I’ve written about methods of alerting contextual advertising networks to abuse before [see Abusing Yahoo!’s Contextual Advertising (YPN) — not clickfraud] and have been pleased to see some action on the front. But things are still too complicated and time consuming. Spammers continue to prosper at the expense of us all (see why everyone loses).

The following guide explains two ways of fighting back and alerting the Adsense program of abuse that you stumble across when browsing the web (skip the preamble and head right to the two methods). A typical scenario involves the following:

Imagine searching for something or other on the Internet and arriving at a webpage chocked full of ads and stuffed with the exact keyword you were searching for. The page is of no help because it contains no content of value. Some guy somewhere, created a website that sucks keywords / newstories / content from other websites using RSS, inserted the right keywords to maximize profit from Adsense, and waited for Google to index and rank it high enough for you stumble upon it. Once at the page, the spammer (or spamdexer) hopes that you will click on one of the Adsense ads that seem helpful compared to the rest of the useless random text. This practice of spamdexing wastes your time, its annoying, and you can fight back.

Its not hard to imagine this scenario because I’m sure it has already happened to you. Maybe you were smart enough not to click on the ads, but somewhere, some schmuck clicks on them. And there enough schmucks out there to make spamdexing profitable.

Spamdexing or search engine spamming is the practice of deliberately creating web pages which will be indexed by search engines in order to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned. [source]

When a content provider wants to sell advertising space for Google to rent out he or she must agree to abide by something called the “Terms of Service” (TOS). If they were to break the TOS and Google were to discover it, the agreement is cancelled and Google stops showing ads on the content provider’s site and he or she no longer gets paid. Here are just a few of the TOS that spammers have a hard time obeying:

• Use excessive advertising
• Deceptive or manipulative content or construction to improve your site’s search engine ranking, e.g., your site’s PageRank
• No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.

That last one is my favourite. Its like a catchall; if you create a page with no utility save for earning you money via adsense clicks, than you are breaking the TOS. Other things like low contrasting colour schemes, or the removal of the ‘Ads by Goooooogle’ link in order to make the advertised links appear like content are also against the TOS. The only reason to create sites that waste our collective time is monetary. If we cut their source of money then they will change their tactics. Use one of the following two methods to cut the monetary reason for spamdexing and stop the spammers.

Method 1 Using Ads by Goooogle

Observe the example offending page below. It clealy has no content of value yet I stumbled upon it using Google’s search. I clicked on it, discovered it was garbage and decided to report the page to Google. Here is how:

Step 1: Click on the ‘Ads by Google’ link. Don’t worry, they don’t get any money.

Step 2: Click on ‘Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw’.

Step 3: Fill out the form making sure to cite why you think the site is garbage.

What to fill in under comments is up to you, but I suggest a quick familiarization of the Adsense policies. Some of my favourite reasons were posted above (recall: No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant). In the example splog I show above, it is obvious that the text is meaningless and that the page has been designed expressly for the purpose of showing advertisements — a violation of the TOS.

I don’t know about you, but following those three steps and then writing a short note to Google just isn’t worth my time. While it certainly makes me feel good knowing I’m helping to stop a spammer, most of the time I am too busy completing the task I assigned myself in the first place. I need to find the answer and this page isn’t it, I move on and leave the page unreported. While using this method does send Google a message about potential violations, and they do indeed act on these messages, in all likelihood you will receive the following message from them which leads directly into method 2:

Google Adsense Team: In the future, to allow us to investigate any issues more efficiently, you can email our specialists directly at adsense-abuse@google.com.

Method 2: Email Google

Clearly, they want a direct email about potential Adsense violations. Taken directly from the Google page, “How do I report a policy violation?,” the following is the method suggested for alerting Google of websites that cheat:

• 1. Draft a new email. If possible, please use the email address currently associated with your AdSense account
• 2. Write ‘AdSense Policy Violation’ as the subject of your message
• 3. Please include all of the following in the body of your message:
  • The URL of the violating website
  • A description of the violation
  • The specific location of the violation, if applicable
• 4. Send this email to adsense-abuse@google.com

Although this method is easy it still takes too much time.

Why can’t I simply push a button to alert Google (or YPN!) of websites that abuse their polices in the same way that you can ‘Flag As Objectionable‘ when viewing blogger blogs?

Subscribe to MaxPower: don’t miss the updates!