Archive for March, 2008

Google AdSense advertiser quality report

Sunday, March 23rd, 2008

Our AdRater system accumulates information on web advertisers. We are using this to evaluate the quality of advertisers accepted by different advertising services.

AdSense advertiser quality report

Sites Percent Rating
695 13.9% Site ownership and business identity verified. No significant issues found.
1975 39.5% Site ownership identified but not verified.
543 10.9% No information available.
1790 35.8% Site ownership unknown or questionable, or significant negative information about the business was found.

A rather high fraction of Google AdSense advertisers are rated as “site ownership unknown or questionable, or significant negative information about the business was found.” These are the ones for which we could not find the business behind the web site. We suggest dealing with such sites with caution. Users with AdRater installed will see the Red do-not enter icon displayed atop ads for such sites.

Who’s behind that ad? Announcing AdRater

Monday, March 3rd, 2008

Building facadeToday, SiteTruth introduces AdRater, an entirely new class of tool for consumers. AdRater looks at the ads on each page you visit and rates the advertiser. SiteTruth rating icons appear next to most text ads. Click on any rating icon to get the dirt on who’s behind the ad. Know who you’re dealing with before you click on the ad.

AdRater is free. No strings attached.

This is an alpha test; any problems, please report them here, on this blog.