Leosghost - 10:56 am on Aug 19, 2005 (gmt 0)

europeforvisitors ..

I wasn't trying to disparage the model of those sites such as yours which I think work very well for just that knid of unfocused "I'm just window shopping or surfing to kill time or interested but not quite sure " type of surfer ..however even with the revenue stream of Google from adwords and adsense the vast majority of the adverstising money in the world is spent by professional agencies ..they ..when they advertise on the web prefer to go "direct" with the website owners ( look at the real authority sites in any area ..few if any run adsense ..most deal direct with their advertisers or their agents ..as can be seen from the quality and design of the ads )..and the ROI is a great deal better that way ..Overtures model was always preferred by those who weren't trying to sell to any passing surfer but had a very specific item to sell and knew where and when to get "targetted eyeballs" ..

Googles traffic is obviously much better than the real horrors of "bulk traffic" such as kanoodle ..but is still unfocused ...possibly a better analogy would be to place the "random third world paid clickers for sale" such as kanoodle ( who send folks with no money or clickbots ) in the category of "folks walking aimlessly by your in your neighbourhood" ..where maybe you have a "speciality store" or a "wally world" or a" mom and pop outfit" ...Google sends those looking for fruit in general to the fruit aisle of the store if it has one via adwords in serps ..and if it's via adsense you get them ..but they come via the foodhall and the breakfast cereal with added fruit aisle first ( where maybe they get distracted and think of something else ..and so go and by toothpaste or whatever :)...

What RSI are doing is going out on the street and asking who like really good fruit ..and asking only those that have shopping bags and wallets or purses with 'em ..then offering to bring them in by the side door right next to the mangos and brush down their coat while they look at the mangos and the higher priced exotic fruit ...If you are only selling mangos the ROI is way better ..

We have an outfit here in France which works on a similar basis ..they retail fruit and vegetables from inside of another general goods store..they pay no fixed rent ..but they do pay a fixed percentage of their gross daily turnover as their rental for floorspace ..so if they sell nothing they pay nothing ..sell a lot pay more ..the costs of their fruit and veg are corresponding lower to the customers than their competitors who have fixed overheads unrelated to their turnover ..

So every one wins ..

Y with RSI is I beleive attempting something more similar to this latter model ...

But it is a model that I beleive only agencies with the staff and expertise to watch their sales and ad budget stats very carefully can and will move over to ... ( Y is also inherently slightly more of what one could describe as a targetted eyeballs provider due to it's directory model ..although the differences are not huge ) ...most smaller outfits will continue to use the Adwords adsense "unfocused" model due to time staff or lack of specialist ability to track ..and It can be cheap and effective advertising ..

It may also well be that G left it somewhat too late to try to do something to clean up the adsense environment ( from an advertisers point of view) ..it appeared and still does in some areas more interested in it's own immediate revenue stream ( allowing scrapers etc ) than looking after it's paying customers ..That was lack of foresite ..I presume they were to busy counting the money to look up to watch the expressions on the adwords customers faces ...

This may help them to refocus "their own attention" on their own user and customer experience ..as they exhort their publishers to do so ..

They are diversifying into other media also ..but it still isn't a good idea to let the standards of ones core business slide as they have done in the last 18 months ..

I can see there being space for some time to come for all the models to function ..merely the money spread will change ..

In the meantime ..I hope that your success continues ..as a European ... your site is what I would call a usefull ressource for those wishing to come ..would that all sites running adsense were as conscientious..:)