Increasing gripes by web sites, blogs and publishers, yet in practice still few real alternative choices remain in practice. Yet the market is open to moving to different models, and in particular ones that do not depend upon the US Dollar The Google advertising program for web sites has in the past been the favorite for easy publication of advertisements on web sites and blogs without their own established advertising programs. This is due to the easy configuration whereby javascript HTML code can be entered into web pages, and the Google advertisements are served according to the content on the page, so as to attempt to provide advertisements that are relevant to the readers of those pages. Plus points compared to other U.S. based advertisers have been the level of income from these advertisements which is shared between Google and the publishers, and being a large company with thousands of employees, publishers could be sure there would be no cheating. Statistics are also provided to assist in monitoring effectiveness. However, there are several factors that have during the past year made Google a less attractive proposition for serving advertisements on non-U.S. sites as well as those that have a more advanced technology or professionalism. One declining factor that is perhaps the most serious one for publishers outside the United States, is that the U.S. dollar is in free fall, and will never recover its value. This means that even if publishers work harder in publishing good content, the income from Google advertising goes down each month, due to the ever weaker dollar. If a European company will come along and provide the same service as Google AdSense, and charge in Euros, it would sweep up all non-U.S. websites in one go, without any doubt. Another factor, is that Google AdSense sometimes fails miserably to match advertising to the pages: this appears to be highly fluctuating, with some days doing well and at other parts of the month providing very poor advertisements. This is more a problem to web sites that are not providing content that are more sought after by advertisers, and is likely due to a shortage of advertising to be served for some sectors at some parts of the month. A further factor is that Google AdSense cares less about small to mid-sized publishers as they used to. Outstanding issues requiring a fix by Google due to bugs in their system, going for months without being addressed, appear not to be uncommon, unlike a much faster and pro-active customer service response a year ago. Such problems are important to publishers who do not want to see white spaces where Google Ads have failed to "collapse" as they should, or other bugs that prevent fast page loading when Google AdSense servers are slow. The effect on their visitors can be important, as well as on their income. To Google however, these appear not to be priority issues. Further proofs of Google now relying on a now well-known and established brand name and product of AdSense are that they are as of now ending their referrals program whereby anyone is rewarded by a payment after bringing them a new customer who reaches a certain level of income. Naturally this is a business decision which is sensible to Google, as referrals are no longer important nor likely the result of a web site as much as their now well known brand name. It is however a further indication that Google is content with the way things are going, and is concentrating more on the larger customers than the smaller ones. It is not uncommon for companies to start off on the backs of millions of small consumers, namely the smaller and mid-sized web sites that were the foundation for the growth of Google AdSense and AdWords, as well as individual bloggers and advertisers, only to then move into the more lucrative market of larger corporations. It is far easier to make money from higher value payments over fewer customers and therefore not face the 'customer service' nightmare that goes with proving communications to millions of clients. However, this coming year will tell whether Google AdSense's increasing unpopularity among small and medium sized publishers will cause any problems or concerns, and what other options will in practice present themselves to such publishers. Mathaba News Network is already considering phasing out Google advertising in favour of in-house managed advertising and use of the OpenAds platform to serve those ads, and even to other models of income generation more favorable to a non-U.S.-based publisher. |
