Search for something like "work from home", "Internet jobs" or "make money online" on Google and you’ll see a flood of ads promising easy money through the AdSense program.
If you have ever tried AdSense on a site, you probably know how tough it is to make that first dollar but these ads, which are surprisingly served on the Google network itself, make things look so simple. Just order an "AdSense kit" for a few dollars and the money will start rolling in.
So how do these "get rich quick" schemes work? I called the owner of GoogleCashSense.com - they advertise pretty heavily on Google and here’s what he told me about their program.
The whole package costs around Rs 1,100 and in return, they’ll provide you a readymade website with some 110 pages of content. You then put your AdSense Publisher ID in these pages and wait for others to click on your ads.
When I asked him if people can click their own ads, his advice was to "avoid it" or use another computer. He also shared a couple of websites - websyite.com and 66marketing.com - that seem to use the "Cash Sense" program.
As an active web user, you probably won’t believe any of the "promises" made by these schemes but there are real people (and lots of them) who actually fall prey to them.
And GoogleCashSense aren’t just the only player in town - there’s netjobsinindia.com, GoogleCashCow.com, eJobsJunction.com, myGoogleMoney.com and numerous other sites here that use Google’s own AdWords network to trick people into buying their "Made for AdSense" kits. All have similar websites with fake testimonials and photographs of AdSense checks.
Google policies do not allow ads related to promotion of "miracle cures" then why allow ads that promise "miracle cash". True, you can’t prevent people from running such sites but you can at least block them from using your own ad network to promote their sites.
Also see: AdSense Click Fraud in India
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/adsense-ready-websites-on-google-network/5767/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Couldn’t have agreed more on that Amit! It’s ridiculous how Google allows that kind of lax in their own ad serving network.
By the way, did you talk to the Google Adsense guys- as in what’s their take on this? I think their answer will complete the whole equation!
Nevertheless nice observation.
—
Sampad
Written by Sampad Swain on 12.02.08
lolz, that guy you called up must be counting his adsense days i guess :(
Written by Mandeep singh Bhangu on 12.02.08
I am always wary of these kind of sites. I actually checked the site you mentioned. I wondered, how can they get so much money when everyone else is working their ass off. But, that’s where I stopped.
You took the next step and helped us all. Great way to bust them.
I guess this is better than google allowing terrorism ads.
Written by Sriram Vadlamani on 12.02.08
Hei Amit,
I also read your click fraud post. I am seeing a different problem. I running my site indianomics.com for almost 3 months now. It has good page impressions and there were 74 clicks for the ads. But the earnings show onl 5 cents. Could something be wrong here? I don’t click on my own ads. How can we verify that the google ads are actually working?
Written by Sriram Vadlamani on 12.02.08
Some of my friends have been victims of these.I couldn’t help them that time.
Thanks. That should be enlightening to many people out there.
Written by Rohit on 12.02.08
OMG!!! Amit…Jus like couple of hours back my room mate took out the Deccan Chronicle classified and showed me the ads about making money using Google adsesnse. I told him it all fake. And I was wondering how Google is allowing all this to happen and that I need to complain somehow to Google…
Here are the websites give in the classifieds:
link
link
link …All of them advertized that you will earn more than Rs.500/day :-O
So I called up the phone number given in the “Hugereturn” website and that guy told me to mail him my details and then he will give me the details.
I seriously think that Google Adsense people should be answering this question.
Written by Dinesh Cyanam on 12.02.08
Hi Amit,
Nice post.
People who are new to internet will go to these guys to make money easily! But they don’t know that they are wasting their time on MFA sites. MFA site = Ban from Adsense.
And Amit ji, i can see NetjobsIndia ad in your site lol..
Written by vaasu on 12.02.08
There are plenty of these sites Amit. I wrote about Khurrum last year. I am surprised how google is not noticing such sites and they are growing day and night.
Written by Hiren Pathak on 12.02.08
So, I have a question for you now Amit, what if these guys now come after you, with the intention of taking revenge, by trying to do click fraud your site by clicking again and again on the ads, how will Google handle this? Will Google take it as click fraud? How do you really protect yourself against competitors?
Written by Varun on 12.02.08
I DISAGREE WITH YOU
How can it be considered as “MIRACLE CURES” ?
The author also points out to create some useful websites or blogs which are really useful :)
Also if google decides to block such things
Then first they should block CLICKBANK affiliate ads
90% of the stuff would be of the category MIRACLE CURES! Isn’t it ? :)
Anyway Nice observation!
Written by Vasu on 12.02.08
Not only in Google Adworks program, I think these sites should not be indexed in google search.
what say.
Written by Suraj Shrestha on 12.02.08
Hi guys,
Google know this issue verywell. They could not ban this type of ads. because “Make money Online” is the Diamond keyword for Google. And most of these Bad sites spending more money in adwords to get traffic.
So Google Makes 30% profit from them. Now tell me, How can Google ban them..?
Written by albert on 12.02.08
Nice post. It will be really helpful. These are nothing but craps. A STRONG ADVICE : Don’t fall in all these. You will loose few of your hard earned money. Always remember, hardwork is the only way to success.
Written by Solid Blogger on 12.03.08
Amit, I can’t tell you how much, how severely I hate scammers like these. I myself wrote a bit about scam businesses in my archives. The second example you showed actually runs Bidvertiser ads. The first one doesn’t seem to have any adsense ads included (except a search box which I didn’t check).
Well, everyone, follow this post carefully, and don’t fall prey to them. I am tweeting this to my readers.
Written by Lenin Nair on 12.03.08
My friend also purchased this package from Bangalore, paying 1000Rs. This package contains one CD with some basic information of Adsense.
Written by sarpras on 12.03.08
Google earns a lot of money from these useless ads which are nothing but fake.
Written by Vamsi on 12.04.08
Good points. There are quite many things these MFA trash websites create.
1. Overall content on web gets worst.
2. If backlinking spam strategies are connected into this MFA schema, it will cause horrible search results, because nonsense clone sites will get top google rankings.
I think already search results with Google have gone to worst, while compared situation 2-3 back. Best websites are easier to find via other routes, than using Google.
3. Adsense TOS says clearly that MFA sites are not tolerated, but still this schema biz is running rosy and wild.
What comes to value of individual adsense clicks, it depends of keywords used with SEO strategies. There are keywords with different values, you can buy separate programs which actually help to select best keywords for your site with adsense ads. Most popular keywords are necessarily best ones to choose.
Written by Jukka H on 12.06.08
What I have thinking. Webmasters who are using adsense, we should create blacklist of these scammer sites and block them from our own sites. You can do it on adsense by adding list of sites which ads you don’t want to show on your site.
If there would be really big group of webmasters boycotting these sites, they couldn’t use adwords efficiently for advertising their shit.
Written by Jukka H on 12.06.08