An MFA or Made for Adsense site is a site created specifically with the intent to make money from advertisements. These pages are often specifically created around Adsense keywords and are generally poor in quality. If they have any content at all, it is usually outweighed by the overwhelming number of ads on the pages. Even when an MFA site does have content, it is usually not original and is copied or “scraped” from another site.
When webmasters create MFA sites, they are actually violating the Google Terms of Service which state that Adsense pages cannot be created for the sole purpose of displaying ads. While these sites are regularly found by Google and banned, they are still prevalent online.
To be clear, Google Adsense in itself is not a bad thing when done in moderation. Unfortunately MFA sites do not use ads in moderation and that is why they are a problem.
Examples of MFA Sites
Identifying an MFA site is pretty simple. When you click on an MFA site, you will see ads everywhere that look like they are taking over. Another indication that a site might be MFA is if there is a large number of dashes in the URL. While this is not always an indication, for some reason many MFA sites will contain dashes between each word in the URL. Take a look at some examples of Made for Adsense sites below.
- http://dry-skin-care-guide.com/
- http://www.mesothelioma-cancer-support.com/
- http://www.businessmoneyfinance.com/
- http://www.bad-credit-advisor.com/help-for-bad-credit.html
If you browse the sites above you will see that they are all covered in ads. Some of them even disguise the ads and make them look like the navigation bar of the website.
Why You Should Avoid Linking to MFA Sites
- Made for Adsense sites simply do not provide good information for the reader, the content is often poorly written and not factual if you can find the content at all in the sea of ads.
- The sites simply look terrible and untrustworthy.
- Google frowns on MFA sites and you don’t want to take good content and link out to MFA sites and then be associated with sites that violate the Google Terms of Service.
- Because these pages are constantly being banned, there is a good chance that the link won’t be around for link resulting in broken links in articles when the site disappears.
Just to reiterate, having Adsense on a site does not automatically make it an MFA site. It is all about the intent of the site and how many ads are on it.