PDA

View Full Version : Google Fights Spam and Promotes Spam



vangogh
04-05-2009, 11:37 PM
The bigger Google grows the more people start to question that old motto "Do no evil" I came across this short and funny video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gGnt2cXuao&feature=player_embedded) on YouTube no less. Oh the irony. Beware some of the language is not safe for work.

The video is funny and is worth watching for a laugh, but it does raise a serious question.

Google does a lot to police the web by fighting spam, but so much of the spam you see online is in the form of AdWords. The video specifically mentions ads for government grants which the FTC has complained about. These ads make false claims and violate Google policies yet the ads still run.

What do you think? Should Google remove these ads? Do you think they leave them up deliberately? Is Google policing everyone on the web while no one is policing them?

orion_joel
04-06-2009, 01:05 AM
I will have to watch the video later on when i am home.

However i think it is very much true that there is so much advertising out there that is for things that are basically scams. That promote false information even in the adwords ads, things that should be easy enough to filter out even automatically. But they are still allowed to continue. Really what i think it comes down to is that if they did not allow them to continue, google would find themselves with a very small ad inventory, compared to what they do have right now.

vangogh
04-06-2009, 01:42 AM
What bothers me sometimes is Google's hypocrisy. I generally like Google. They are the first search engine I reach for and they provide some great free tools. Still because so many sites need them for traffic they can enforce things on us where they don't belong.

AdWords/AdSense is a good example. Google tells us they want quality sites in their index. They claim to be against spam sites. So why do they allow those spam sites to run AdSense. Seems simple enough to kick them out of the program. Of course when those spamsense sites profit so does Google.

Another thing Google does that are questionable are the cached pages. Essentially they're stealing our content and bandwidth. Google takes your content and wraps a frame around it. People can read your content without having to visit your site. Of course while they're viewing your page on Google's domain the Google page is eating your bandwidth.

keyword-research
07-26-2009, 10:13 PM
Yes Google is quite hypocritical about spam. They are selective in what they deem as spam. At the end of the day they are a business serving their own needs. They need ad income so they will gladly use the ad space of every possible junk site. It's not the first time they've been hypocritical. They waged a brief (possibly still ongoing) battle against paid text links, while saying AdSense is okay. Sure you can advertise on websites, but only if the mighty G gets a piece of the action.

Business Attorney
07-27-2009, 01:16 AM
Another thing Google does that are questionable are the cached pages. Essentially they're stealing our content and bandwidth. Google takes your content and wraps a frame around it. People can read your content without having to visit your site. Of course while they're viewing your page on Google's domain the Google page is eating your bandwidth.

How do the cached pages use my bandwidth? Since Google stored the page on its server when it spidered it, how does viewing that stored paged affect my bandwidth (unless someone clicks on one of the links on the cached page and goes to a live page on my server)?

vangogh
07-27-2009, 12:32 PM
All the images are still linked back to your site so when someone views a page the request is sent back to your server. Same for all external files and media. The only thing Google is actually caching is the html (php, asp, etc). When someone views the page in Google's cache all the requests for images, external files, audio, video, and other media are still being served from your server.

A real person doesn't actually have to visit your site for the bandwidth to be used. As long as the requested file is being served from your server your bandwidth is being used.

Business Attorney
07-30-2009, 10:28 PM
All the images are still linked back to your site so when someone views a page the request is sent back to your server. Same for all external files and media. The only thing Google is actually caching is the html (php, asp, etc). When someone views the page in Google's cache all the requests for images, external files, audio, video, and other media are still being served from your server.

A real person doesn't actually have to visit your site for the bandwidth to be used. As long as the requested file is being served from your server your bandwidth is being used.

Thanks for the explanation.