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> Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then. Maybe it could. I believe the market of advertising on marginal websites is small, and it

> Seems like Google could just maintain a list for advertisers then. Maybe it could. I believe the market of advertising on marginal websites is small, and it's not worth the trouble for Google to try to work on that market: the number of users of these websites is small, and the number of advertisers wanting to advertise on questionable websites is also small. > I think it's naive to think that they are purely doing this to protect Advertisers' convenience. It's not just convenience. When advertisers are unhappy, Google loses a lot of money, because ads make the most of Google revenue. If you have reasons to believe otherwise, please explain.

zaroth 6y ago
According to SimilarWeb (reliable numbers? I'm not sure) ZH is ranked #300 in News & Media as has "Total Visits" of 36 million, compared to for example Bloomberg.com which is ranked 85th and has "Total Visits" of 82 million.
- lightgreen 6y ago
  If Google created a separate list for questionable websites and allowed advertisers to opt-in that list, my back of the envelope calculations are: * all these websites account for at most 1% of Google Ads network reach by the number of page views * since these websites are to be opt-in, the advertisers' competition will be much lower, probably 1/10 of the usual click price * since the number of advertisers will be low, and only marginal advertisers would opt-in the marginal website list, the relevance of ads (and thus the probability of a click) will be also much much lower, probably 1/10 of the usual click rate So by banning all marginal websites Google loses only 0.01% of revenue from ads network. If my back of the envelope calculations is at least order of magnitude correct, this does look like a very little price to pay for relief from a headache associated with working with questionable websites.

zaroth 6y ago

According to SimilarWeb (reliable numbers? I'm not sure) ZH is ranked #300 in News & Media as has "Total Visits" of 36 million, compared to for example Bloomberg.com which is ranked 85th and has "Total Visits" of 82 million.

lightgreen 6y ago
If Google created a separate list for questionable websites and allowed advertisers to opt-in that list, my back of the envelope calculations are: * all these websites account for at most 1% of Google Ads network reach by the number of page views * since these websites are to be opt-in, the advertisers' competition will be much lower, probably 1/10 of the usual click price * since the number of advertisers will be low, and only marginal advertisers would opt-in the marginal website list, the relevance of ads (and thus the probability of a click) will be also much much lower, probably 1/10 of the usual click rate So by banning all marginal websites Google loses only 0.01% of revenue from ads network. If my back of the envelope calculations is at least order of magnitude correct, this does look like a very little price to pay for relief from a headache associated with working with questionable websites.