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AdSense: How to do it right?

by john5Jhx
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
At some level I want to at least try it for one or two websites and see what happens. Why?

Well, it certainly seems to be working for a lot of people. What I don't want is a repeat of what happened to me three years ago where Google killed my account in three days flat. I didn't do anything twisted, I think it was a matter of a low quality single-page site coupled with a bad product chosen out of Clickbank.

The other reason is that I just finished reading an article about Viral Nova. Wow!
  • Zero to one hundred million unique's in six months
  • Estimated $400K AdSense income in December
  • Just a couple of Google ads per page
  • All content is "borrowed" from other sources, no real original content
  • Site is for sale right now for over four million dollars

So here's a pure AdSense strategy that seems to be paying off in a huge way. If anything it means that it can be made to work. Lots of questions though. Let me take a stab at a few as I would like to learn from those with real experience battling it out in this domain.

Traffic
  • Using Facebook and primarily relying on outrageous content to drive viral sharing.

Content
  • None is original.
  • They certainly borrow all of the pictures from the original article's source. They seem to do a little creative writing around that.
  • They have a DMCA submission button.
  • Have to wonder how much they get dinged.
  • There have to be HUGE copyright infringement issues here
  • With copyright infringement coming in at $150K per infraction this seems like a serious risk to take
  • Is it fair use if you scale pictures down by 75% and maybe make some auto-changes (add a halo, whatever)
  • They do have a link to the original article under each picture and at the bottom of the article. Is this enough?

AdSense/Google
  • What the heck? Here's a site that arguably uses nearly 100% stolen content yet Google does not shut them down? Yet they shut down my crummy one-pager three years ago? Not complaining. Water under the bridge. Just trying to understand.
  • Does Google look the other way when a site like this is making everyone money?
  • At some level most news sites on the Internet regurgitate content from others. Not sure how Google can tell who was first and who actually owns the content (both words and images).
  • It's really tempting to try and reproduce what these guy are doing and see what happens. Apparently a number of people have done exactly that and generated results.

In general terms after my experience the whole Google / AdSense ecosystem has confused the living daylights out of me. In other words, I have no idea what the rules might actually be. If you read the TOS I think it might be clear that sites like Viral Nova ought not be able to make a single penny from AdSense ads. This is clearly not the case. How do you do AdSense right?

More general questions
  • It's been three years since my last contact with AdSense.
  • Can I just create a new account?
  • What would be the strategy in order to protect myself from collateral damage in case I get hit with another shutdown?
  • When they shut you down they shut down your Google account, not just your AdSense access. This means you loose everything: gmail, drive, adwords, webmaster, etc.
  • What do you guys do? Do you create multiple accounts to isolate exposure?
Thanks!
#adsense
  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Originally Posted by john5Jhx View Post

    More general questions
    • It's been three years since my last contact with AdSense.
    • Can I just create a new account?
    • What would be the strategy in order to protect myself from collateral damage in case I get hit with another shutdown?
    • When they shut you down they shut down your Google account, not just your AdSense access. This means you loose everything: gmail, drive, adwords, webmaster, etc.
    • What do you guys do? Do you create multiple accounts to isolate exposure?
    Thanks!
    Seems like a citation thing, imo it's allowed as long as you mention the source.

    Keep in mind you can't copy from news sites, you need to be a verified journalist / in possesion of a press card for that, but you can take stuff from other sites as far as I know.

    You can't just create a new account, they will ban you straight away or when they find out, which can be any day.

    What you can do to get a fresh start is setup an LLC, LTD or anything like that, those often come with a virtual address to avoid showing your own address again.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Nobody has to use a DMCA button just because you add the link on a site full of stolen content. Google/Adsense has it's own online form to report problems. The question is how many Adsense complaints does it take to get an Adsense account banned?

    You would have better luck with public domain content & adding a twist to that content. That's where most of my sites content originated (public domain).

    I'll show you an example of what public domain content can do...

    Dover Publications is an old multi-million dollar business that's been around long before the internet ever existed, their main source of income is republishing public domain books. They also have their own titles, but mostly republished books.

    A simple example of what Dover does, they'll take a collection of old public domain books & consolidate all the artwork into a single new book (new book title, new cover art, etc...). The catch is you have to be able to prove the content is public domain. It's up to you to do the research If you go that route.

    You can find examples of Dover books in bookstores like Barnes & Noble.

    I'm in no way suggesting you'll be the next Dover, my point here is you can create web pages (content) without stealing other peoples content by using public domain content. Be creative in how you re-purpose the public domain content. Another thing is, content doesn't have to be articles.
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  • Profile picture of the author gsinfovision
    Banned
    Originally Posted by john5Jhx View Post

    At some level I want to at least try it for one or two websites and see what happens. Why?

    Well, it certainly seems to be working for a lot of people. What I don't want is a repeat of what happened to me three years ago where Google killed my account in three days flat. I didn't do anything twisted, I think it was a matter of a low quality single-page site coupled with a bad product chosen out of Clickbank.

    The other reason is that I just finished reading an article about Viral Nova. Wow!
    • Zero to one hundred million unique's in six months
    • Estimated $400K AdSense income in December
    • Just a couple of Google ads per page
    • All content is "borrowed" from other sources, no real original content
    • Site is for sale right now for over four million dollars

    So here's a pure AdSense strategy that seems to be paying off in a huge way. If anything it means that it can be made to work. Lots of questions though. Let me take a stab at a few as I would like to learn from those with real experience battling it out in this domain.

    Traffic
    • Using Facebook and primarily relying on outrageous content to drive viral sharing.

    Content
    • None is original.
    • They certainly borrow all of the pictures from the original article's source. They seem to do a little creative writing around that.
    • They have a DMCA submission button.
    • Have to wonder how much they get dinged.
    • There have to be HUGE copyright infringement issues here
    • With copyright infringement coming in at $150K per infraction this seems like a serious risk to take
    • Is it fair use if you scale pictures down by 75% and maybe make some auto-changes (add a halo, whatever)
    • They do have a link to the original article under each picture and at the bottom of the article. Is this enough?

    AdSense/Google
    • What the heck? Here's a site that arguably uses nearly 100% stolen content yet Google does not shut them down? Yet they shut down my crummy one-pager three years ago? Not complaining. Water under the bridge. Just trying to understand.
    • Does Google look the other way when a site like this is making everyone money?
    • At some level most news sites on the Internet regurgitate content from others. Not sure how Google can tell who was first and who actually owns the content (both words and images).
    • It's really tempting to try and reproduce what these guy are doing and see what happens. Apparently a number of people have done exactly that and generated results.

    In general terms after my experience the whole Google / AdSense ecosystem has confused the living daylights out of me. In other words, I have no idea what the rules might actually be. If you read the TOS I think it might be clear that sites like Viral Nova ought not be able to make a single penny from AdSense ads. This is clearly not the case. How do you do AdSense right?

    More general questions
    • It's been three years since my last contact with AdSense.
    • Can I just create a new account?
    • What would be the strategy in order to protect myself from collateral damage in case I get hit with another shutdown?
    • When they shut you down they shut down your Google account, not just your AdSense access. This means you loose everything: gmail, drive, adwords, webmaster, etc.
    • What do you guys do? Do you create multiple accounts to isolate exposure?
    Thanks!
    There ARE a lot of blackhat tricks people use to trick adsense bots. Problem is - most of those would show you shiny figures under the "estimated earnings" tab, but non would get you a payment!

    Why people always have to find a "workaround" way when it comes to adsense and then say "Adsense is whimsical?" Its by far the BEST CPC platform for publishers. Very few platforms even come close to it. The TOS aren't very tough - all they ask you is to stay legit. IMO, its not a good idea to "copy" content (even if you link to it) and fill up your entire site and then drive traffic from Fb.

    Facebook traffic isn't bad, but any social media traffic might be looked upon as your friends clicking your ads to make you money. So, IMO, you should stay away from it. Fan pages and traffic from content shared on social sites are a different story though.
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