Google to ban "Term Paper" and "Essay" ads soon!

When I type 'essay help' in Google there are 8 ads about essay services. Is it good? It must be legal too.

Complete garbage. Legitimate, trustworthy companies do not break other companies' advertising rules.

Please stop asking us to help you decide which site to choose. That is NOT the purpose of this site.

I have some land under a bridge I'd like to sell you. PM me for details.

Google's Policy about essay companies

So there I was, checking my mail, when I noticed that the sponsored link at the top of my g-mail page was for an essay-writing company. Nothing subtle about it, I think it was essaywriter.com, and it got me thinking...

I thought Google banned such services from its paid advertising? Did that only apply to adverts on the search pages?

The fraudsters are desperate. Once they get banned, they sign-up with a new account, often with a different domain name. You just have to be vigilant and report them.

Diamond cuts diamond. A fraudster knows a fraudster well.

I see many essay ads on Google every day. Whats going on? It was for publicity only?

It maybe difficult at first but eventually writers will be able to link up with the customers, there is always a way through.

I don't think it is technically possible for Google to do it. This thread was started years ago. Today, Google is swarmed by countless more essay writing companies' ads than that time.

Et Tu Google? Writing Services Still Listed

I just googled essay writing sites and came up with 10 pages of various essay writing websites.

Looking through them, the companies all reek of a scam to me. Which is why I am wondering why Google even has paid ads coming from these sites highlighted on their search pages.

Considering that they previously announced that they would be removing all these academic sites from their system, I was surprised to see that the whole presentation on the part of Google was just a sham. It was meant to make the academic world believe that they don't promote academic fraud and yet, the evidence is still there. It exists to prove that Google just paid lip service to the academicians.

There is even an advertisement for "Legit Writing Websites" that is supposed to direct you to legal sites, which I really doubt. Just to make sure that I wasn't seeing things, I typed in "Academic writing sites" in the search box and got another 10 pages worth of search returns.

So I guess the lure of the paid advertisements and Adwords considerations coming out of these companies were more valuable to Google than moral integrity?

I think Google is lying and will never really stop promoting these websites. On top of that, I don't think Google is under any obligation to stop promoting them. Google's incentives are mainly financial and not moral. In my opinion, the only way Google could stop promoting these sites is if it was more beneficial to Google, financially, to discourage Academic fraud compared to encouraging it.

As far as I know, Google's announcement about 'essay mills' was only related to paid advertising (Adwords), not to 'organic results.' Technically and morally that makes sense because otherwise, if they were to stop listing all 'essay-writing-services / reviews' websites altogether, it would be censorship. However, I agree that the organic results are pretty much gamed by shady (mostly Ukrainian) SEO services because, depending on search keywords, about 70-80% of the results are foreign scam writing services that have hacked other sites and redirected links to them (that's why Google thinks they are legitimate). The hope is that sooner than later Google will figure out that the hackers and fraudsters who prey on stealing students identity and banking information are the ones who benefit from it.

Google has the ability to defeat those hackers overnight. That's a fact. Google just needs to receive detailed reports. The days of me doing it all by myself are over. Others need to step up.

YouTube and Facebook deletes academic cheating videos after BBC investigation

bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-46468389

(Hard to believe this hasn't been discussed here yet ;) I'm not surprised - scammers (both 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate') have been creating thousands of such fake videos that promoted lies and the "go to party and we'll complete your assignment" attitude. Many of them have been endorsed by "Youtubers" who couldn't care less about defrauded students. The article lists some Ukrainian essay writing mills that have mastered the art of deception.

YouTube may need to think about banning the tutorial websites as well. They often mask their "writing services" within the video "lecture" or animated "movie" about how to write in English properly. It appears that Google is slow and is always playing the catch-up game, but they eventually get there. It is very easy to hire out-of-work struggling actors to play the part. They do it so realistically that you may think you are just watching a video tutorial meant to help you out. Then you get to the end and they hit you with "Hit the bell button to Subscribe and click the link in the description box for more information". Then you find out that the link in the description box leads to a malware filled website that Malwarebytes blocks of throws up a warning page for. That's why I don't click on any YT links when I come across a "tutorial" video. It almost always amounts to no good.

Hi Major, thanks for sharing the information. I just scanned the BBC report. I also did a preliminary search on YouTube. First, the BBC report is investigating a specific company and the several secret marketing strategies it uses to promote scamming, etc. It talks about their location as well.

Second, YouTube still has innumerable such ads on their platform. Probably, I think it's because the development or unmasking is very recent. It is possible that in the days to come we see stricter measures by Google and YouTube and other SM portals.

Finally, the report does not just focus on one specific company; in general it sweeps across all the companies and individuals in the model essay writing business. I think this topic should be discussed at length here. Input from other contributors is highly desired.

I find it hard to believe that the UK government thinks that they can actually crackdown and get rid of all the essay mills. The mere fact that the companies exist only online means that they can disappear tonight and reappear the next day with a new name, a new website, but the same writers. The only thing that this type of action can accomplish is giving the site owners time to hide their tracks and learn how to work the system on a different scale. So the next time around, it will be harder for the government agencies to trace their existence. YouTube can take down their ads but there are still other methods that will allow the companies to advertise their business, in a more veiled way. They've been trying for decades to shut down the essay mills with no success so I doubt they will succeed this time around.

Censorship is always a very tricky issue - and of course, that is what we're really talking about here. We're talking about Google, arguably the most powerful force on the internet, and whether or not it has the power to shut down the academic writing industry. I tend to agree with other commenters here, and feel that no matter what Google might try, there will always be a work-around, so I'm not worried per se.

I am, however, as disillusioned as I usually am when faced with such ethical mandates. Why not ban weaponry from being advertised? Why not ban alcoholic beverages, or anything and everything else that has a history of being linked to problematic behavior? Heck - there are literally tens of millions of p=rn sites online - is Google going after them? It would be nice if we could count upon Google to simply uphold the law as opposed to acting as our moral compass. Since we can't, we just have to be sure to keep on top of things.

Not really, at least not technically. The concept of "censorship" only applies to government and quasi-government entities. A private employer, for example, can freely prohibit discussion of (or advertising) anything it wants to prohibit (as long as he doesn't treat different religions differently). I'm not suggesting that there aren't other more-harmful things that justify prohibition by Google or Facebook more than academic ghostwriting; but it's not "censorship" as that concept is defined by American law. Most people don't realize this, but "Free Speech" is only a right in the context of government entities. That's why an Internet forum or private employer can prohibit any discussion of politics or religion (or anything else) at work, whereas they can't do that at a government job, precisely because of the connection to government and the way that Free Speech does apply to a government employer.

Google, FB, Twitter, they can all place a "ban" on the academic writing services, but it won't do them any good. These underground companies know how to get around the "sanctions". They are masters of disguise. They will always be listed one way or another. The best that these companies can do would be to work with the legitimate writers and websites. Do their job when it comes to "truth in advertising". A simple IP trace could help them take down the scam sites while leaving the legitimate sites and writers online. The problem is, they too know that the questionable companies are the ones with money to burn. Money to pay for advertising, something not all the transparent writers and companies can afford. The companies continue to advertise and Google continues to promote their "business", without considering the validity of the claims and actual user reviews of the companies that advertise with them.