alephh - 9:14 pm on May 6, 2010 (gmt 0)

I disagree with martinibuster: there was a time when having a topic about a product was great thing. There was a time when good content was the king.

Now, thanks to the creepy interest based ads system, page about "how google <snip> may generate $1.00 clicks, but product page with your lifelong expertise pour into it may show some "play free games in hell" ads which are worth $0.000001 per click.

I understand how IBA makes sense/profit to google: most of the adsense pages are full of cr*p, there will never be related ads to most of them. But now, money is more evenly spread: it is very likely that budgets are consumed completely.

And there is another bonus for google as the money is more evenly spread among publishers: many (tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands?) minor publishers never reach the required $100 to cash their profits and just forgot about their adsense account, ultimately leaving their money to Google.

I agree with what AndyA said: Google will not make more money in the long term. Let's say you have gardening ads: which click will convert better, the one from a gardening site or the one from a "die slowly in the grease fire" hate-post on some random blog.

Another factor: site credibility. If you have a high quality site about religious books, visitors will see (interest based) ads about thai-man-ladys, free games, ring tones for cellphone, how to cheat without getting caught, etc... and those visitors wont be happy visitors, appreciating your site.

And what the hell can you write back to people who write to you complaining seeing "sick ads" on your site? Honest reply to the visitor would be: Google has followed you around and knows for a fact that you are interest in this "sick" topic. Huh.

The very core of the adsense was: write about something and get RELATED ads. I just want that back.

And I personally deeply hate the way ads follow you: I searched for a book, and then bought it. Now, day after day, I keep seeing ads for that book. For heaven's sake, I'm not going to buy the same book for a second time, or a third time. All those ad-views are wasted.

[edited by: martinibuster at 9:56 pm (utc) on May 6, 2010]
[edit reason] Removed obscenity. Keep it clean, please. [/edit]