Where the hell is Google to regulate this sort of stuff? It's appalling that they'd take a back seat to this. No doubt they know it's going on.

Mahalo is monetized through Adsense(well some affiliate links too). + the fact that the result is usually incomplete, means people are more likely to hit an ad to find a better answer.

So it's most likely a big cash cow for Google.

Which do you think it's better for them to send a user to? Mahalo powered by Adsense or __________ powered by Tribal Fusion?

Oh and just to clarify I'm not saying Google is doing anything evil. They don't adjust their algos to help push Adsense sites higher. But when an adsense site reaches the #1 position, they do appreciate the extra revenue.

You don't think it's wrong to let a high-profile site blatantly break the rules everyone else has to follow because it profits them?

of course, it's just I can see how it works out for Google too

It seems to fit the facts - what is an alternative explanation that fits the facts? That they just don't notice?

Yes, that they don't notice. People are very quick to say companies make decisions based upon money, but they don't pay attention to the fact that the money is usually far smaller than even the short term loss incurred by not doing the right thing.

precisely, I think this is a perfect page for what he is doing:

http://www.mahalo.com/card-games

SEVEN powered by Google areas.

Our pages are built by our community, so the quality will vary. That page doesn't have a "vertical manager" yet, but it will. Then we would build out the content a little more.

It's not a perfect system, people can't put multiple search boxes in there.

However, that page will never rank well in a search engine (unless by a fluke). In order to rank well you really need to have 500+ original words.

We're in the process of moving all pages to that standard. It's really a self-regulating thing: if our contributors make short pages they never rank and never make money. They get frustrated and we teach them how to make longer pages and some day they may rank.

... it's really not a problem, and the truth is we rank for three things well:

1. video game walkthroughs (typically 2-10,000 words!) 2. how to articles (typically 800 to 5,000 words) 3. question & answer pages (typically 300 to 10,000 words),

Isn't this basic SEO (and i'm not expert): build original content and you might rank. Build short pages, you don't rank.

All pages start short (just like wikipedia stubs do), and over time we make them longer. that's the normal process.

If I list a few dozen example "fluke rankings" will that mean you are full of crap once again?

Let me know how many need to be listed for you to see the patern, and I will prove you factually incorrect once more.

> Our pages are built by our community

Your 'community' includes robots, according to the evidence Aaron collected.

Robots are people too.

Why has Jason's comment has been downvoted? People don't consider it relevant? Amazing.

It is relevant, but I believe the downvotes are a response to the lack of an option to otherwise flag a comment as complete bullshit.

Seven? I could spot 8 seperate google text ad blocks and 3 graphical google ad blocks.

I didn't count ad blocks, just the keyword stuffing with the whole "powered by google" areas

Looks like mahalo is a prime candidate for a google PR = 0 and deletion from the index treatment.

What's keeping them ?

I think vaksel's comment "Mahalo is monetized through Adsense..." at least partly explains it. Other than that, is anyone lodging policy-violation complaints when they find dodgy pages?