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 opinion, 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 people 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'll 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 Google AdSense listings start to appear on
thousands of web sites, Internet surfers will slowly become immune
to these listings, which will result in lower click-thrus and
revenues for webmasters.
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 web site visitors.
But banner networks have been doing this for years
without much luck, so why the big commotion if Google has 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 somehow 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 that 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 that something could be wrong.
But with the Google AdSense program, there will
be tens of thousands of webmasters running paid listings on their
web sites. It will be very difficult to track who is collaborating
with who.
I have a feeling that Google's staff knows this
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 paid advertisers having a lower sales conversion
ratio from the traffic that Google sends them.
This will result in advertisers lowering their
bids and honest webmasters who host the Google AdSense listings
receiving lower revenue payments.
Given the factors mentioned above, webmasters
might in 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
Ezine. Receive informative articles like this every Sunday that
will help you grow your online business. You can sign up by sending
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with the word "subscribe" in the subject or visit http://www.freecoolcash.com
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