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]

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.

Tasting parasites

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

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.

Why is Domain Tasting "Evil"

[webword]

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.

They should close it down alltogether

[broothal]

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.

Re:That's a problem?

[empaler]

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)

What do you want to do about it?

[oncehour]

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 typoing britenyspears.com brought up feeds with news on Britney Spears along with ads and other monetization schemes rather than just some boring Ad Directory that most are currently like. Anyway, my point is: If you hate this so much, why aren't you doing something about it? What can we do to stop it, or help to solve it? I don't imagine we can completely rule it out but there's bound to be plenty of ways we can weaken its hold. The world can't change unless you try to change it.

Re:Tasting parasites

[tomhudson]

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 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).

Monetizing the bottom feeders

[Animats]

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?

Re:That's a problem?

[Dun Malg]

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?

[1u3hr]

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:Tasting parasites

[damiangerous]

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

It costs $10 or less to register a domain.

Re:That's a problem?

[coolGuyZak]

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:Tasting parasites

[ArikTheRed]

It's hardly a terrible thing. These people make money because there are currently vast inefficiencies in the advertising market. As long as there is money to be made people will do it, forcing companies like Google to close up the holes, either making their process more efficient in the mean time - or creating a new, possible legitimate, market. It amazes me how - when it comes to political articles - it seems the majority of Slashdoters are Libertarian Anarchocapitalists - yet when something like this comes up (a valid response to economic pressures), I read nothing but bashing the "parasites" for being "unscrupulous". That's what happens in an open economy, folks.

Re:That's a problem?

[mollymoo]

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.

Have we lost sight of "evil"?

[Aaron England]

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.

Re:That's a problem?

[mollymoo]

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:That's a problem?

[andymadigan]

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.

Re:That's a problem?

[Lavene]

The problem, to me anyway, is that I'm totally overloaded when it comes to ads. Everywhere, 24/7, someone is trying to sell me something. SMS ads on my cell phone, telemarketers on my landline, ads on my fax at work, ads on TV, radio, newspapers... people stopping me on the street pushing all kinds of products: phone companies, electric companies, vitamins, insurance, magazines. I'm just so fed up with ads that I protect my self in every way possible. I screen calls, answering only number I know, turn off my fax during the night, avoid ad supported TV channels and uses ad blocking software on my PC.

Ads makes me aggressive. I yell at the insurance salesman on the street, I send angry e-mails to the TV channels when they send ads with louder sound than the regular program and I return everything I get in the mail without putting a stamp on it. And I never ever click on a banner if it happens to sneak by my ad blocking measures.

I know some services are "ad supported" in order to keep the service "free". Well, good, but don't expect me to view the ads. Either charge me or kick me out but as long as a service is offered for free don't blame me for low income due to lack of banner clicking because my ad viewing circuits is already overloaded. Sorry...

Re:That's a problem?

[KDR_11k]

Advertising is necessary, noone denies that. What we hate is when advertising inconveniences us (gets in the way) or even damages anyone attempting to be productive. Linkfarms make search engines useless because they're often designed to even direct unrelated searches to their ads (so you end up with ads for stuff you weren't even looking for), domain squatting prevents people who actually want to build a real website from using a domain name that's not needed by anyone else anyway (squatting isn't a need in my book and speculators are simple parasites IMO so don't bother with the free-market-supply-and-demand replies) and spam causes huge costs for mail services while making the medium less useful. In short, these are caused by dysfunctional individuals that try to get a small profit while causing huge damage to everyone and I wouldn't mind if they were all lined up and brutally executed, they are of no value to anyone except themselves.

Re:That's a problem?

[Anxarcule]

My question to anti-advertising folks like you, then, would be something along these lines:

Let's say your local cable company has a great new deal on a cable/tv/phone service combo that is $30 per month lower than what you're paying now. No strings whatsoever, they aren't trying to screw you over, they're just trying to steal market share away from their competitor.

What is the best method of communication for them to alert you to offers like these?