Archives for March, 2007
A Life-Long Dream Come True
For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of owning Fender J-Bass. Now I do. Sweet…
Is Google AdSense Really Fair?
A while back, I commented about being dismissed from Google AdSense for reasons that were never explained to me, just before I was to receive my first payment from the program. Since then, I’ve tried to get myself reinstated twice, and have been denied each time without explanation — even when I asked for it.
I bring this up because I recently began inserting a digital fingerprint on all posts in my RSS feed. It’s a totally unique value that I verified was not in existence anywhere on the web before I chose it (RSS feeders — that’s what the funky combination of letters and numbers is at the end of each post - in case you were wondering). This unique value is very easy to find using search engines. Finding it on a site other than mine means that the other site has “scraped” my RSS feed from FeedBurner, making the post (or part of it) their own with the hopes of profiting by using it as search engine “keywords” in conjunction with advertising such as Google AdSense or Yahoo Publisher Network ads on the page. The goal is to generate an ad click-thru to a site the visitor really wants which contains the keyword they were searching for. The splogger gets paid for the click without doing any work at all. Slimy, but simple — and extremely effective.
Today, I found four different sites that have scraped my content to use as their own with AdSense ads on the page. This, according to the Google AdSense Terms of Service, is a huge violation. I promptly reported the abuse with hopes the sploggers who lifted my content get their income generating plug pulled pronto. But that’s not what this post is really about.
I’ve long said that I feel the Google AdSense Team does not do a good enough job of determining legitimate sites from the sploggers and scrapers. I’m confused by the fact that my site is 100% on the up and up, I rank well in the search engines, and I provide the Mac community a good service — yet I’ve repeatedly been denied reinstatement (or an explanation of why I was even kicked out). I’m doubly confused as to why the four sites I came across today were ever allowed to join the AdSense program in the first place. It’s painfully obvious that they’re not (and never have been) legitimate in any way — yet they’re still making money using AdSense in an underhanded way. The crooks are being rewarded, while the honest man is being punished. I’m not whining, but does anyone see the point I’m trying to make here?
I don’t think this is right — so I’m going to use the forum of my own legitimate website to publicly challenge any member of the Google AdSense Team who’ll field the question: Please explain to me why I cannot be reinstated to the program, while the splogging/scraping ilk like the four sites I reported to you today are continually allowed to participate and profit?
I look forward to any response you may have, Google AdSense Team…
A Better IMAP Email Client
A while back, I lamented the fact that the Apple Mail application just wasn’t cutting the mustard when it came to working with IMAP mail servers. At the time, my solution was to simply change my IMAP Path Prefix to “INBOX” in my account settings, which made the hidden “.mailboxlist” directory actually hide. I was satisfied and went on my merry way.
However, not long after that, my web host (Forged Network) made some changes for the better that affected the setting. I’m no IMAP expert, but the once hidden “.mailboxlist” folder suddenly became just “mailboxlist” and began showing up in Mail again. Turns out it was now a folder that should be “unsubscribed” from, but since Mail has no way of doing that, the folder sat there like a big bump on a log, taunting me every time I worked with Mail. Yes, I could have just lived with it, but I’m one of those UI perfectionist types, so I had to find a solution.