If you have ever been on a “Search and Find” operation on any of the search engines, I am sure you would have seen those sponsored ads having title something like: Top X sites about XYZ.

But when you click on the ad and visit the site, all you see is a page splattered with Google AdSense ads and a few links.

SO what’s really going on behind the scenes?

To explain in simpler words, the people who create these sites realize that advertisers pay big bucks on Pay Per Click advertising (like Google AdSense) and these people know how to find cheap traffic on search engines. These people create sites like these with high probability of click through and high paying keywords. They then drive cheap clicks to these sites and keep the difference between what they pay to the search engine and what the advertisers pay them.

In technical terms this is called arbitrage.

But is this practice ethical? I’d say that yes it is. Though it does create competition for advertisers, but if they were that smart, why didn’t they find cheap traffic keywords themselves?

But wait! There is one instance when this practice does get shady.

Sometime ago I came across a arbitrage site which showed a bunch of links a whole lots of adsense ads. But whenever I’d click on a non-ad link, it would show me an error that this link is under review. And that error showed up for all 10 links.

Didn’t they drive me to this site claiming they would show me Top 10 Sites about XYZ? But here they are, trying to force me to click an advertisement.

What do you think about arbitrage?

PS: If you want to know about AdSense Arbitrage, here’s an excellent resource.