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Google News Growth Hack Exposed

45 points by jmarbach 12y ago

tagawa 12y ago
"I bet they are the only publishers violating the guidelines" - should be "aren't"?
jnorthrop 12y ago
This author needs to build his case before jumping to the conclusion, "And now, I hesitate to recommend it to anyone for any use." This was one article, on one day. It was clearly a scam, but it was one article. And if the Google complaint form is more focused on the publisher maybe that is because most of the problems submitted are from publishers. The author needs to submit the complaint and move on.
- LukeB_UK 12y ago
  I agree, there was an "other" section on the complaint form for him to use.
pgrote 12y ago
This is nothing new. "Publishers" get in all the time with less than spectacular backgrounds. Google provides a method for reporting sources that shouldn't be there. https://support.google.com/news/publisher/contact/report_issue_content https://support.google.com/news/publisher/contact/report_iss...
CaveTech 12y ago
This could be what we consider "cloaking" in the ad industry. Ads containing legitimate content are submitted, but when a user clicks it, a risk assessment is done based on the users information (ip/location/js enabled/saving cookies etc). If it's determined that you're unlikely to be a crawler or a person affiliated with the host site (google employee in this case) you're served a "Blackhat" ad, which is generally worded much more aggressively and against the TOS. High risk users are redirected to "Whitehat" pages which follow the TOS and generally don't attempt to actually convert a user. These high risk users are considered dead clicks. A few years ago this was an insanely profitable industry on Google Adsense, but they've cracked down a lot. The new major space for this type of advertising? Facebook.
- rafaelm 12y ago
  Facebook cloaking is pretty huge right now. Even more so now that they've started cracking down hard on affiliate ads. Still, everyone knows that when you are cloaking it's just a matter of time before your account gets banned. FB is getting harder to cloak everyday. (Not that I do any advertising on FB, it's too stressful.)
niyogi 12y ago
Isn't this just a very sparse interstitial in front of the article placed by the publisher?
GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago
Well that's certainly one weird old technique from a malicious advertiser.

45 points by jmarbach 12y ago

"I bet they are the only publishers violating the guidelines" - should be "aren't"?

This author needs to build his case before jumping to the conclusion, "And now, I hesitate to recommend it to anyone for any use." This was one article, on one day. It was clearly a scam, but it was one article. And if the Google complaint form is more focused on the publisher maybe that is because most of the problems submitted are from publishers. The author needs to submit the complaint and move on.

LukeB_UK 12y ago
I agree, there was an "other" section on the complaint form for him to use.

pgrote 12y ago

This is nothing new. "Publishers" get in all the time with less than spectacular backgrounds. Google provides a method for reporting sources that shouldn't be there. https://support.google.com/news/publisher/contact/report_issue_content https://support.google.com/news/publisher/contact/report_iss...

CaveTech 12y ago

This could be what we consider "cloaking" in the ad industry. Ads containing legitimate content are submitted, but when a user clicks it, a risk assessment is done based on the users information (ip/location/js enabled/saving cookies etc). If it's determined that you're unlikely to be a crawler or a person affiliated with the host site (google employee in this case) you're served a "Blackhat" ad, which is generally worded much more aggressively and against the TOS. High risk users are redirected to "Whitehat" pages which follow the TOS and generally don't attempt to actually convert a user. These high risk users are considered dead clicks. A few years ago this was an insanely profitable industry on Google Adsense, but they've cracked down a lot. The new major space for this type of advertising? Facebook.

rafaelm 12y ago
Facebook cloaking is pretty huge right now. Even more so now that they've started cracking down hard on affiliate ads. Still, everyone knows that when you are cloaking it's just a matter of time before your account gets banned. FB is getting harder to cloak everyday. (Not that I do any advertising on FB, it's too stressful.)

niyogi 12y ago

Isn't this just a very sparse interstitial in front of the article placed by the publisher?

GFK_of_xmaspast 12y ago

Well that's certainly one weird old technique from a malicious advertiser.