I complained to Google that my AdWords account was getting almost no page views and that people were clicking on their own ads to make money. Basically, I average about 15 page views per visitor from all other sites. My Google Adword campaign averaged 2. So, I investigated to see what sites were linking in to me. I went to Google and tried the basic searches (site:www.sportstradercentral.com and www.sportstradercentral.com will show what sites are linking to my site: http://www.sportstradercentral.com).

I noticed there were a TON of sites linking to my site with absolutely zero content. They simply had categories that if you clicked on them would show you Google Ads. When I clicked on the Sports Card category my site showed up.

I notified Google with their online help. I explained that these sites were breaking the "No Content" rule that they established with Google Adsense. They informed me that the guys were in fact NOT breaking the rule because ads can be displayed on Parked Domains. Notice this link:
http://www.google.com/domainpark/

I was shocked! So, companies like GoDaddy can make money off of YOUR parked domains. You pay the yearly fee and THEY make money.

So, Google BANS people that run Google Ads with no content, but allows parked domains with absolutely NO content? This is beyond pathetic and shows Google is no different than all the companies like Microsoft. They care about the bottom line and that is it. They made it big by attacking Microsoft as a evil monopoly and now they are no different.

I average 2 page views from my paid Google Campaigns and average 15 page views from every other website that is linking to me. This is fraud any way you look at it. I stopped my campaign and will never use Google Adwords Again. I was paying $5 and getting almost no registered users from this. People were clicking and leaving. I couldn't help but feel that people were clicking their own ads and then leaving. Thoughts?


Mike

you can choose not to display the ads on content sites

you can also exclude sites by domain - so if you have parked domains showing your ads - just exclude them

Just keep track of your referral stats (third party unless you use site-specific targetting in your campaign). Then any page whose 'content' you don't like, block them.

That's what I do.

I hate those sites that are just a collection of categories containing google ads and that's it.

you can also exclude sites by domain - so if you have parked domains showing your ads - just exclude them

There is no way I have the time to exclude hundreds of these sites. My sites are sports and sports cards and there are way too many to monitor.

Originally Posted by mikesilvia

I was shocked! So, companies like GoDaddy can make money off of YOUR parked domains. You pay the yearly fee and THEY make money.

Yep. Sad, but true. I really don't know why anybody is allowed to collect ad revenue from parked domains like that. I bought two through GoDaddy ( one for a friend who needed help with the process, with hosting ) and it takes a couple hours before you're able to get your own content up. In a lot of cases, I'm sure people get around to it tomorrow or next week.

None of this helps people looking for info on the web, running real queries. And when I accidentally wind up on a page like that, I don't go around clicking ads - I click back.