Finally, Google takes a tough stance on scam ads.
I’m sure you have seen them, unless you’ve been using Adblock. We’ve all seen teeth whitening ads, weight loss ads, and make money online ads etc.
Running a blog that reports on online scams, I know a scam when I see one. And, I see them often. They are on suspicious looking websites (obviously), but also on widely trusted big name websites.
Most widely spread scams via advertising networks are the ones that promise a sample (or trial) for a dollar or two and slap you with monthly (sometimes bi-weekly) subscription fees. You can read about them in these articles:
You may ask why these website operators don’t ban scam ads that generate complaints from visitors.
It’s simply too hard to filter out the bad ones from the good ones. Due to the nature of online advertising (especially PPC, i.e. Adsense), a website cannot screen thousands of advertisers.
Until now, Google has been banning ads (URLs specifically) that are deemed to be scams. The problem with this approach was that an advertiser would simply register a new domain and advertise the same product under a different URL. It’s not a winnable battle.
Plus, I’ve always thought Google (or any other advertising network) profited too much from all these scam ads to take a strong approach in cracking them down.
To my surprise, Google will now ban advertisers instead of ads. This I believe will dramatically reduce the amount of scam ads. I am very pleased to hear that Google is taking this step.
I guess all the scam ads were starting to overrun legitimate businesses’ ads. That’s what I’ve been noticing. Everywhere you go on the net, you’d see scam ad. It’s actually very hard to see a non-scam ads. This is probably due to the fact that many of these scams spread with the help of affiliate marketing. With thousands of affiliate marketers, blindly chasing money, disseminating scam ads into PPC advertising spaces, netizens are bound to see more scam ads than good ads.
Read about problems with online affiliate marketing here.
I think it reached a point where Google Adsense network’s reputation was at stake.
With the new implementation, affiliate marketers will not easily risk being banned. This is a very good thing. Although it is a simple change of rules, the effects will be significant as they propagate through advertisers’ psyche.
Affiliates will now have to be careful in choosing which products and services to promote and not simply follow the highest conversion ratios.
My only concern is the issue of false positives. But all in all, this is a good news.
How Online Fraud Works