Pingoat creator shares splogs databaseblogs and podcasting, search engines — by TDavid @ 11:29 am PST
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Contrary to ideas involving click fraud like this one (sorry, Mitch, I’d like to believe your heart is in the right place, but fighting dishonesty with dishonesty is a very bad idea) fortunately there are more ethical, honorable and creative ideas being presented like the snail, check it out:
18 year old indian programmer, Kailash Nadh, released SplogSpot last month which is his attempt to fight back against the rising splog tide. Kailash explains:
SplogSpot is just a piece of software that feeds on Pingoat’s blacklist database. It is the service designed to make Pingoat’s blacklist database public. With the Splogspot API, anyone can query Pingoat’s blacklist database. So if you are starting a blog aggegator or something, or even a blog directory, use SplogSpot’s api to keep your sites clean!
Glad to see somebody do this, nice work Kailash! My mind is already clicking and whirring with ideas for how to use your Splogspot API in a few projects. Kailash also releases a weekly dump of his growing splog database in XML format.
Goodbye splogs, it’s not been nice knowing you.
TDavid—I think you’re wrong, it is not dishonesty to follow links on a site to discover what advertisers are supporting sploggers and send them, along with Google, a message by driving conversion rates down. That’s a political action.
At no point do I suggest click fraud, what I suggested is that when bloggers receive spam postings they go to the sources of those sites and click the ads there. It would not target legitimate Blogspot (or other hosts that facilitate splogs) publishers, just the abusers. It would not be “random.”
This would create pain for advertisers—it won’t drive them away, because AdSense works—but it will make them demand Google explain why they are getting much lower conversion rates. They will petition Google for relief, which is what advertising customers do (and I speak from experience as a publisher). These kinds of campaigns could be conducted in narrow timeframes by groups of bloggers who are tired, as I am, of cleaning spam postings out of their comments and trackbacks.
Finally, there is a general tone that this is wrong because it is bad business. I am suggesting a political statement, not a business decision. If Google bans me for clicking other people’s ads, they would have to prove I was commiting fraud, which is not the case if I am clicking on ads on other people’s sites. I’m justs surfing. But, frankly, if Google cut off AdSense on my site it would do nothing to my ability to earn money from the site. There are other ad programs that will pay me a few dollars a month, too.
We shouldn’t be so timid about the information environment we live in. Google’s contributing to information pollution and we should act to stop them.
Comment by Mitch Ratcliffe — October 25, 2005 @ 11:00 pm PST
Mitch -
Frankly I think if you are totally serious about this (and it sure seems that way which is the most vexing part) is one of the most stupid and ill-advised ideas I’ve heard this year. My parenthetical response above was me trying to be nice and afford you some professional courtesy out of the situation. My detailed comments which are much more critical are here: http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20051026/2537/
I’m on the side of battling splogs, but it has to be done in an honorable, ethical way. We can get creative about it, sure, but we can’t lose our souls in the fight.
Comment by TDavid — October 26, 2005 @ 10:35 am PST
The problem is that you think technology is the sole solution. Blacklisting isn’t the only answer necessary.
Am I serious about this? I’m serious making a point about passively accepting the technology and find the knee-jerk reaction of marketing-oriented folks silly and a violation of the spirit of the society we live in. Breaking the technology is not dishonest if it is designed to send a message rather than simply enrich someone, as click fraud is. I’ll have to thank you for your courtesy by asking you to find some of the spirit of dissent that keeps technological systems humane.
Comment by Mitch Ratcliffe — October 26, 2005 @ 10:54 am PST
Mitch - actually you don’t know what I think because I haven’t laid my cards on the table yet. I will be doing that at Seattle Mind. I’ll give you a hint though: it involves people taking action, not only technology, and it most certainly doesn’t involve anything that will violate Google’s Adsense TOS. People do have to take action on this one, at least we do agree on that point. It is just how that action is manifested where we disagree.
In the post above I’m saying I think transparency in the process is good and applauding a fellow developer who feels this way and is making his data available for others to act upon it. No more, no less. I never said or would say that technology is “the sole solution.”
Comment by TDavid — October 26, 2005 @ 11:12 am PST
Transparency is excellent, but it should be the systems binding people and revenue that are transparent.
Why is Google’s ToS, which are not favorable to the individual anyway, sacrosanct? Their privacy policies, too, are atrocious.
Comment by Mitch Ratcliffe — October 26, 2005 @ 11:17 am PST
Another good discussion
Make You Go Hmm: » Pingoat creator shares splogs database: TDavid and I (each sometime co-hosts of Webtalk Radio) are having a good discussion, where I recently asked: “Why is Google’s ToS, which are not favorable to the individual…
Trackback by RatcliffeBlog—Mitch's Open Notebook — October 26, 2005 @ 11:21 am PST
Actually the revenue is transparent. You get a check with a number on it, hopefully every month with a lot of zeroes if Adsense is working well for your company
They provide stats which can be tracked. You can run your own stats tracking as well to compare numbers and you can take down the ads any time you want.
The only thing Google does which is fairly unique to their program is that they don’t tell you the price per click you’ll earn in advance. They adjust that price per click based on a number of factors including the quality of your site conversions and the price paid for the click. It would be difficult for them to do anything but give averages, which their stats clearly already provide.
The fairness and/or transparency of the details of how these affiliate programs arrive at the numbers can be debated until the end of the sun but the bottom line is the check deposited in the bank, not who’s screwing who. It’s certainly more exciting to discuss and debate whos screwing who, but I care more about whos paying who and how much.
That isn’t saying I want to profit from advertisers being screwed, no way, it’s simply saying that advertisers need to figure into their ad buying a percentage of fraud that is deemed beyond Google’s control. I think at least some part of this splog infestation is currently beyond Google’s control, but I strongly believe Google will do what they can do to combat it and not sit back and keep profiting from it. They can no more eradicate 100% of this problem than any current spam filter can eradicate 100% of the spam in our inboxes (whitelisting excluded, of course).
From a technical perspective these things take time. I know this sounds crazy concerning the billions Google has in the bank but the reality is that even the smartest people out there have to go against other smart people. That’s the code wars that is neverending. Programmers vs. programmmers. Algos vs. algos.
And finally, as affiliates, we can’t eat plaques, pins, policies or procedures. Simply complaining about these things without some sort of meaningful, decisive and legal action isn’t going to change the system. Complaints do start the discussion, sure, but it is always what is actually being done — the activity — that matters most.
Action.
And that action cannot be entirely mechanical, which again, we both agree on, Mitch, because mechanical solutions are always fallable. No script or algo can replace humans choosing to do business with the right people. When a link is made somewhere a recommendation is made. It is still very difficult for machines to determine whether that link was a vote or spam.
I fully realize that by using Google Adsense I’m contributing to and part of the problem and I want to help Google expose, root out and purge their system of splogs. If I can see that Google really doesn’t care about removing splogs then goodbye to Adsense it will be no matter how good their Adsense program is financially, but I have to learn this on my own with enough empirical evidence showing that they have repeatedly refused to remove splog spam from their engine, not just because they have a bunch of splogs at blogspot or scripts out there mechanically generating splogs or because some anti-splog group tells me to do so.
Google derives its power from people. Always has, always will. People can giveth and people can taketh away. What is the search you use most? Is it Google? Is for me. I’m empowering them by that choice but only to the point that if somebody comes along and bests their algos, therby saving me valuable breaths of air on this planet, I’ll be riding that pony instead. I’m looking for it too, I review and look at new search engines frequently.
No matter what privacy policies or TOS Google utilyzes — pretty much standard fare for the web, BTW — they need good accounts to run these programs, they need people to agree to and use them. Just ask people who have been approached by them to put the Adsense up and have declined. Google will never completely monopolize the internet ad market.
There are other Googles out there somewhere right now. They are quietly building their product/service and making them the best ever. They aren’t out here blogging about it, they are busy working. When they come along, the market will shift again. In the meantime this current market is transitory at best.
That’s the web.
Comment by TDavid — October 26, 2005 @ 12:20 pm PST
You’re not understanding the issue at all if you think the check is transparency. That is how affiliates get their money, but this has to do with how people not involved in the transactions find influence in the system, which has nothing to do with accounting. We’re talking about massive wastes of bandwidth and time by people targeted by sploggers, who use AdSense to make money out of that misuse of our resources. Sploggers monopolize my comments and trackback system, shutting out legitimate comments and trackbacks.
It has nothing to do with how AdSense works for legitimate publishers.
As for the “standard fare” that is the ToS and privacy policies, you’re being remarkably glib about a company that wields immense influence over the way we find information. Sure, you’re comfortable you can draft off them, but that isn’t the concern most folks, who don’t rely on or even care about AdSense revenues. Instead it is about the discussions we’re having being corrupted by sploggers and a system that encourages their abuse of our resources.
Comment by Mitch Ratcliffe — October 26, 2005 @ 12:40 pm PST
Mitch - I’ve been on both sides of the affiliate fence for nearly 10 years now. Standard fare for me, might be gauged differently than some others perhaps, but only because I’ve seen a ton of different affiliate programs and base my opinions and perspective on those experiences. Time may have gone by but the same frustrations years ago are essentially the same frustrations now: policing affiliates.
Sploggers are affiliates gone bad. Splogs Gone Bad, now there’s a marketing idea.
I remember in the late nineties for instance when a company named Cyberthrill was paying 20 cents per click which many affiliates (myself included) thought was not sustainable at the time. How could they do that? The reality was that they couldn’t (go research that company if you are curious and you’ll see what I’m talking about). And pretty soon people started to get cancelled for? Bingo, you guessed it: fraudulent activity.
Oh, how the wheel spins.
I’m surprised at the rate by which some clicks are being paid these days but the bottom line is as long as advertisers are willing to budget and pay these rates then the affiliate programs can take their cut and pass along the rest. Google cannot and will not be able to sustain a high click payment return in the long term if they degrade their service through letting too many splogs infilitrate their system. If they think they can, then time will educate them. I hope they don’t take that hard road because, again, I’m a shareholder. I want them to make the right moves that bring them more money because I make more money. I don’t want them going down roads that cost them money.
They just have to get rid of this trash or they won’t be able to sustain payout levels. That’s the transparency contained in the checks we receive. I was just reading elsewhere Jensense talk about a rumoured “Smart Pricing” model in Adsense which involves adjusting value based on publisher content quality. Publishers with subpar content are going to hate this type of pricing if it really exists, but those who have good content will love it and want them to move more in that direction.
It’s the same thing with the SE. Those who create and publish quality content should rise above those who don’t.
Splogs clog up systems, you bet they do. But the answer when you strip away all the other stuff is not to fight fire with fire. I honestly can’t say I’ve seen that strategy work even one time. All that mentality does is pit programmers fighting against other programmers … a coder’s big penis contest.
Better solutions involve creativity and empowering, encouraging and possibly even incenting affiliates to help the affiliate owner clean up the trash. That is just one of several areas where positive change can be affected and eventually the issues you face as a publisher can be greatly reduced.
I’m looking forward to discussing plans of action like this with you and others at Seattle Mind. It would be even better if someone from the Adsense team was there to collect our ideas and work with those of us who want to help them take out the garbage.
Comment by TDavid — October 26, 2005 @ 2:21 pm PST
Okay, you’re saying that if one has a legitimate reason for clicking those ads, it’s not fraud. So, if I click ads to inventory which businesses are benefiting from splog placement and how often, so that I can alert them to that, it’s not fraud? It’s not fraud if I click the ads in protest, either, based on the same logic, which emphasizes intent over the action.
I’m doing Webtalk with Rob and Dana tomorrow. You should come by and we can have the conversation on the air, then Google can listen!
Comment by Mitch Ratcliffe — October 26, 2005 @ 2:26 pm PST