Abuse and criticism

Abuse

Some webmasters create websites tailored to lure searchers from Google and other engines onto their AdSense website to make money from clicks. These "zombie" websites often contain nothing but a large amount of interconnected, automated content (e.g., a directory with content from the Open Directory Project, or scraper websites relying on RSS feeds for content). Possibly the most popular form of such "AdSense farms" are splogs (spam blogs), which are centered around known high-paying keywords. Many of these websites use content from other websites, such as Wikipedia, to attract visitors. These and related approaches are considered to be search engine spam and can be reported to Google.[citation needed]

A Made for AdSense (MFA) website or webpage has little or no content, but is filled with advertisements so that users have no choice but to click on advertisements. Such pages were tolerated in the past, but due to complaints, Google now disables such accounts.

There have also been reports of Trojan horses engineered to produce counterfeit Google advertisements that are formatted looking like legitimate ones. The Trojan downloads itself onto an unsuspecting computer through a webpage and then replaces the original advertisements with its own set of malicious advertisements.[13]

[edit] Criticism

Due to concerns about click fraud, 'Google AdSense' has been criticized by some search engine optimization firms as a large source of what Google calls "invalid clicks", in which one company clicks on a rival's search engine advertisements to drive up the other company's costs.[14]

To help prevent click fraud, AdSense publishers can choose from a number of click-tracking programs.[citation needed] These programs display detailed information about the visitors who click on the AdSense advertisements. Publishers can use this to determine whether or not they have been a victim of click fraud. There are a number of commercial tracking scripts available for purchase.

The payment terms for webmasters have also been criticized.[15] Google withholds payment until an account reaches US$100,[16] but many micro content providers[citation needed] require a long time—years in some cases—to build up this much AdSense revenue. However, Google will pay all earned revenue greater than US$10 when an AdSense account is closed.

Many website owners complain that their AdSense accounts have been disabled just before they were supposed to receive their first paycheck from Google. Google claims accounts have been disabled due to click fraud.[citation needed]

Google came under fire when the official Google AdSense Blog showcased the French video website Imineo.com. This website violated Google's AdSense Program Policies by displaying AdSense alongside sexually explicit material. Typically, websites displaying AdSense have been banned from showing such content.[17] Some sites have been banned for distributing copyright material even when they hold the copyright themselves or are authorized by the copyright holder to distribute the material.[18]

It has been reported that using both AdSense and AdWords may cause a website to pay Google a commission when the website advertises itself.[19]

In some cases, AdSense displays inappropriate or offensive ads. For example, in a news story about a terrorist attack in India, an advert was generated for a (presumably non-existent) educational qualification in terrorism.[20]