Google Adsense Cracking Down on 'Tasters'

ZerothOfTheLaw writes "It appears that Google is going to eliminate Adsense for Domains for all domains younger than five days old. From the post 'The Good news is that the Quantity of advertising will be spread among fewer domains now and so those domain owners that actually own real full domains should receive more money if bid prices start to rise as a result of this. However some advocates of Domain Tasting say that perhaps no one will be able to serve the niche for some ads and no one will make money on the unserved ads.'"

That's a problem?

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

However some advocates of Domain Tasting say that perhaps no one will be able to serve the niche for some ads and no one will make money on the unserved ads

Good. Advertising revenue is not something that anyone is entitled to receive. Show me a site with useful content supported with unobtrusive advertising and maybe you'll get my eyeballs for a while. What we don't need are more linkfarms.

Re:That's a problem?

[jaiyen (821972)]

What we don't need are more linkfarms.

Indeed, but Google seems to actively support this kind of domain squatting - see http://www.google.com/domainpark/ [google.com] . Seriously, how does this 'service' they provide possibly fit into "don't be evil" ?

Re:

[empaler (130732)]

I have several domains that I've purchased, but they are currently only used for mail purposes. I did purchase them for actual use, but why not let me set up domain parking?
(minor note is that I haven't, partly because I don't think anyone will visit randomly, and even if they do, why the hell should the follow links)

Re:

[1u3hr (530656)]

I have several domains that I've purchased, but they are currently only used for mail purposes. I did purchase them for actual use, but why not let me set up domain parking?

If they don't have any content, putting ads on them is totally parasitic. Which is good for you, you make money for nothing, but a waste of time for everyone who stumbles on your page.

But you knew that. If you don't care about ading more worthless crap to the world, fine.

Re:

[oncehour (744756)]

Do you honestly find domain parking to be evil? It may not be classy and domain squatters tend to piss me off but I still wouldn't classify it as evil. The problem isn't so much the squatters as the idiots that actually click ads through squatted domains and the registrars that allow "tasting" to begin with. Google isn't the only player in the industry as far as Domain Squatting goes and thus them not being in the market doesn't really stop it, it just limits the amount of competition.

If you care so mch

Remind me again who owns Oingo?

[winkydink (650484)]

Pot. Kettle. Black.

Since Google already has all of their squatter domains established, they won't be bothered by the five day rule. And now they won't have to share that pot of ad revenue with a bigger group of people.

Re:That's a problem?

[MindStalker (22827)]

How bout this, Virtual tasting. You can have adsence ads for the 5 days, BUT you don't receive any real money and the advertisers aren't charged. This way you can know how successful the domain might be, without occurring actual ad revenue.

Re:That's a problem?

[STrinity (723872)]

Slashdot has ads? One of these days I need to disable Privoxy, Adblock, and my Hosts file and browse the web like a normal person.

Re:That's a problem?

[Dun Malg (230075)]

Slashdot has ads? One of these days I need to disable Privoxy, Adblock, and my Hosts file and browse the web like a normal person.

For the last few weeks I thought there was a bug of some sort in Slashdot's fancy "New Discussion System". I'd expand an abbreviated post and there'd be this funny white space inserted between it and the next post, like there was an additional nested reply that wasn't getting displayed. It wasn't until I checked out something on Slashdot from a friend's computer that I realized that the blank space is supposed to contain a banner ad! Now I'm thinking I don't like their New Discussion System so much.

Re:That's a problem?

[ContractualObligatio (850987)]

Yup, same here.

I promptly switched off the "I'm willing to test the new discussion system" flag. If they implement it, I'll stop using Slashdot.

Suggestion - post to this thread if you think likewise, and we can take an opportunity to express displeasure at screwing up a discussion system due to an utterly misguided attempt at threading adverts in amongst our own posts.

Re:That's a problem?

[coolGuyZak (844482)]

I'd be careful. the last time I mentioned this, I was modded into oblivion.

In any case, it's severely obnoxious. I'm stunned that the admins/editors/whatever. could consider this idea worthwhile, given how often we rail against similar behavior on other sites.

Re:That's a problem?

[Rich0 (548339)]

I probably wouldn't mind the new discussion system so much if it weren't so broken on konqueror.

I'm sorry - I shouldn't need to use a specific web browser to view a particular website. Especially when my browser is one of the first to have been acid2 compliant...

Re:

[Dogtanian (588974)]

Suggestion - post to this thread if you think likewise, and we can take an opportunity to express displeasure at screwing up a discussion system due to an utterly misguided attempt at threading adverts in amongst our own posts.

I agree entirely, and I wonder how far this encroachment of adverts into discussions

BUY TECHNO-TOSS AT THINKGEEK NOW!

will go. Makes you wonder how it can get any worse than

GREAT HOSTING DEALS AT RACKSPACE!

that.

Re:That's a problem?

[mollymoo (202721)]

Because $0.005 per page is too much to pay I guess. Seriously, just fucking subscribe if you don't want to see the ads. It's cheap, the layout works better and you're not freeloading.

Re:That's a problem?

[mollymoo (202721)]

There is a difference between avoiding looking at something and ensuring you can never see something. I never suggested watching advertising should be mandatory, but having visible advertising is absolutely mandatory for the business model that pays for this site, your favourite search engine and a bunch of other stuff you use every day. By removing yourself from the pool of possible ad-viewers, you are removing yourself from the pool of people who pay for the services and content. The rest of us have to see more ads to generate the same revenue, so your selfishness really does impact other people. That is freeloading.

Re:

[andymadigan (792996)]

Having flashing, moving ads is not essential for <i>any</i> site. Lots of sites choose to make it that way, and that's why a lot of people install ad blockers. Anyone trying to make money loses all credibility when they piss of their customers.

Tasting parasites

[Ritz_Just_Ritz (883997)]

I never quite understood the "tasting" concept. The vast majority of the people utilizing "tasting" are doing it for unscrupulous reasons. Anyone with a legitimate need for a domain is going to be willing to pay the going rate to actually register one.

Re:Tasting parasites

[Firethorn (177587)]

Well, imagine that you're a company/person contracted to build a website for XYZ Company. You come up with a dozen or so potential domain names, 'tasting' them in order to make sure they're available(without tying them up for a full year, or spending the money to register them for a year). You then present the domain names to the company, which picks the one they like the best, maybe one other for a redirect. You then release the other four and call it a day.

Make sense that way. Abusers, of course, were not initially considered.

Re:

[Alien54 (180860)]

And the cost of a domain is what? 100 200 300 standard monetary units?

[or these days 1 2 or 3 standard monetary units]

where this comes in is spam websites, where someone is looking for concept x, and they find a junk site.

Cleverly done, you might accidentally click on a link, only to realize that it's a bogus cookie cutter bit of web spam.

oh my aching eyes.

Re:Tasting parasites

[damiangerous (218679)]

Get rid of domain tasting. Institute "domain trials", those cost say $10 each trial.

It costs $10 or less to register a domain.

Re:Tasting parasites

[by Anonymous Coward]

In this case, there should be the option to "conditionally" purchase a name. You get a 5 day grace period, but the name cannot be associated any DNS records.

This would give you the ability to grab the names for the client to consider, but not allow people to set up these link farms unless they actually shell out the money to outright purchase the name.

Re:

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

People are entitled to "Buyers Remorse" in a good chunk of the world. Aside from that, if they change their mind about an online purchase inside of a couple of days, they often utilize the facilities their credit card companies give them to cancel the payment, which incurs significant cost to the seller.

If you don't give purchasers the ability to cancel their order without cost when they changed their mind, it generally ends up costing you more than it's worth.

Re:

[tomhudson (43916)]

People are entitled to "Buyers Remorse" in a good chunk of the world. Aside from that, if they change their mind about an online purchase inside of a couple of days, they often utilize the facilities their credit card companies give them to cancel the payment, which incurs significant cost to the seller.

If you don't give purchasers the ability to cancel their order without cost when they changed their mind, it generally ends up costing you more than it's worth.

Come off it - we're not talking people buy

Re:

[ShieldW0lf (601553)]

Come off it - we're not talking people buying something retail here - we're talking domain names. Buy it because you want it or need it. Don't like it after a week -sell it. This whole "domain tasting" bullshit has to end.

Try returning that losing lottery ticket the day after the draw. "Buyer's remorse"? Are you fucking kidding? Try returning your big mac an hour later. Try returning your custom-made whatever (and all domain names are custom - by definition, no two are alike).

Yeah, well, try telling th

Re:Tasting parasites

[Anpheus (908711)]

Way to ignore his points. On another note, tomorrow I'm off to buy lottery tickets with my credit card.

Re:

[tkinnun0 (756022)]

Here's a secret: parked domain owners don't like click-fraud. They like clicks, but they don't like a large amount of clicks from persons not interested in purchasing whatever is being advertised. Why? Because the people paying for AdWords don't like click-fraud, they don't want to pay real money for nothing. So they take it up with Google, who now has to reverse the click-fraud, costing them money in work and lost revenue. So Google takes it up with the parked domain owner, who's not gonna like that.

In t

Domain Tasting?

[El Torico (732160)]

Mod me off-topic, but sometimes the English language takes a surreal turn - Domain Tasting? Does .mil have a metallic, cordite taste while .com is a cornucopia of flavors?

Larry, Sergey

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

If your spam filter hadn't worked so well, you'd have seen the offer to sell you something to help you with that ageusia [wikipedia.org] problem.
You really should upgrade to Hotmail, so we can do a better job of serving you.

Re:

[carpe_noctem (457178)]

Guess what .cx tastes like, then....

Google Spam

[jo42 (227475)]

It'll never happen, because there is no way Google would do anything to reduce it's revenue, but they really need to do something about Google Ad Spam on web pages. More and more web sites have more Google Ad 'content' than real, useful information. First there was email spam, now we have Google Spam. Blah.

Re:

[Sigma 7 (266129)]

It'll never happen, because there is no way Google would do anything to reduce it's revenue, but they really need to do something about Google Ad Spam on web pages.

Domain name tasters don't pay google to have ads displayed - they get paid by google.

As an example, we'll say that NetworkDNS registers a domain name that you look up. When you attempt to register from GoDaddy, you find it's been snatched up. When the 10 people that visit the site look at the page, Google pays NetworkDNS for showing these 10 ads while NetworkDNS pays nothing for tasting a registration. These 10 people are not going to follow links as most normal people can recognize a taster/pseudo-sit

Re:Google Spam

[EVil Lawyer (947367)]

Um, you're kind of wrong about a couple of points. Google doesn't pay the site owner for "displaying" ads, it pays them when and only when someone actually clicks on those ads. Second, Google is, in a certain sense, "paid" by the domain name tasters, to the extent that the ad clicks generated by the tasting domains only exist as a result of someone tasting that domain: Google gets a certain amount, $X from the advertiser, whenever someone clicks on an advertiser's ad, and then pays $X-Y to the person who owns the page where the ad was displayed. So Google in effect is "paid" $Y by the domain tasters, in the sense that that click was only possible as a result of the page existing.

Breaking news / short term fads

[mgkimsal2 (200677)]

What will this do for sites that spring up around pop culture memes, breaking news and other immediate items?
 

Re:

[Jason Earl (1894)]

Oh no. The fad will have to last 5 whole days before they can use Google Adwords. The Horror.

Re:

[Andrew Kismet (955764)]

It means it'll take 5 days for them to make any money from Google. Rightly so - anyone trying to cash in on a meme THAT quickly? (Under 5 days?) Real memes stick. Google's just attacking their weak point for massive damage.

Re:

[Ritz_Just_Ritz (883997)]

Is the ability to "taste" http://www.brittneyinrehabagainhaha.com/ [brittneyin...inhaha.com] truly a compelling reason to create a flea market for con artists?

Target audience

[Nikker (749551)]

The whole idea of advertisement is to reach as many people as possible, how can you say that not having the ability to post on any billboard is a good thing?

More over from a business standpoint by one company turning down a new site which has the potential of becoming an old site, the new site will have to goto another ad company to bring in revenue, won't doing this make it more difficult to bring in the 'diamond in the rough'? Don't most companies/sites start off new?

The internet is far from static

'new' is one thing, 'five days' another.

[cduffy (652)]

Any real site is going to need more than five days just to get content developed, scripts written, yadda yadda yadda. Sure, everyone may "start off new" -- but that's not to say that they're ready to earn revenue from day one.

Re:

[Nikker (749551)]

Sorry for the bad comment, coffee didn't kick in yet. I was commenting on my misinterpretation that it was 5 years not days.

Why is Domain Tasting "Evil"

[webword (82711)]

Why is is evil? Well, domain tasters [wikipedia.org] are folks trying to capitalize on traffic they don't really own. That's kind of hard to understand but you have to understand the definition of domain tasting to full grasp that.

This should also help understand the "evil" behind the practice...

"In January 2007, VeriSign said that among the top 10 domain registrars, 95% of all deleted .com and .net domain names were the result of domain tasting." (Information Week [informationweek.com])

Google's doing this to protect users who get to these sites on accident. I guess it's good for everyone.

Re:

[Jeff DeMaagd (2015)]

Google's doing this to protect users who get to these sites on accident. I guess it's good for everyone.

I think it's good for Google's self-interest. It's nice that it helps us in the end, but let's not fool ourselves that they are doing it for our sake.

I'm really surprised that the domain registrar system has allowed this practice to go on. I think maybe they should allow a return or two, but this wholesale "tasting" helps no one but the parasites.

I think it's also bad faith to allow the registrars to se

Capitalization

[T-Bone-T (1048702)]

Does Anyone else find the choice of Capitalized words in the summary Interesting?

They should close it down alltogether

[broothal (186066)]

For me, Google adsense for domains [google.com] is a scammers paradise anyway. How many hours haven't I wasted walking over "parked" domains trying to find a real domain. Let's face it - 99% of the "parked" domains aren't parked - they are purchased because people will visit them by mistake. It would be much faster if the domains simply didn't exist and as such wouldn't turn up in search results.

What do you want to do about it?

[oncehour (744756)]

We're all nerds here, and this seems to be a real problem. What can we do about it? Can a Firefox plugin be made to weed out flagged squatted domains? Have you physically complained to Google either through email, written letter, or even in a blog posting/article? Or on the other end, perhaps we could evelop a software suite for parked domains that provides relevant information. Parked domains are annoying, but they'd be less annoying if they were still relevant.

It'd be kind of neat if accidentally typoi

Re:What do you want to do about it?

[base3 (539820)]

I use the Firefox CustomizeGoogle [customizegoogle.com] plugin to filter linkfarms (e.g. *.info/*) and cloakers (e.g. experts exchange, O'Reilly Safari). I've no affiliation, just posting because this sounds like what you want.

Oblig

[Trivial_Zeros (1058508)]

Don't taste me, bro!

Monetizing the bottom feeders

[Animats (122034)]

I hope Google really does this. They need to, to restore their "don't be evil" reputation. Arguably, Google went over to the dark side when they started offering domain parking. [google.com]. "Maximize revenue on your parked pages with Google AdSense for domains", they advertise. (Insert Darth Vader quote here.)

"Domain tasting" is a drain on the anti-fraud systems of the Internet. All those domain changes help conceal phishing attacks, many of which involve buying domains with stolen credit cards and exploiting them before the credit card transaction is reversed. Blacklist systems like McAfee SiteAdvisor [www.siteadvisor] and PhishTank [phishtank.com] are always running behind the domain changes.

We rate sites at SiteTruth [sitetruth.com], and all those domain changes are a headache for us. I'm considering taking the position that all domains less than 30 days old are junk, unless they have a good SSL certificate. Is that too severe, or a good idea? Comments?

Domain kiting mainly

[kbahey (102895)]

According to the CBC [www.cbc.ca] they are mainly targeting so called domain kiting (repeated tasting), which will impact tasting too.

Too many people assume $5 domains

[Evets (629327)]

I think domain tasting has taken a turn over the years, but lets not forget why it was here in the first place.

These days, I have no idea how I would go about registering a domain without paying for it. I don't see the option readily available at any registrars that I work with (although, I personally stay away from the big guns like godaddy and network solutions). It seems to me that the people who are doing it tend to be those who want to park domains and put ads up temporarily - and frankly I am opposed to this - as it's nothing but spam.

Would getting rid of the tasting option get rid of these guys? No. It takes a minimal investment to create a certified registrar and at that point domain purchases are cheap enough that you can buy them in bulk at a price point that doesn't do much to preclude the web-spam business model.

But looking back at the reasons for this in the first place - one might want to register a domain, but not have the money to do it immediately. One might change their mind about a registration. Yeah, in the days of $5 and $10 domains, these points seem to lose a great deal of value, but there was a time when it would cost you more than $100 to register a domain. There was also a time when dictionary words and 3 letter domains were widely available because there was no market for commerce on the internet.

If a registrar were to make widely available the "pay in a week" model I certainly would not be opposed to it. If you want to attack the web-spam business model, I think you should do so directly - much like Google is doing.

Have we lost sight of "evil"?

[Aaron England (681534)]

It seems every time Google gets itself involved in something questionable, we as a community immediately scream "EVIL EVIL EVIL" and this occasion is no different. Several posters have already mentioned that Google has "gone over to the dark side" with their domain parking [google.com] service. But can anyone explain to me how allowing people to make money off domain parking is evil? Surely it is not even remotely on the same level as Yahoo giving up the identities of Chinese dissidents to the PRC [bbc.co.uk].

Have we as a community lost sight of what evil really is? I would agree with you that it is somewhat annoying to accidently stumble upon a link farm. But does that make it evil? Is the practice itself evil? I would say no on both counts. I think we don't give Google enough credit for accomplishing all that they have without succumbing to the predatory practices of large corporations a la Microsoft. I submit that we have really lowered the bar on what it takes to commit evil, and we should consider that a testament to the virtue of Google management.

Let's keep that in perspective. Slashdot discussions show that we don't even begin to hold our other sacred cow corporations (eg. Apple [slashdot.org]) to these extremely high standards.