Google has increased the number of URLs you can add to the competitive ad filter from 200 to 500
http://www.memwg.com/bigger-adsense-ad-filter/

Well said! I agree with you completely.
The word “scam” is defined as obtaining money by means of deception. That includes fake personalities, fake reviews, and fake testimonials. It seems “Anonymous” is affiliated with one of these companies.

The vast majority of people can smell ’scam’ when they see the “Flat Tummy” ads on Facebook. CTR and conversion rates aren’t great on those ads, but the affiliates make OK money on them because they’re paying a very low eCPM, often $0.10 or less.

Sites about topics that people actually spend money on command an eCPM that’s too high for scammers, and they just don’t show up.

I’ve got two kinds of sites: (1) sites that get a good eCPM, and (2) those that don’t. I put effort into developing sites of type (1) and don’t put effort into type (2)’s. I don’t run ads if I don’t like the eCPM I get. My type (2)’s are cheap to run (often just the cost of the domain name and 1/1000 of the capacity of a dedi) and I don’t feel bad if I’m running them as a charity or just using them to support my type (1)’s.

Unfortunately a site about web scams is likely to be a type (2) — you’ve got all the keywords to attract bad ads. Your best bet would be to negotiate with specific advertisers, but you’d spend a lot of time selling your inventory and still wouldn’t get much for it.

Facebook and other big sites tend to be type (2)’s because they (a) grow inventory faster than demand grows for it, and (b) they’re not about anything people spend money on — for instance, imeem is about music: but anybody who listens to imeem is someone who expects to hear streaming music for free.

Facebook and imeem are both stuck in the corner where bad ads are crowding out good ads. Bad ads train users to be nonclickers, poisoning the well for PPC. If I was concerned about brand building at all, I’d stay away from the social ‘notworks’ because anything advertised on them looks like a scam by association.

Facebook might make more money if it sold less ad inventory but sold better ad inventory. There’s an ‘irish potato famine’ phenomenon around web ads where failing sites increase ad inventory when eCPM’s fall: this lowers the price of ad inventory and damages the brand of the site… You might think you’ll make more money but it ends in tears.

Affiliates are heavily promoting these products. They are purchasing advertising and collecting money. They have a responsibility in all of this.

Google does not accept many types of advertising. I’ve read the affiliate forums. When someone’s fake blog gets blacklisted on Google (or by their host, which is also happening more often) – they create a new one and continue bidding until Google kicks them off again. That is bypassing the system. Sure it takes 5 minutes to get a new site on, but when blacklisted, they have to start the process over again. I’m quite familiar with Adsense and Adwords, and I’ve worked with companies who have been blacklisted.

Hosting? I have a great host, multiple websites, and many domains. You get what you pay for. If I only cared about cost, I’d be over on Godaddy.

Blogs monetize. Or should I just create a fake blog, sell useless products, and advertise on Google instead?

I really don’t have anything against you, but I’m a bit upset at a few of your comments…

First – Acai, Teeth Whitening and Grant trials are not scams. Scams are fraudulent. Fraudulent people go to jail and pay fines (Which these companies never will).

They may not clearly state in huge, red bold lettering that they’re going to charge you after the trial, but they do let you know pretty clearly before you even order the trial – as well as in the packaging you get. If you’ve been to the confirmation pages you would know this.

Not only that, you have to agree to their terms of service before you even place your order. So, if you want to stick up for people who like checking the box “I Agree To Terms of Service” without actually reading the TOS, then I guess you could say you’re sticking up for people who lack common sense.

There’s hundreds of services out there that do exactly what these people are doing. I could go and find 1,000 different types of companies who offer free trials and then charge you when it’s over. So again, not scams – people just are too lazy to read. Probably for the same reason they’re too lazy to hit the gym (They don’t want to work for anything).

Secondly, you’re completely wrong about “scammers” “getting around Google’s filtering”. First, the people “getting around Google” wouldn’t even be considered scammers. They’re just affiliates of the companies. They don’t actually sell anything. It would be like a gun shop selling a gun to a murderer and then claiming that the gun shop is then in turn a murderer for selling that person the gun. So again, they’re not scammers – they’re affiliates.

Secondly, they’re not “Getting around Google”. They’re bidding on keywords. You write a post with keywords they bid on and bam – it’s going to show up on your site because they are bidding the most. And who cares if they’re on your site anyways? If your readers actually read what you have to say they wouldn’t be visiting those sites anyways.

So again, when you say “the scammers have a lot invested in trying to figure out how to get around Google’s weak filtering system.” All they invested was about 5 minutes to upload their keywords to a campaign and bid on them. I highly doubt any “affiliate” is going to single out your site to advertise on, as it’s not going to convert for them. And in “their” defense, they aren’t doing anything wrong.

And I don’t know who you have hosting your site, but you can get a great hosting plan for as low as $9 a month or cheaper at sites like DreamHost, BlueHost or HostGator. I highly doubt you need to be on a dedicated server. That would be a waste of money. That being said, I don’t think you really need any ads on your site to “recoup” the costs of running this blog. It’s as simple as switching ads (AdBrite, Yahoo Ads, MSN ads, ClickSor, and the countless other alternatives you have).

And not to preach, but you really shouldn’t monetize your site unless you have maybe 2,000 uniques per day. You want people staying here reading, coming back – not leaving your site.

Just my $0.02