Category — democracy

Here is how the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo REALLY went down.

According to the NYTimes Google reported quarterly profits once again. How is it that the economy is taking a pummeling while this giant continues to make mad money? The housing sector is going to shit, people are getting laid off, and those who stay in the game work less at a lower pay.  The fact that Google was able to make a killing can only mean one of the following three things.

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Like most people my first foray into monetizing my websites was Google AdSense. It paid pretty well per click and made me enough for a few nights out every month. Recently I have been more involved on the other end as an advertiser. Using AdWords let me really understand what a total BS AdSense is and how much publishers get screwed.

Before I jump into my problems with AdSense I just want to let you know that this problem exists across other networks, I just happened to notice it on the Google.

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Before I kick things off, I want to thank all of you who have been posting your comments. They are great and help me discover new things every day.

Anyway I build websites both for fun and as a way to experiment with SEO. Recently I have been working on monetizing these projects just to see what the “make money online” hoopla is all about. I don’t make enough to retire, but its fun non the less.

One website I threw up had to do with DRM Free Movies. It was one of my early projects and I have not had the time to really build a valuable website. It did receive about 20 to 30 unique visitors, so I decided to throw up some AdSense, Amazon, and AdBrite to the site to see if I can monetize the traffic. I made about 50 cents to a dollar a day which was nice.

A few days ago I checked my analytics, and lo and behold I was receiving 0 traffic. I investigated to see if the site was still ranking for the keywords, and of course it was not. What was interesting is that the “brand name” still ranked the website, but all of the keywords I was targeting do not.

I believe it was due to human review that my site was removed. Thanks to Rose who posted a comment on Google Human Review and sent a link to SPAM Guidelines.

Lets use this opportunity to learn what NOT to do and how to avoid a Google penalty.

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I am thinking maybe we need to create a “neighborhood watch” of sorts for the online space. Every day I learn of something shady, hypocritical, or downright monopolistic that they do. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to site and write down every time I hear of them doing something “evil.” For example, just today I saw two posts from some of my favorite bloggers that showed what Google has been up to.

First up is Aaron Wall on Hypocritical Nature of AdSense

Next up was Slightly Shady on Google Creating Its Own Internet

Seoker.com on Google Toolbar Steals 401 Messages

Here are my two cents on both issues:

UPDATE: The fine Folks of Google Horror Stories  sent me a note letting me know that they are designed to serve as a Google Watch Dog. Feel free to post your horror story there.

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