Yesterday afternoon, my friend Scott Thompson, publisher of MyFederalRetirement.com, which I used in our Subscription & Membership Site Benchmark Report as an example of good content supported by Google AdSense ads, received hate mail from a site visitor.
The email read in part, “Your site is a f*** farce filled with useless information that you throw in with the blatent intent to get users to click on a Google adsense link. Do you think we are idiots? I am sure there plenty out there, but don’t expect me to help you get paid for nothing!”
Thing is, although the web is almost overwhelmingly littered with AdSense spam sites, MyFederalRetirement.com’s content is not spammy. Not by a long shot.
Scott himself comes from a premium content background. In fact, we worked together at B2B premium content companies in the 1990s, publishing subscription newsletters that sold for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars per year. So, he knows what truly worthwhile editorial is.
Unlike the majority of crap AdSense sites that exist on new visitors who quickly leave never to return – MyFederalRetirement has such high quality content that tens of thousands of Federal employees and retirees have joined its email list, which has less than a .001% unsub rate, and they return to the site again and again and again. Scott’s editorial team work hard, continually publishing new, expert articles to help their readers. It’s pretty good quality without the premium price-tag.
So why is Scott getting hate mail?
To me, this is a clear sign of an Internet user backlash against the nearly unavoidable TONS of dreadful AdSense-supported content out there. People are sick to death of it.
It’s gotten to the point that when I visit a new site, if I see an AdSense ad block, my immediate gut-reaction is “Oh no, this is probably crap.” It’s nearly the same emotion as when I open an email and discover it’s spam. Nearly any chance of impressing me with the value of your content just went out the window. In fact, having an AdSense ad block is almost like having a big giant “CRAP” stamp on your page.
Chances are for most new visitors, the AdSense block brand is way more famous than your own logo, so it gives more of a brand impression than anything else on the page. You can’t mitigate the branding problem by minimizing the ad block’s visibility. You won’t survive that way. AdSense publishers need to put ad blocks in multiple, prominent places on each page in order to generate income. Top, bottom, side, search box….
Due to its quality and loyal readership, MyFederalRetirement.com is doing fairly well financially. But, the time is coming when Scott may have to reconsider that site’s business model. He’s already begun testing paid content through some of his company’s other ventures. He’ll be ready when the time comes to make the jump.
Google’s made a lot of noise about eliminating AdSense spam sites from their network since the day it started. But, I haven’t seen much progress. Yeah it’s a tough job. In the end, though, there’s too much money on the table for them. Google is in the business of selling online ad clicks. That’s it. They’re not in the business of defending content’s virtue.
That’s the publishers’ job. Don’t wait for Google to “fix” things. If they do someday, fine, we can all go dancing in the streets. Until then, protect yourself. Start testing other business models, because I think AdSense ad blocks may soon be hurting your brand more than they’re sustaining it.
Unfortunately, hate mail from anonymous cowards is probably more a result of a site growing and becoming more popular than it is with Google AdSense.
So in reality, it is probably an indication that Scott is doing everything right! No morons emailing usually means no traffic at all, so it’s a good thing.
That said, the basic rule is to not reply, delete their email and keep moving ahead. Anyone who has the time to write such an email isn’t worth listening to anyway.
As the publisher mentioned, I’m chiming in…
As Tim Bourquin said, it was an anonymous comment from a site reader.
And after looking at our site stats this \\"hate mail\\" visitor spent only 20 seconds on our site, clicked on one article, and then made the statement to us on our \\"contact us\\" form… making a claim about the quaity our content — which is untrue..
You could say that this was his/her first impression of our site (that others could have if they see Adsense ads), but you cannot take it too seriously with this person\\\’s whopping claim about our content quality if they only visited one article.
(You have to love web analytics that can track this stuff!…but.. we take all visitor comments very seriously).
We are in a niche — but a large one — of US federal employees and retirees…. it\\\’s a niche of milllions — that not many publishers will touch.
I agree with Anne — in general there\\\’s a lot of sites out there that use Adsense that have \\"crap\\" content that can hurt your brand.
Outside of the branding issue Anne described, moneitizing a free or hybrid content site via Adsense is not for everyone.
It can be dangerous.
What we have watched is the true \\"relevance\\" of the Adsense ads appearing. For us (being in the financial, retirement, etc. content arena), the Adsense content has proven fairly reliable — which has, in result, been very profitable.
But as Anne said, we are not hanging our hat on this revenue model.
What we have watched is the true \\"relevance\\" of the Adsense ads appearing. For us (being in the financial, retirement, etc. content arena), the Adsense content has proven fairly reliable — which has,ccna in result, been very profitable.