Freestar partners with many of the world’s largest publishers, a success made possible through strong, strategic relationships with top SSPs, DSPs, agencies, and advertisers. In the past year alone, we’ve seen over 200% growth in deal-based revenue. By raising our standards for publisher quality, we provide advertisers with greater confidence in the value and integrity of our network, reinforcing trust as they invest across our portfolio of sites.

With traffic from major referral sources of the past decade—such as Google organic search, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest—declining, it’s crucial for publishers to focus on UX and content quality. These elements are now essential in building brand reputation and attracting premium advertisers who prioritize engaging, high-quality sites for their campaigns.

Freestar’s Publisher Acceptance Requirements

1. As a publisher you must be able to show 6 months of historical traffic data. It’s hard to establish the amount of traffic it takes to accumulate meaningful ad revenue in anything less, and even 6 months seems short. It’s safe to say that if you are, paid traffic is a significant part of the strategy.

2. Content must be unique to the publisher, and meant for human consumption, with the majority of traffic being unpaid. A healthy diversification of traffic is safest. We do require access to Google Analytics (or equivalent) to verify that pageviews are from legitimate sources. A diversified traffic makeup commonly comes from a mix of organic search (Google, Bing, Yahoo), social (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram), Google News, Google Discover, Google Images, YouTube, Reddit, and news syndication sources (Smart News, Flipboard, News360, Newsbreak). We use internal testing tools to identify paid traffic, MFA and AI-generated websites.

3. Content must be brand safe. We do not monetize websites that publish, utilize or condone:

• • Piracy
  • Violence
  • Hate-speech
  • Adult content / NSFW 

4. Publishers must be in good standing with all major ad providers. If you’ve had issues in the past with demand flags, penalties or rejections, we may not be able to work with you.

Related: Publisher Services

In order to provide publishers the high CPMs we do today, we are committed to upholding high quality standards.. As a part of this, we may request access to GA4, and ask for insights into your website traffic, revenue historicals and the relationship status with current demand partners.

Rules Around Content

We pride ourselves on being content agnostic, with publishers representing 18 different content verticals. As long as you meet all the guidelines we just listed above, it doesn’t particularly matter the niche. Some of our largest content categories are sports, news, finance, automotive, gaming and entertainment. 

Content should either be original to the publisher, or using content syndication best practices with proper permissions. The most successful monetization comes in the form of engaged website users. Content strategies that will not be accepted: stolen/scrapped, fully AI-generated, clickbait headlines for the purpose of paid media, and content with potential copyright issues.

Additional Considerations

We don’t have a hard pageview requirement for acceptance, but in order to bring you meaningful revenue, the average pageviews for our publishers are typically at least a million per month. Once accepted, we have a team of audience development experts ready to work with you on traffic growth strategies!

If you’re ready to monetize with Freestar, meeting our publisher acceptance requirements is the first step toward unlocking new revenue potential. By partnering with us, you’ll join a network that prioritizes quality, transparency, and value, offering a seamless path to higher CPMs and premium demand

Are you ready for the next steps? Click the link below to get started. We can’t wait to meet you!

The post Publisher Acceptance Requirements: Are you ready to Monetize With Freestar? first appeared on Freestar.

To gain further insights and strategies for managing publisher traffic and maximizing revenue, watch our recorded webinar, The Truth About Publisher Traffic

Watch Now

The post The Current State of Publisher Website Traffic and How to Avoid Algorithm Penalties first appeared on Freestar.

But what does this entail?

Continue reading to discover the most frequently asked questions from publishers about hashed emails. Be sure to scroll to the very end to explore Freestar’s monetization opportunities for this valuable data point.

The FAQs of Hashed Emails

What are hashed emails?

Hashed emails are email addresses scrambled into a fixed-length string of characters using a cryptographic hash function. This process converts the original email address into a unique identifier, ensuring the user’s privacy is protected.

Why are they a part of the cookie deprecation discussion?

The deprecation of cookies is occurring because many consider the functionality of third-party cookies a violation of user privacy. As third-party cookies are phased out, companies are shifting their focus to first-party data—information collected directly from users. Email addresses play a critical role in this first-party data.

Email hashing provides a secure method for managing email addresses by transforming them into a non-reversible, anonymous format. This allows for practical uses such as targeting and tracking while enhancing data privacy and security. As a result, email hashing has become a valuable technique in various applications.

Can they still track users from site to site?

Yes. Similar to third-party cookies, hashed emails can be used to recognize users across different sites and devices. For example, if a user logs in with their email on multiple sites, the hashed version of their email acts as a consistent identifier without revealing the actual email address.

Is this a new thing?

No, it isn’t! Hashing data became popular in the late 2000s and early 2010s, driven by the growing emphasis on data security and privacy. A series of major data breaches exposed the personal information of millions, highlighting the critical need for robust data protection.

By the 2010s, hashing had become a standard practice for safeguarding email addresses and other sensitive information.

Is there industry standardization?

While there is emerging industry standardization around the use of hashed emails, driven by the need for privacy compliance, interoperability, and consistency across platforms, there is still room for improvement. Discrepancies exist in how different identity providers expect to see and receive encrypted emails.

Initiatives like UID 2.0 by The Trade Desk offer an open-source framework for using hashed emails as identifiers. UID 2.0 aims to create a standardized approach to email hashing and user identification that can be widely adopted across the industry.

Why does advertising value hashed emails?

Hashed emails provide advertisers with a powerful tool to accurately and securely identify, target, and track users in a privacy-compliant manner. They enable enhanced targeting, data integration, and performance measurement while reducing risks associated with data breaches and regulatory non-compliance. As the digital advertising landscape evolves, hashed emails offer a robust and future-proof method to achieve marketing objectives effectively.

What is Freestar doing to help publishers maximize monetization of email addresses?

Expanding deterministic user IDs presents a significant opportunity for publishers to boost ad inventory value, especially as third-party cookie coverage declines. Freestar’s hashed email (HEM) passthrough allows publishers to share a hashed version of a user’s email with vendors, such as Prebid User ID modules and bidders.

As publishers enhance their first-party data strategies and increase the number of collected emails, Freestar helps monetize these at premium CPMs with quality advertising deals. Publishers can pass their hashed emails to major identity providers for monetization.

This solution maximizes revenue by unlocking the full spending potential from advertisers, working with trusted providers like LiveRamp and The Trade Desk, whom buyers rely on to target users.

If you’re already partnering with Freestar, reach out to your support team for more information on our hashed email solution.

By adopting hashing techniques, organizations can build trust with their users, mitigate risks, and uphold their responsibility to protect sensitive information.

The post Hash It Out: All About Email Hashing and What it Means For Publishers first appeared on Freestar.

Several industry experts like Mike King, Rand Fishkin and Danny Goodwin have provided helpful recaps, but these can be highly technical. Here’s a TLDR; a simplified summary of their key points and actionable steps for publishers.

Biggest Takeaways For Publishers

1. Brand Mentions are as Good as Links

Backlinks (ie links pointing to your site from other websites) have long been a crucial SEO factor, based on the theory that people link to content they love, indicating high quality. The API leak confirms that backlinks still matter, but brand mentions are now equally important. Increased brand mentions signal popularity, just like backlinks. For publishers, having a strong presence across various digital channels, like social media, email marketing, and online communities, can help increase the amount of people who know about and talk about your brand.

Actionable Steps:

• Build a strong presence across digital channels outside of Google Search (social media, email marketing, online communities).
• Enhance brand recognition.
• Create quality, engaging content that establishes your brand’s authority and trustworthiness.

2. Monitor your Clickstream Data

The leak revealed that Chrome clickstream data is the most powerful ranking signal. Clickstream data includes user navigation details, such as pages visited, time spent, next destinations, and exit speed. Clickstream data is measured any time a URL loads in a browser, from any referring source.

Actionable Steps:

• Create content that attracts and retains users.
• Use tools like SimilarWeb or Google Analytics to analyze user interaction.
• Monitor metrics like bounce rate, time on page, and click-through rates.

3. All Traffic Matters

Metrics from all traffic types impact organic search rankings. Great content and exceptional user experience reflect positively in metrics, which Google rewards. Conversely, low-quality traffic can harm rankings. Google uses a variety of measurements, including badClicks, goodClicks, lastLongestClicks and unsquashedClicks to determine value of a webpage.

Actionable Steps:

• Focus on attracting high-quality traffic.
• Avoid buying low-quality traffic that results in short sessions.

4. Google Systems are Connected

The leak introduced a factor called “glue,” which integrates signals from other Google platforms (YouTube, Google Maps, Google Reviews) into the organic ranking system.

Actionable Steps:

• Maintain a presence on relevant Google platforms.
• Create helpful videos on YouTube and embed them in your articles.

5. SEO Basics of the Past are Still Relevant

Factors like Pagerank, backlinks, authorship, entities, meta data, HTML title tags, page speed, and structured data remain important.

Actionable Steps:

• • Read Google’s quality rater guidelines to understand what constitutes high-quality content.
  • Add structured data to your pages (organization, article, breadcrumb, and sitelinks)

Focus on Quality and User Experience, and Signals Will Follow

To succeed in Google’s organic search index, publishers must focus on delivering value to their customers through high-quality products, services, content, and experiences. Google’s advanced algorithms evaluate how users interact with your content and consider signals from other platforms where your brand is present.

When people value your business, they will contribute links, reviews, and brand mentions. They will engage with your site, share your content, and visit regularly. These signals help Google determine your placement in search results, reflecting the value of your brand.

Building a valuable brand leads to better search rankings, as Google measures data from all these interactions to decide who ranks at the top.

The post 5 Big Takeaways For Publishers From Google’s API Leak first appeared on Freestar.

Example of Google AI Overviews

Google will “do the searching for you” by crawling whichever set of trusted websites previously would have been at the top, and then generates an answer in a comprehensive and digestible manner.  Since publishing content makes you a publisher, this makes Google’s AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience) your newest competitor.

Although there is a possible glimmer of hope coming for HCU recovery if you’ve put in the work, publishers have largely continued to face traffic decline over the last 10 months. And now this.  

At Freestar, we’re built on the notion that the website is the main event, the most valuable real estate. For years, as attention increased for Facebook and Instagram, we held strong that investment was better suited for websites. We’re adtech, yes. But without traffic to websites, what will there be to monetize? The same advice to invest in the website is true today, and we believe there’s a positive future for publishers who’ve built sustainable businesses with clear user value.

How To Compete With AI Overviews

The post Meet Your Newest Competitor – Google’s AI Overviews first appeared on Freestar.

Freestar’s partnerships with leaders like The Trade Desk, Liveramp, ID5, Audigent, and our latest, LiveIntent are a major part of our identity strategy. As the industry evolves, we continue to test and build strategic partnerships that underscore our commitment to addressability in a cookie-less world.

Freestar Integrated Identity Solutions:

• Amazon Publisher Audiences 
• Audigent Hadron ID
• Criteo 
• Google PAIR 
• ID5 
• IntentIQ
• LiveIntent
• LiveRamp ATS 
• Neustar Fabrick ID
• SharedID 
• TTD UID 2.0
• Yahoo Connect ID 
• 33across Lexicon ID

Why Is This Important?

Our data shows that leveraging 3rd party partnerships increases the value of unaddressable inventory and provides opportunities to harness the power of first-party data and sophisticated contextual targeting.

While results vary with each ID resolution, our initial testing reflects anywhere from a 5-15% uplift in revenue when IDs are present on unaddressable users. For the logged-in user, we see a 40-60% CPM increase vs. non-logged-in users.

How did we get here?

Why all the fuss about ‘a world without cookies’ and how bad is it really? Rest assured, the sky is NOT falling. Freestar sees this ’new world’ as a positive change for both users and publishers if we work together to adapt and pivot.

Third-party cookies have been used extensively for tracking users across websites, creating detailed profiles of individuals’ online behavior, and targeting them with personalized advertisements. However, this approach raises significant privacy issues and has led to growing concerns about user consent, data security, and the misuse of personal information. While many browsers like Safari and Firefox have already shifted away from third-party cookies, Chrome has just begun the process and will continue to deprecate cookies over the next year.

In response, the industry is creating new “privacy-friendly” ways to target users. The shift away from third-party cookies encourages greater transparency and empowers users to have more control over their data, improving online security and reducing cyber threats.

The shift also encourages innovation through the development of alternative technologies and approaches for digital advertising. This could lead to more innovative and ethical solutions that respect users’ privacy while still allowing advertisers to reach their target audiences effectively. It also shifts power to the publisher who has access to first-party data which is now more valuable than ever.

Testing and Measuring Identity Partners

We continuously evaluate third-party ID vendors using Freestar’s Identity Testing Framework which allows us to measure and adapt as solutions evolve.

What is the Identity Testing Framework?

Freestar’s split testing and reporting technology provides us the ability to measure each identity vendor’s revenue uplift. This data lead feature showcases the benefits of adopting identity integrations by providing a revenue comparison on your site when a provider is enabled or disabled.

The Identity Testing Framework gives us the ability to monitor the effectiveness of different ID solutions and adapt to changes over time. Effective solutions will yield long-term improvements in Cost Per Mille (CPMs) and increased overall revenue or Revenue Per Session (RPS).

Action Items For Publishers

Publishers must have a strategy for first-party data. If you’re not sure the right path forward for your business and want to talk to a team of experts, reach out to Freestar to take advantage of our identity solutions today!

The post Freestar-Supported Identity Solutions first appeared on Freestar.

When it comes to the digital media’s share of that spend, there are strategies to consider that can significantly impact a publisher’s piece of the pie.

Ad Revenue Strategies For Election Years

1. Reconsider Block Lists:

Publishers can reconsider their block lists. This year, there will be a surge in advertising demand as political candidates and organizations allocate substantial budgets for campaigning. In order for publishers to capitalize on any of this increased demand, they must first take a look at their blocklists.

At Freestar, we offer several options for blocklists. In both our default and standard blocklists, political ads remain unblocked. Because of this, we implement strict guidelines to ensure brand safety and detect misinformation or manipulative creatives so publishers can reap the revenue benefits while keeping UX at the forefront.

Regardless of the extra measures around safety, we recommend providing a way for users to flag inappropriate ads. This makes users feel heard and allows them to take immediate action to remove while providing important insights that allow publishers to optimize ad choices.

2. Expand Ad Layouts:

Websites with conservative ad layouts can add units and formats. With all the added demand, increasing the number of impressions you have to sell helps too! If you’re currently on the conservative side of ad quantity, and particularly if you’re not running video format, making these two optimizations during an election year can turn up meaningful revenue.

We always aim for audience (and a positive UX!) over ad revenue, but brushing right up against that tipping point is a perfect place to be with all this extra ad spend. Many of the world’s largest publishers use this strategy during key times of seasonality.

3. Create content relevant to key election dates and events:

Editorial direction can play a big part in the revenue made from an election year. With third-party cookie loss, contextual signals will be a key targeting strategy for many political campaigns. Depending on your content vertical, get creative with articles angled towards the election. News sites, like Reuters and Al Jazeera, lead the trending content creation surrounding the political landscape, but most niches can find a way to speak to a relevant political narrative. Consider content types outside of trending news, like evergreen explainers, DIYs, and op-eds.

Then, publish this content around the time of key races and events that will likely attract significant advertising attention.

4. Offer Political Ad Packages:

For publishers selling direct, create political ad packages. If direct sales are part of your ad strategy, it’s always a good idea to develop specialized ad packages tailored for themes, in this case, for political advertisers. These packages can include various ad formats, placements, and targeting options.

Create a mixture of fully dedicated sponsored posts, homepage takeovers, video impressions, and banners to give the advertiser variety in reaching their target audience.

5. Optimize for Viewability:

One metric that continues to be mentioned in almost every political campaign is ad viewability. Viewability refers to how visible the ads are to users on the publisher’s website. Optimize your site to highlight premium ad placements with increased visibility, such as homepage takeovers or exclusive sponsorships. Make sure units in the sidebar are sticky, and double-check that no ads overlap.

By implementing these strategies, publishers can position themselves to capture a significant share of the increased ad spending during political seasons and maximize their overall revenue. If you’re currently partnering with Freestar and want to optimize for maximum revenue during the 2024 presidential election, reach out to your customer success manager today! And if you are not currently a partner with us, feel free to reach out to info@freestar.com to get started.

The post 5 Ways Publishers Can Maximize Ad Revenue This Political Season first appeared on Freestar.

One of the most intriguing aspects of these consecutive algorithm updates is their impact extending beyond traditional organic search rankings. Freestar, the programmatic ad partner for over 1,000 enterprise websites, has observed a decline in traffic from multiple Google sources in certain cases. While Google has previously indicated that algorithm updates can affect visibility in Google Discover and other search result areas, the past three months have shown a more pronounced impact.

The range of publishers experiencing negative traffic impacts in recent months spans various niches, sizes, and locations globally.

Now, let’s review the five significant recent updates. Although each update has its nuances, the overarching goal in all of them is to prioritize UX, content relevance, and helpful content.

Google Updates Between September and November

• September 14, 2023 — Helpful Content Update
  • Targets UX issues, aggressive ads, and content over-optimized for SEO.
  • Forces publishers and webmasters to consider what experience is genuinely helpful to the reader.
• October 4, 2023 — Spam Update
  • Targets thin, copied, misleading, and overly promotional content.
• October 5, 2023 — Broad Core Update
  • Encompasses a broad sweep of the entire index, re-evaluating sites against all their signals.
• November 2, 2023 — Broad Core Update
  • Broad core updates can impact Google organic, Google News, and Google Discover traffic.
• November 8, 2023 — Reviews Update
  • The last announced Reviews update, as Google claims the system is continuously improved.
  • Websites writing reviews on any topic may face algorithmic impacts due to low-quality penalties. Here is the extensive list of factors Google is looking for.

Publishers often dismiss spam updates as not applicable, but Google targets four key elements in spam updates regularly encountered:

1. AI-generated content lacking value.
2. Unpermitted article scraping.
3. False claims and clickbait headlines.
4. Thin affiliate content (listicles, roundups, review content).

Extreme Impact to Google Discover

The impact on Google Discover has been more pronounced than usual, with many publishers experiencing significant drops in traffic. Despite a glitch in early November affecting Discover traffic, recovery has been limited for most affected sites.

Discover traffic has historically exhibited inconsistency. I often advise publishers that experiencing 300,000 pageviews from Discover one day and then literally zero the next is considered “normal.” This personalized content feed, available in the Chrome app and soon on desktop, relies solely on the user’s search history. While all indexed content is eligible, there are methods to optimize for Discover compatibility, such as ensuring feature images are at least 1200px wide. However, there is no guaranteed method to optimize for increased traffic.

In a recent overview of her research on Discover declines, Lily Ray highlighted a staggering statistic. She noted, “Many site owners reported a significant drop in traffic, experiencing a decrease from tens of thousands or even millions of impressions to nearly zero. This includes drops from high daily figures, like 300,000 or 50-60,000 unique visitors, to almost none.”

In another statement, she emphasized the substantial “impact on well-established, authoritative sites.” Even websites with a longstanding claim to years of authority and quality content reported significant drops in traffic. This challenges the prevailing notion that authoritative sites are immune to the effects of Google updates.

The Future of Discover

Anticipating the transformative shifts orchestrated by Google in this domain, I predict that Discover will emerge as one of the most crucial traffic sources in the years ahead. Google has long expressed its aspiration for “query-less search,” aiming to seamlessly offer users the next article they need before they consciously seek it.

When contemplating “query-less search,” I draw parallels to social media platforms that craftily present captivating headlines, compelling me to click unexpectedly. This presents an opportune moment to compete with the waning reliability of Facebook and “X” (formall known as Twitter) as traffic sources for publishers.

A notable enhancement in Discover supporting this analogy is the recent introduction of the “follow feature.” Allowing users to effortlessly select publications for their feed with a single click harks back to the simpler times of Facebook and X.

For those aspiring to enhance their content’s visibility in Discover, Google provides the following guidance.

The substantial adjustments in Discover and the imminent SGE (Search, Google, Ecosystem) have given rise to uncertainty. However, for industry insiders questioning the future of SEO (yes, it will evolve; it always does), publisher traffic, and the enduring value of websites, I can confidently declare: we are just scratching the surface.

The post Google’s Algorithm Overhaul: These Updates Are Impacting Much More Than Just Search first appeared on Freestar.

LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution (ATS) is the centerpiece of the connectivity LiveRamp enables, helping connect authenticated inventory to the ecosystem, including via Google Display & Video 360’s Publisher Advertiser Identity Reconciliation (PAIR), which is also founded on authenticated, consented identity. Through our partnership, publishers can leverage a single deployment of LiveRamp’s ATS, and access not just RampID, but also Google Display & Video 360 via PAIR.

As we move closer to the end of third party tracking cookies, we’ve been paying close attention to industry trends and evolving our own identity strategy over the last year. A plan for authenticated traffic is one part of that puzzle, and with this partnership we’ve been able to successfully create a process to get publishers running with this tech.

What Publishers Should Know About PAIR

With PAIR, publishers and marketers will be able to securely and privately reconcile their first-party data for marketing use cases, unlocking additional scale across inventory already impacted by third-party cookie changes. Advertisers and publishers will be able to activate encrypted first-party information unique to their sites, via aggregation.

Key aspects of PAIR include:

• Flexibility to work with an identity partner, like LiveRamp, on the PAIR integration. Implementers can benefit by picking the identity partner that provides the capabilities they need with their PAIR integration.
• PAIR is available to any of the brands using Display & Video 360 today. Beyond accessing advertiser demand via Display & Video 360, PAIR is open to any of the brands using it today.
• Easy deployment. As an add-on module to LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution, publishers can quickly implement PAIR, including leveraging PAIR without needing new contracts with customers.

How To Implement Google PAIR

If you’re an enterprise publisher who is currently monetized by Freestar, we’ve made it seamless to get started with ATS and PAIR today. Just reach out to your customer success manager to get the process started. 

LiveRamp’s ATS product will need to be running in order for PAIR to work, so Freestar’s ad code must be present on the page where the authentication event occurs, such as a login page or newsletter signup page.

From there, Freestar supports the technical implementation of PAIR, without any additional dev resources required. The implementation is covered under existing contracts with Freestar. LiveRamp brings additional support, helping to finetune implementations and working with Google to steadily scale match rates. Additionally, the same Authenticated Traffic Solution implementation that enables PAIR also enables other leading identity solutions, enabling interoperability with one deployment and helping to maximize flexibility and inventory monetization.

Once integrations are fully up and running, publishers continue to benefit from the leading privacy approaches of both Freestar and LiveRamp. Furthermore, real-time analytics can show the benefits of not just PAIR implementations, but ATS deployments as a whole.

Benefits of Authenticated Traffic

The actual definition of authenticated traffic is a type of online identification that asks the user to provide personal information, most commonly email address. The two most obvious signs of authenticated traffic is when a website asks you to login or sign up in exchange for continued use of the site or a certain service. The other is a newsletter signup form.

Some of the benefits on this type user are —

• Security
• Trustworthiness
• Data integrity

With authenticated traffic, there is a certain level of assurance both to the publisher, who wants to know and target their readers effectively and for the advertiser, who wants to waste as little spend as possible on the wrong audience.

We’ve seen an increase in authenticated traffic to publishers in the last 6 months and over time we believe this trend will continue. This is where we expect our LiveRamp partnership to bring longterm value to our publishers via ATS and PAIR.

Freestar and LiveRamp Webinar Recording 

The post LiveRamp’s Authenticated Traffic Solution and Google PAIR first appeared on Freestar.

While the existence of these substandard MFA websites is nothing new, recent developments, including the growing demand for transparency on the buy-side and sell-side, the misuse of AI-powered content creation tools, and Supply Path Optimization (SPO) efforts, have intensified the scrutiny on MFA sites. Regrettably, these websites have thrived for years with minimal resistance, eroding trust within the digital advertising ecosystem.

Traditionally, the battle against MFA websites primarily concerned the demand side. However, Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) like Index Exchange, Magnite, Sharethrough, and PubMatic have also initiated measures against MFA websites. Before delving deeper, it is crucial to comprehend the nature of these sites and why publishers should be concerned about their presence.

What Constitutes MFA Websites?

If you are connected to the ad tech industry, the term MFA (made-for-advertising) likely rings familiar. MFA websites are platforms that employ unethical tactics to generate traffic and deceive users into viewing excessive ad impressions. While the degree of obnoxiousness may vary, they typically share common characteristics, including:

• An excessive number of ads per page, significantly impairing user experience.
• Low-quality, derivative content, often scraped from external sources.
• Frequently image-centric, with minimal static text content.
• Deceptive navigation designed to encourage users to view more ads.

Why Should Publishers Be Concerned?

At first glance, the crackdown on MFA websites appears to be positive news. Most users express their aversion to spam-filled, clickbait-ridden content profiting from unsuspecting advertisers who believe their creative campaigns are reaching engaged audiences.

However, the situation is more intricate than it seems. As a programmatic ad monetization vendor, Freestar occupies a pivotal position between SSPs, DSPs, and publishers. Because of this, we receive alerts when spending on any of the sites we monetize is obstructed.

1. Identifying MFA websites may appear straightforward based on the aforementioned definition, but industry-wide standards are not universally established.

Recently, certain sites on the restricted spending list have left us perplexed. It is not always as clear as one might anticipate. As mentioned earlier, the extent of MFA practices varies, and some flagged publishers do not consider themselves to be employing any of the tactics outlined.

2. The stringency in identifying, exposing, and curtailing these websites is steadily increasing.

Hence, it is crucial to enhance content quality now, adhere to industry guidelines, and avert the revenue loss associated with being labeled as a made-for-advertising website.

What to Do When Flagged for MFA

In most instances, a reconsideration may be granted if substantial improvements are made to enhance website quality and reduce excessive advertising. The changes required for a site to shed its MFA classification are neither simple nor likely to yield immediate revenue gains. By adhering to the following recommendations, your chances of a second opportunity increase significantly:

• Limit the number of ads per page to a maximum of 3-5. An excessive volume of ads on a page is the primary criterion for categorizing a site as MFA. Common problematic ad layouts include pop-ups, pop-unders, stacked ads, multiple auto-playing video players, and ads obstructing content.

• Enhance content quality by either removing specific pages or applying a no-index tag to the following infractions:
  • Clickbait headlines.
  • Gossip or false information.
  • Content devoid of purpose.
  • Unhelpful content.
  • Short or inadequate content.
  • AI-generated content.
  • Non-unique content.

• Remove infinite scroll or extreme pagination from your content presentation options.

• Implement a comprehensive site navigation structure that encompasses primary content themes. Identify authentic audience-engaging content through analytics, such as organic social reach, organic search traction, Pinterest pageviews, and Reddit discussions, excluding content driven primarily by paid media efforts.

• Familiarize yourself with Google Search Essentials and adhere to recommended best practices.

  • Create helpful, reliable, user-focused content.
  • Incorporate relevant keywords in prominent page locations, including titles, headings, alt text, and link text.
  • Ensure your links are crawlable to facilitate Google’s exploration of other pages on your site via these links.
  • Promote your website within communities where you can engage with like-minded individuals regarding your products and services.
  • Adhere to specific best practices for various content types, such as images, videos, structured data, and JavaScript, to ensure user comprehension.
  • Enhance your website’s visibility on Google Search by enabling features that align with your site’s objectives.
  • If there are specific content elements that should not appear in search results or if you wish to opt-out entirely, employ the appropriate method to control how your content appears in Google Search.

We recognize the challenge of transitioning away from lucrative revenue sources. However, for the long-term prosperity of your business, these changes are invaluable. For further information on MFA websites, Freestar is delighted to be your resource. Contact us today to engage with an expert.

The post Understanding MFA Websites and How to Respond When Flagged first appeared on Freestar.