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Google Makes $500M a Year On Typos
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on an analysis by Harvard researchers that suggests Google rakes in half a billion dollars annually from advertising that appears on typosquatting domains. They estimate that 60 per cent of typosquatting pages use Google ads, but the advertising giant declined to discuss whether it should be working with such pages."
I'm sure that Google requires as a condition of their AdSense program, your site contains at least some content. They manually review sites before you get accepted into the AdSense program.
Unless of course you use their Domain Parking option.
Someone on Google saw some new Internet service and said "I wish I had $0.01 for each typo the teens make." Someone else said "You know, that's a really, really good idea. Let's do it."
That's not Google though, that's the people who registered the typo domains that are proactively making this happen. Google's ad service just might be what they use to recoup their registration/squatting fees. Google's not actively registering these sites and putting up ads to get money off of typos, rather someone else is doing that shady practice and sharing the profits with Google. Since Google makes their AdWords product easy to use and profit off of, they most likely use them and Google never realizes it until:
A Google spokesperson pointed out that the company will remove ads from typo domains if the owner of a site with a trademarked name makes a complaint, but declined to discuss the research in more detail.
Hate to sound like a fanboy on this one but Google's profits are from just offering an ad service. That's about as far as their evil goes here, they're even willing to kill those profits if the legit domain complains to them about the typo squatter.
My work here is dung.
Once or twice in my life I have landed at a domain squatter's site due to a typo. Hundreds or thousands of times I have landed there due to links to sites that used to be something but are now run by the squatters.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
No, that would mean they were making Google money. They get the advertiser's money. They hold it (accruing interest) and do not release it all until the recipients of the funds have reached preset limits for payment. Google is paying out very tiny amounts of money in these cases in varying time frames all the while collecting interest on the funds. A second added benefit is exposure and free advertising of their adwords service.
AnimePapers.org: Anime Wallpapers Handled With Care
I hope they're not suggesting it's unethical of Google to work with these typo-squatters, because it simply isn't. Now, if the typo-squatters were trying to trick people into thinking they'd reached where they were attempting to get, that would be unethical.
It's becoming a moot point, anyway... Most people I know type the web address into the Google search box, then click on the link that appears.
Smart Google : https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=105924
How does Google Public DNS handle non-existent domains?
If you issue a query for a domain name that does not exist, Google Public DNS always returns an NXDOMAIN record, as per the DNS protocol standards. The browser should show this response as a DNS error. If, instead, you receive any response other than an error message (for example, you are redirected to another page), this could be the result of the following:
Will Google Public DNS be used to serve ads in the future?
No. We are committed to preserving the integrity of the DNS protocol. Google Public DNS will never return the address of an ad server for a non-existent domain.