is all about getting the most profit from your money.  There is so much clutter on wisegeek that people may just start clicking on ads not knowing what they're looking for.   I find it hard to believe that advertisers are getting the most bang for their back on a site like that.

When do advertisers get the most benefit from the ad?  When they are the only ad on the page.  With Graphics to differentiate itself from the content(sometimes results in off-topic ads, the smaller the ad block usually the more on topic they are with the theme of the site).  The lower down on the content the better(advertisers get better click thru-rates on when you scroll through the different pages on the ad block page 2 ads on the ad block get high click thru rates); these ad blocks are only available lower on the page) as then the searcher is done with the page and is looking for a new site to focus their attention on.  If they click on an ad at the top of the page, they may hit the back button if the ad doesn't give what they were looking for.

Why shouldn't advertisers just use adsense for search and give up on adsense for content altogether?  Some niches are not suited for adsense for content like specific buying keywords.  Adsense for content allows you to target verticals.  Someone on a muscle building page may be interested in a fat lass product too.

Adsense for Search leaves you open to people who are just clicking on your link to get keywords to build pages to target (i.e. your product + scam or +review).  Search ads get people whom are less desperate as adsense for search are the first links they see on their quest for knowledge.  However, they also haven't had a chance to read negative reviews about certain products...

People who click on search ads who haven't used google before may not know it's a product ad and may just be looking for information.  Some people may use certain sites as portals for information and may not even use search engines.  There are also a lot of ads on the Google search results page and they may just start clicking until they find what they are looking for.

Google Adwords for Content on Google Adsense publishers gives advertisers the best value(except in buying niches and niches with bad reviews) by bringing more attention to the ad and more targeted traffic leading to a higher conversion rate(surfers may confuse Google search ads with actual results).  Made for Adsense sites like Wisegeek hurt the publishers by costing advertisers money that could be used on higher bids.  We need to inform advertisers that they can exclude their ads from being shown on Wisegeek and thereby get more value for their money.

Is Ezine Articles a Made For Adsense site?

Ezine Articles is clearly designed to make lots of money with adsense but there are degrees to how much a site is a made for adsense site.  I'm going to go through all the criteria and see how much Ezine Articles fits of being a MFA site.  Note:  No matter what Ezine Articles will always receive new articles as each article you submit gets a fresh backlink to your profile page reminding search engines of all the other articles you submitted.

1) Site layout is designed to make the maximum amount of money on adsense.

Take a look at my grow taller article hosted on ezine articles(shameless backlink).  First, notice how ugly the site is.  Most MFA's have an ugly site to increase click through rate.  Notice the Google search button right at the top then a google ad and then another google ad.  Then there's one more google ad at the side and one more tiny google ad under all the adsense menu options.  The layout of the site is not designed to improve the user experience but rather to make money with adsense.

Layout wise Ezine Articles is a Made For Adsense site.  Even the minimum content length of 250 words is designed to make money from adsense as this allows a higher ad density versus content.

2)  Site is only designed to make money from adsense(no other monetization methods) and nobody uses the site for other purposes.

People use the site for backlinks and affiliate sales.  Some quality sites do syndicate Ezine Articles content.  People also use Ezine Articles for Niche research.  If people only used Ezine Articles for backlinks then it would definitely be a Made for Adsense site as then no one would write article for readers but rather for SEO purposes.

Ezine Articles does have several bonuses for affiliate sales.  The call to action at the bottom of the article.  The status as expert author to build trust with the reader to make them more likely to buy.  There are also several tutorials on the site on how to use Ezine Articles for sales.  The alternative monetization method of getting a Premium subscription is also geared for affiliate sales.  I can't imagine why backlink borgers would want to have premium status.  The ability to save signatures and to schedule release of content favor affiliate sellers.

Some changes like not allowing direct affiliate links and requiring a landing page hurt Ezines status for affiliate marketers.  Although marketers can always sell their own products and people get around the restriction.

The more Ezine Articles moves away from servicing affiliate marketers, the more it becomes a Made for Adsense site.

3)  Content rules match Googles guidelines.

A true MFA site would only use Google's content rules to decide which content to allow for it's site as that would allow it to host more articles and get more clicks.  This is one criteria that Ezine Articles definitely doesn't fulfill.  EA has all kinds of silly criteria like not allowing the mention of EA in an article, a keyword density limit, and all kinds of silly nonsensical rules.

Ezine Articles is very close to being a MFA site but is saved by it's weird editors and affiliate marketers.