Forum Moderators: skibum
After reporting record advertising sales, Google is pushing to recruit more marketers to the fold with the help of its Internet friends. The search engine recently introduced an affiliate program that pays $20 to any Web site for referring a new advertiser or publishing partner.
See link below:
[google.com...]
Why all the groaning and moaning?
No ones really moaning, it is just interesting is all. Many people think G is out to wipe non-adsense affiliates out (I don't think that but many do). It is interesting that they would launch a new affiliate program with the changes they have made as of late (as they have kind of ticked off a good portion of the affiliate community).
And skibum is right. Affiliates expect a level of return for the money the merchant expects to make. Since they have a threshold that a referal must make before the affiliate gets paid, their commission structure is lacking, in the world of affiliates. If a referal passes those thresholds, chances are G will make significantly more than $20 for that referal.
It's not free extra money, it's wasted space. I want ads that will make me money and the G affiliate program does not appear that it will do that.
But me think Google is targeting the hobby webmaster demographic who are already into the adsense program ,they will happily slap a referal link if there is some bounty (however small that is!) ...
>> make some free money
No offense webmastertexas ,but that is a very amateur way of looking this business!
What we have been doing for years - and making good money from - is marketing PPC search engines which give us a percentage of the revenue they earn from advertisers we refer to them. I won't post their details here but you can sticky me if you'd like details of the ones that have worked for us.
Earning 10% of somebody's advertising spend can work out to hundreds of dollars over the years. Getting a one-off $20 from Google just doesn't float my boat. Obviously is harder to push smaller PPC search engines than Google, but likely to be far more lucrative in the long-run if you earn lifetime commission on advertisers ad spend.
To me it seems as if google is using their power or influence over the internet and users (being the major search engine and all) to control what websites other web developers will be making.
A lot of long established Affiliate sites have been blown into oblivion in google rankings resulting in major losses of revenue for them an now google brings forward their own 'Affiliate Program'. It looks as if they've made it so affiliates have No choice but to join and promote Google since they now have less visitors from google.
Eventually, you'll see thousands of affiliate websites promoting google (and for a meazley $20?).
I guess it's just my opinion and all, but this looks like Aggressive Marketing and doesn't sit well with my initial perception of Google (had the image of them being 'The Good guys of the net').
Anyway, I just thought I'd ramble on a bit and see what you all think.
"It looks as if they've made it so affiliates have No choice but to join and promote Google"
Fundamentally disagree with that. "No choice"? Who is forcing webmasters to promote Google Adwords? There are a zillion other affiliate programs out there with more generous commission rates.