ownerrim - 3:55 pm on Aug 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

This goes back to a couple other entries in this thread, but I think what adsense/adwords is doing for a number of "quality" sites is this: it's letting them know EXACTLY who their potential advertisers are. And in cases where that quality site is a niche site that tends to see the same 20-30 advertisers over and over, they may conclude that it's better to just cut google out completely. If your site draws considerable on-target traffic and draws a very relevant advertiser base via adsense (as well as the same adsense advertisers consistently), why should you settle for a third of the total click? It's different for sites that spring out into a thousand different directions but for sites that serve very defined user populations, adsense is simply demonstrating to the publisher (via "smart pricing") that going it alone may make more "sense".