Will The Google AdSense Program Survive?
Will
The Google AdSense Program Survive?
Copyright © Gauher Chaudhry, All Rights Reserved.
Almost everyone is now aware of the Google AdSense
program that has taken the Internet by storm.
The Google AdSense program lets webmasters place
Google's paid sponsor listings on their web sites
and collect a percent of the bid amount when someone
clicks on one of the listings.
I have been reading many ezines that I receive
and every publisher seems to be making a huge
hoopla about Google's new program.
In
my own words, it is seriously overblown.
Now, this article might make a few people unhappy
who are counting on the Google AdSense program
to finally be their "oasis of Internet riches."
But somebody has to be the devil's advocate. :)
Discussion boards, chat rooms and advertisers
are buzzing about the Google AdSense program like
it is the California Gold Rush all over again!
Do you know how many people made money during
the California goldrush?
Not many.
The reason was quite simple. Thousands of people
flocked to California in 1849 to claim their gold
riches, but ended up with nothing.
There were a few people who made some money finding
gold, but the real people who made a fortune were
the ones who provided food, accommodation and
laundry services to the thousands of people who
flocked to California.
In fact, laundry services were so expensive that
people had to ship their clothes to Hawaii to
be washed for a cheaper price.
The ones who will probably make a lot of money
with the Google AdSense program are the ones who
sell complimentary products or services.
For example, don't be surprised if you soon see
an ebook "How To Make $100,000 A Year With Google
AdSense" which will probably be a flimsy report
that tells you to create targeted web sites that
attract top dollar paid listings from Google AdSense.
But guess what, hundreds of naive people will
probably buy this ebook and many other products
and services that will pop up that are related
to the Google AdSense program.
I am currently using the Google AdSense program
on a few of my web sites and it does bring in
revenue each month, but I don't expect it to stay
at the same level.
I will tell you why I feel this way.
When the Internet first started, everyone was
making a huge hoopla about how you could put banners
on your web site and make money.
But what happened?
Internet surfers started becoming immune to banner
advertisements and the average click-thru ratio
on banners has now dropped below 0.5%. Many banner
ad networks have slowly died and gone out of business.
As the Google AdSense listings will start to appear
on thousands of web sites, Internet surfers will
also start to become immune to these listings,
which will result in lower click-thrus and revenues
for the webmaster.
Overture.com is planning on launching their "Content-Match"
program, which is similar to the Google AdSense
program so regardless of what you believe, Internet
surfers will become immune to text listings.
Many people hail the Google AdSense program as
a long-term advertising solution because its technology
analyzes the web page and delivers *relevant*
and *targeted* listings that will interest the
web site visitors.
But banner networks have been doing this for years
without much luck, so what is the big commotion
if Google can match text listings that are relevant
to the content on your web pages?
This is nothing new.
Just as banner networks had to deal with false
click-thrus, Google will have to some how tackle
the same problem. The Google AdSense program is
a perfect environment for a fraud ring as is the
case with many pay-per-click search engines that
operate revenue sharing programs.
How do I know?
Because my company witnessed it on our very own
pay-per-click search engine BulletBid.com. Basically
what happens is organized groups of individuals
sign up as affiliate partners and then they all
take turns visiting each other's web sites and
clicking on the paid listings.
This is something that is hard to track because
the IP address of each click on the same listing
is different. We managed to track the culprits
because 1) We didn't have an overly huge amount
of affiliates and 2) The software we use had built
in fraud detectors to alert us the something could
be wrong.
But with the Google AdSense program, they will
have tens of thousands of webmasters who will
be running their paid listings on their web sites.
It will very hard to track who is organized with
who.
I have a feeling that Google's staff knows this
in the back of their mind and that is why they
allow advertisers to opt-out of appearing on partner
web sites.
But if Google cannot track down fraudulent clicks,
this will result in their paid advertisers having
a lower sales conversion ratio from the traffic
that Google sends them,
This will result in advertisers lowering theirs
bids and honest webmasters who host the Google
AdSense listings receiving lower revenue payments.
Depending on the factors that I have mentioned
above, webmasters might in the future find it
more profitable to go back to their old affiliate
links.
So what is the answer to the question, "Will the
Google AdSense program survive?"
The answer is yes, but webmasters shouldn't expect
to make as much money once the initial goldrush
is over.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gauher Chaudhry is editor of the weekly Cool Cash
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