It's probably a good time to anticipate what might be coming in adsense in 2007. If we can have an intelligent discussion that doesn't get hijacked, it would be interesting to hear what people anticipate for 2007. I'll post a few of mine. Trends:
1) Continuing trend from 2006, advertiser behavior will continue to change pushing DOWN ad prices, but overall ad expenditures will increase.
2) Continuing trend also that it will continue to become more and more difficult for new adsense publishers to do well (I believe Jane Doe mentioned this elsewhere).
3) Marginal quality sites will become less and less profitable.
4) People who have done well with marginal sites that cater to adsense and not users will have a really really bad year. Without proper alternate income streams, some of those people who have done ok so far will crash and burn.
5) Any effects of competition from YPN/MSN won't appear until at least mid 2007, but probably won't be much of a factor in 2007.
6) Tweaking and testing will be less and less effective over time. It will be clearer that the best way to do well over time in adsense is to build good sites, follow the general guidelines google supplies, understand google's business model, and follow the spirit of their suggestions.
Overall, even better sites will earn less per click, while poorer sites will collapse. That's probably not a bad thing for the long term. Tweaking, putting images to deceive, all that jazz will simply end up as less and less effective.
Advertiser behavior has definitely changed this year, which is expected as the industry matures. The shakeout on the ad side started this year (2006), just as shakeouts occurred in other internet ads earlier on (e.g. banner ads). The effects of that trend will become obvious in 2007
Add yours? (Please try not to hijack this thread. Stick with your predictions and that would be real good)
