'Don't be evil' remains
a blessing and burden

Google is planning a change in policy that could severely impact its own revenue and that of domain "tasters," reports Silicon Alley Insider.

Domain "tasting" exploits the Add Grace Period (via ICANN), a window of time when purchased domains can be returned. "Tasters" buy domains (normally misspellings of existing websites), place ads on them — often via Google AdSense — and return the ones that do not perform well.

But Google is making changes to curtail these practices. Its new policy will stop ads from appearing on any site that is less than five days old. Five days is long enough to exceed the typical Add Grace Period.

For Google, the change yields two effects. It will cut down on the number of spam sites that exist solely to generate ad revenue from lost web surfers, but it will also impact AdSense earnings.

Despite their seedy nature, spam sites and link farms bring significant revenue to the AdSense coffers.