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Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

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Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#331

Post by petra »

bumblebeard wrote: post #63
victorhooi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority. People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content. Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bot…

I guess I'm cheap then. I have no interest in paying any amount of money to read most of the things I read online. It seems to me that it's not so much that people are demanding this content for free as it is that people don't think it's worth paying for. It's not that I particularly wanted to see an article about the usefulness of advertising as it is that it's something to read on the bus. I would probably just loo…

I think it depends on the content, but in general i agree with you.

There's some really valuable info on the net: medical research, good product recommendations, educational materials regarding hobbies and work, etc. I wouldn't mind paying for them(and i do buy some books), but most of these are free, or availble via places like sci-hub.

As for the rest, which is basically enterntainment - i can't imagine no good free alternatives for those - hey, there are many blogs from people who aren't professional writers who offer much better content than the pro media.

I wish there was a search engine focused on the best of those - i feel it would improve the internet by so much.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#332

Post by BrendanEich »

victorhooi wrote: post #43
dajohnson89 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We, as users, have been oversaturated and desensitized. There is so much crap shoved in our faces, that we've learned over the years to ignore all ads. Speaking for myself, I have an almost visceral negative reaction with ads. I would (and do) pay dumb amounts of money for a service if that means I'm not served ads.

What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority. People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content. Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bot…

Brave's bitcoin integration is under the hood, only exposed in beta but it'll be hidden. Our long-term play is to build the anti-Google, your personal data platform.

Ad networks have not "gone too far" -- the whole system is broken, with malware entering 3rd party ad exchanges and fake users browsing fake publisher sites to steal ad revenue (https://whiteops.com/methbot). Google facilitates and profits from all of this.

Don't be distracted by intrusiveness, however bad and block-worthy. Tracking required by ads whether intrusive or not is the higher priority. It enriches a few and loots user data, if not exposing them to malware then abusing them with retargeting, online to offline breaches, and the like. Third party ads and tracking form a system that is stiffing publishers year over year, leading to eventual ruin.

Brave is 3-6x faster than Chrome on Android and not just by blocking ads: blocking trackers is required and those scripts and the "programmatic waterfall" or "header bidder wrappers" or other such junk are to blame.

TMZ Brave Shield results: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/820166880778256384

Brave vs. Chrome on Android: https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/820082887194120193

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#333

Post by BorisMelnik »

Raphmedia wrote: post #259
cconcepts wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spammy links thing fascinates me. I don't know much about search algos or SEO but on our small, industrial business site we couldn't understand why, after many hours and thousands of dollars spent on the procedures that Google recommends, our organic ranking in SERPs for a very niche product (of which we are one of only three providers in our region) was appalling - often page three. It wasn't till we realised we…

It's a sad situation but I can pay $5 on Fiverr to attack you that way. Google should really handle it better.

they actually have, and have taken more steps to prevent this happening as of lately. (they also deny Negative SEO is a thing).

Their latest update of the Penguin algorithm states it is more "granular" and also stated it will really only penalize the pages that have the bad links pointing to it, rather than the whole site.

Small steps, I know but at least they are doing something it seems.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#334

Post by petra »

victorhooi wrote: post #137
Fnoord wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. There are 3 problems with this statement. 1) There is a lot of free content, easily found, and content gets more rapidly out of date nowadays. Paid content must deal with this (newsworthy, in depth competition). 2) Your view is US centric; the vast majority (read: not all) of internet users from other countries generally have less money to spend.…

Let me address your three points in order: 1. There is a lot of free content - yeah, the internet is full of free content, but much of is click-bait garbage, or re-posted a billion times. Let's be honest - true, honest-to-goodness original journalism costs money. Good writing costs money. Investigating journalism costs money. Getting people to actually go out into the real world, and interview people, or write about…

>> Pick up an article from the New Statesman, or The Economist, or The New York Times - compare that to the offal you get on Buzzfeed, or one of the billion other click-bait sites.

It would be interesting to try an ad-blocking program that has an exception: if this article has been written by the journalist who did all the work(or something close to that) , he can show me ads.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#335

Post by BorisMelnik »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #24

I see these posts all the time of DIY Adwords/FB and then a claim it doesn't work. This would be like me, a non-carpenter, trying to build a house, seeing how bad it looks and then claiming building materials suck. There is reason companies spend ~$70 billion on Adwords annually. So because Adwords/FB didn't work for you doesn't mean their traffic is 90% useless. And dont get me wrong, I completely acknowledge there…

My sentiments exactly. It is all about demographic targeting, crafting a good landing page, writing good copy, and writing good ads.

I could easily make a shitty ad and send it to a blog post I just wrote that 99.999999999% of the world doesn't care about, and find 100% bounce rate and burn through $10,000 in a few days.

I work with Adwords for a living (part of it, anyway) and can assure OP that if 90% of this traffic was useless, I'd be out of a job. I use heatmaps and other CRO tools and regularly watch my funnel go from an ad > a form generated on a website.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#336

Post by andai »

blueside wrote: post #327
ubernostrum wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it that someone else gaming Google's algorithm becomes my problem and requires me to solve it rather than Google?

I strongly agree with this sentiment; the fact that "competitors" can penalize you, the back link component should be removed from the ranking algorithm all together.

Uh, maybe I'm missing something, but aren't backlinks the entire concept Google is based on?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#337

Post by somid3 »

forgetsusername wrote: post #266
somid3 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@Soared, aside from the self-marketing of your firm how about you put your money where your mouth is. Let's use the same landing page - I'll make a campaign, you make a campaign, we each spend $500 and we track conversions in a specific period of time. The one who converts more for less will owe the other $1000 - we can make the accounts public so that (1) the world can see your "expertise" and (2) how "confused" I a…

I would love to see this. Every article about rampant ad fraud inevitably contains a comment thread where ad consultants appear to make claims that other people "just can't do it right". Let's see it done right, then.

I agree, @Soared - where you at?

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#338

Post by Twirrim »

mikkom wrote: post #241
neya wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second the other commenter's opinion on disavow-ing links. It did have a positive impact on one of my online properties. Reference: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

If one would be a target of automated spammy link attack - let's say a competitor would order 100 spammy links a month for example 3 a day - how could one defend against this kind of attack? (I'm not in such situation, just speculating) What I'm wondering is how easy it is really to get to top at some more obscure search term by just using nasty black hat tactics. I'm also wondering if this is actually the easiest wa…

automated disavowing, maybe? Sucks, but may be necessary.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#339

Post by FuckBrendanEich »

BrendanEich wrote: post #332
victorhooi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority. People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content. Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bot…

Brave's bitcoin integration is under the hood, only exposed in beta but it'll be hidden. Our long-term play is to build the anti-Google, your personal data platform. Ad networks have not "gone too far" -- the whole system is broken, with malware entering 3rd party ad exchanges and fake users browsing fake publisher sites to steal ad revenue ( https://whiteops.com/methbot ). Google facilitates and profits from all of…

BrendanEich claiming ad networks are stiffing publishers while his product robs them entirely is really fucking rich. Go fuck yourself you ass clown. I'd say you're nothing more than a petty thief, but the numbers show that's not even close to true. The real money you're keeping out of the pockets of hard working publishers for the product they provide is in the millions. And you plan on circumventing with your own revenue model. All under the guise of speed. You're a snake oil salesman of the highest order, selling someone else's product as if it's your own. Then again, even snake oil salesmen bought their own snake oil to sell. You just steal it. There is no apt analogy as everyone else who has done what you're trying to do has ended up in jail. May the same fait befall you.

Re: Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless

#340

Post by andai »

galfarragem wrote: post #232

90% seems accurate: - Most times I click in ads, I do it only to help the content creators, I have no interest at all in the ad I'm clicking. - The remaining clicks I often do it by mistake.

I used to click only on ads I didn't like, to charge the creators money, until I realized the networks were optimizing for showing me only ads I hated.
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